FreeType

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FreeType is a freely available software library to render fonts. It is written in C, designed to be small, efficient, highly customizable, and portable while capable of producing high-quality output (glyph images) of most vector and bitmap font formats.

Installation

USE flags

USE flags for media-libs/freetype High-quality and portable font engine

+adobe-cff Use Adobe CFF as default font-renderer
+cleartype-hinting Bytecode hinting mode for TrueType fonts that activates subpixel hinting (a.k.a. ClearType hinting) by default
+png Add support for libpng (PNG images)
X Add support for X11
brotli Enable Brotli compression support
bzip2 Support bzip2 compressed PCF fonts.
debug Enable extra debug codepaths, like asserts and extra output. If you want to get meaningful backtraces see https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Quality_Assurance/Backtraces
doc Add extra documentation (API, Javadoc, etc). It is recommended to enable per package instead of globally
fontforge Install internal headers required for TrueType debugger in media-gfx/fontforge (built with USE=truetype-debugger)
harfbuzz Use media-libs/harfbuzz for auto-hinting OpenType fonts.
static-libs Build static versions of dynamic libraries as well
svg Add support for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)
utils Install utilities and examples from ft2demos
verify-sig Verify upstream signatures on distfiles
Data provided by the Gentoo Package Database · Last update: 2026年05月05日 14:43 More information about USE flags

Emerge

root #emerge --ask media-libs/freetype

Usage

As FreeType is a library, it generally isn't used directly, but via other software. However, if the utils USE flag is enabled, a number of command-line utilities will be installed:

Program Description
ftbench(1) Benchmark some common FreeType paths
ftdiff(1) Compare font hinting modes
ftdump(1) Simple font dumper
ftgamma(1) Screen gamma calibration helper
ftgrid(1) Simple glyph grid viewer
ftlint(1) Simple font tester
ftmulti(1) Multiple masters font viewer
ftsdf(1) A Signed Distance Fields viewer
ftstring(1) String viewer
ftvalid(1) Font layout table validator
ftview(1) Simple glyph viewer

Note that the ftinspect utility, introduced in FreeType 2.13.0, does not get installed; refer to bug #903087 .

See also

  • Fonts — home page for information about using fonts on Gentoo
  • Fonts/Background — a quick and informal introduction to font-related concepts, terminology, and systems, with the aim of facilitating understanding and solving font-related issues
  • Fonts/Software — list of end-user software for working with fonts