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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | FONT FORMATS | FONT HEIGHT | CONSOLE MAPS | UNICODE FONT MAPS | OPTIONS | NOTE | FILES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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SETFONT(8) System Manager's Manual SETFONT(8)
setfont - load EGA/VGA console screen font
setfont [-O font+umap.orig] [-o font.orig] [-om cmap.orig] [-ou
umap.orig] [-N] [font.new ...] [-m cmap] [-u umap] [-C console]
[-hH] [-f] [-v] [-V]
The setfont command reads a font from the file font.new and loads
it into the EGA/VGA character generator, and optionally outputs
the previous font. It can also load various mapping tables and
output the previous versions.
If no args are given (or only the option -N for some number N),
then a default (8xN) font is loaded (see below). One may give
several small fonts, all containing a Unicode table, and setfont
will combine them and load the union. Typical use:
setfont
Load a default font.
setfont drdos8x16
Load a given font (here the 448-glyph drdos font).
setfont cybercafe -u cybercafe
Load a given font that does not have a Unicode map and
provide one explicitly.
setfont LatArCyrHeb-19 -m 8859-2
Load a given font (here a 512-glyph font combining several
character sets) and indicate that one's local character set
is ISO 8859-2.
Note: if a font has more than 256 glyphs, only 8 out of 16 colors
can be used simultaneously. It can make console perception worse
(loss of intensity and even some colors).
The standard Linux font format is the PSF font. It has a header
describing font properties like character size, followed by the
glyph bitmaps, optionally followed by a Unicode mapping table
giving the Unicode value for each glyph. Several other (obsolete)
font formats are recognized. If the input file has code page
format (probably with suffix .cp), containing three fonts with
sizes e.g. 8x8, 8x14 and 8x16, then one of the options -8 or -14
or -16 must be used to select one. Raw font files are binary
files of size 256*N bytes, containing bit images for each of 256
characters, one byte per scan line, and N bytes per character (0 <
N <= 32). Most fonts have a width of 8 bits, but with the
framebuffer device (fb) other widths can be used.
The program setfont has no built-in knowledge of VGA video modes,
but just asks the kernel to load the character ROM of the video
card with certain bitmaps. However, since Linux 1.3.1 the kernel
knows enough about EGA/VGA video modes to select a different line
distance. The default character height will be the number N
inferred from the font or specified by option. However, the user
can specify a different character height H using the -h option.
Several mappings are involved in the path from user program output
to console display. If the console is in utf8 mode (see
unicode_start(1)) then the kernel expects that user program output
is coded as UTF-8 (see utf-8(7)), and converts that to Unicode
(ucs2). Otherwise, a translation table is used from the 8-bit
program output to 16-bit Unicode values. Such a translation table
is called a Unicode console map. There are four of them: three
built into the kernel, the fourth settable using the -m option of
setfont. An escape sequence chooses between these four tables;
after loading a cmap, setfont will output the escape sequence Esc
( K that makes it the active translation.
Suitable arguments for the -m option are for example 8859-1,
8859-2, ..., 8859-15, cp437, ..., cp1250.
Given the Unicode value of the symbol to be displayed, the kernel
finds the right glyph in the font using the Unicode mapping info
of the font and displays it.
Old fonts do not have Unicode mapping info, and in order to handle
them there are direct-to-font maps (also loaded using -m) that
give a correspondence between user bytes and font positions. The
most common correspondence is the one given in the file trivial
(where user byte values are used directly as font positions).
Other correspondences are sometimes preferable since the PC video
hardware expects line drawing characters in certain font
positions.
Giving a -m none argument inhibits the loading and activation of a
mapping table. The previous console map can be saved to a file
using the -om file option. These options of setfont render
mapscrn(8) obsolete. (However, it may be useful to read that man
page.)
The correspondence between the glyphs in the font and Unicode
values is described by a Unicode mapping table. Many fonts have a
Unicode mapping table included in the font file, and an explicit
table can be indicated using the -u option. The program setfont
will load such a Unicode mapping table, unless a -u none argument
is given. The previous Unicode mapping table will be saved as part
of the saved font file when the -O option is used. It can be saved
to a separate file using the -ou file option. These options of
setfont render loadunimap(8) obsolete.
The Unicode mapping table should assign some glyph to the `missing
character' value U+fffd, otherwise missing characters are not
translated, giving a usually very confusing result.
Usually no mapping table is needed, and a Unicode mapping table is
already contained in the font (sometimes this is indicated by the
.psfu extension), so that most users need not worry about the
precise meaning and functioning of these mapping tables.
One may add a Unicode mapping table to a psf font using
psfaddtable(1).
-N, --default8x=N
Load default font (default8xN).
-hN, --font-height=N
Override font height. The short option must not have a
space between the prefix and the number.
-d, --double
Doubles the size of the font, by replicating all of its
pixels vertically and horizontally. This is suitable for
high pixel density (e.g. "4k") displays on which the
standard fonts are too small to be easily legible. Due to
kernel limitations, this is suitable only for 16x16 or
smaller fonts.
-o, --output-font=FILE
Save previous font in FILE.
-om, --output-consolemap=FILE
Store console map in FILE.
-ou, --output-unicodemap=FILE
Save previous Unicode map in FILE.
-O, --output-fullfont=FILE
Save previous font and Unicode map in FILE.
-m, --consolemap=FILE
Load console map or Unicode console map from FILE.
-u, --unicodemap=FILE
Load Unicode table describing the font from FILE.
-C, --console=DEVICE
Set the font for the indicated console. (May require root
permissions.)
-f, --force
Force-load unicode map: Setfont`issues the system call to
load the unicode map even if the specified map is empty.
This may be useful in unusual cases.
-R, --reset
Reset the screen font, size, and Unicode mapping to the
bootup defaults.
-v, --verbose
Be verbose.
-V, --version
Print version and exit.
-h, --help
Print a message describing the options and exit.
PC video hardware allows one to use the "intensity" bit either to
indicate brightness, or to address 512 (instead of 256) glyphs in
the font. So, if the font has more than 256 glyphs, the console
will be reduced to 8 (instead of 16) colors.
/usr/local/share/consolefonts
The default font directory.
/usr/local/share/unimaps
The default directory for Unicode maps.
/usr/local/share/consoletrans
The default directory for screen mappings.
The default font is a file default (or default8xN if the -N option
was given for some number N) perhaps with suitable extension (like
.psf).
psfaddtable(1), unicode_start(1), loadunimap(8), utf-8(7),
mapscrn(8)
This page is part of the kbd (Linux keyboard tools) project.
Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.kbd-project.org/⟩. If you have a bug report for this
manual page, send it to kbd@lists.altlinux.org. This page was
obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/legionus/kbd.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-07-01.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
kbd 24 October 2024 SETFONT(8)
Pages that refer to this page: psfaddtable(1), psfgettable(1), psfstriptable(1), psfxtable(1), unicode_start(1), unicode_stop(1), ioctl_console(2), console_codes(4), vconsole.conf(5), charsets(7), loadunimap(8), mapscrn(8), resizecons(8), showconsolefont(8), systemd-vconsole-setup.service(8)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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