NAME

    Font::AFM - Interface to Adobe Font Metrics files

SYNOPSIS

     use Font::AFM;

     $h = new Font::AFM "Helvetica";

     $copyright = $h->Notice;

     $w = $h->Wx->{"aring"};

     $w = $h->stringwidth("Gisle", 10);

     $h->dump;  # for debugging

DESCRIPTION

    This module implements the Font::AFM class. Objects of this

    class are initialised from an AFM-file and allows you to obtain

    information about the font and the metrics of the various glyphs

    in the font.

    All measurements in AFM files are given in terms of units equal

    to 1/1000 of the scale factor of the font being used. To compute

    actual sizes in a document, these amounts should be multiplied

    by (scale factor of font)/1000.

    The following methods are available:

    $afm = Font::AFM->new($fontname)

       Object constructor. Takes the name of the font as argument.

       It will croak if the font can not be found.

    $afm->latin1_wx_table()

       Returns a 256 element array, where each element contains the

       width of the corresponding character in the iso-8859-1

       character set.

    $afm->stringwidth($string, [$fontsize])

       Returns the width of the string passed as argument. The

       string is assumed to be encoded in the iso-8859-1 character

       set. A second argument can be used to scale the width

       according to the font size.

    $afm->FontName

       The name of the font as presented to the PostScript language

       `findfont' operator, for instance "Times-Roman".

    $afm->FullName

       Unique, human-readable name for an individual font, for

       instance "Times Roman".

    $afm->FamilyName

       Human-readable name for a group of fonts that are stylistic

       variants of a single design. All fonts that are member of

       such a group should have exactly the same `FamilyName'.

       Example of a family name is "Times".

    $afm->Weight

       Human-readable name for the weight, or "boldness", attribute

       of a font. Exampes are `Roman', `Bold', `Light'.

    $afm->ItalicAngle

       Angle in degrees counterclockwise from the vertical of the

       dominant vertical strokes of the font.

    $afm->IsFixedPitch

       If the value is `true', it indicated that the font is a

       fixed-pitch (monospaced) font.

    $afm->FontBBox

       A string of four numbers giving the lower-left x, lower-left

       y, upper-right x, and upper-right y of the font bounding box.

       The font bounding box is the smallest rectangle enclosing the

       shape that would result if all the characters of the font

       were placed with their origins coincident, and then painted.

    $afm->UnderlinePosition

       Recommended distance from the baseline for positioning

       underline stokes. This number is the y coordinate of the

       center of the stroke.

    $afm->UnderlineThickness

       Recommended stroke width for underlining.

    $afm->Version

       Version number of the font.

    $afm->Notice

       Trademark or copyright notice, if applicable.

    $afm->Comment

       Comments found in the AFM file.

    $afm->EncodingScheme

       The name of the standard encoding scheme for the font. Most

       Adobe fonts use the `AdobeStandardEncoding'. Special fonts

       might state `FontSpecific'.

    $afm->CapHeight

       Usually the y-value of the top of the capital H.

    $afm->XHeight

       Typically the y-value of the top of the lowercase x.

    $afm->Ascender

       Typically the y-value of the top of the lowercase d.

    $afm->Descender

       Typically the y-value of the bottom of the lowercase p.

    $afm->Wx

       Returns a hash table that maps from glyph names to the width

       of that glyph.

    $afm->BBox

       Returns a hash table that maps from glyph names to bounding

       box information. The bounding box consist of 4 numbers: llx,

       lly, urx, ury.

    $afm->dump

       Dumps the content of the Font::AFM object to STDOUT. Might

       sometimes be useful for debugging.

    The AFM specification can be found at:

       ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/DeveloperSupport/TechNotes/PSfiles/5004.AFM_Spec.ps

ENVIRONMENT

    METRICS   Contains the path to seach for AFM-files. Format is as for

              the PATH environment variable. The default path built

              into this library is:

               /usr/lib/afm:/usr/local/lib/afm:/usr/openwin/lib/fonts/afm/:.

BUGS

    Kerning data and composite character data is not yet parsed.

    Ligature data is not parsed.

COPYRIGHT

    Copyright 1995-1998 Gisle Aas. All rights reserved.

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or

    modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.