---
myst:
  html_meta:
    keywords: LaTeX,polices de caractères,dessin des caractères,Metafont"
---
# Making outline fonts from MetaFont

[TeXtrace](https://sourceforge.net/projects/textrace/), originally developed by Péter Szabó, is a [bundle of Unix scripts](http://web.archive.org/web/20231002073155/https://pts.50.hu/textrace/) that use Martin Weber's freeware boundary tracing package [autotrace](https://autotrace.sourceforge.net/) to generate Type 1 outline fonts from MetaFont bitmap font outputs. The result is unlikely ever to be of the quality of the commercially-produced Type 1 font, but there's always the [FontForge](https://fontforge.org/) font editor to tidy things. Whatever, there remain fonts which many people find useful and which fail to attract the paid experts, and auto-tracing is providing a useful service here. Notable sets of fonts generated using `TeXtrace` are Péter Szabó's own EC/TC font set `tt2001` and Vladimir Volovich's CM-Super set, which covers the EC, TC, and the Cyrillic LH font sets (for details of both of which sets, see ["8-bit type 1 fonts](/5_fichiers/fontes/fontes_t1_8bits)).

Another system, which arrived slightly later, is [mftrace](http://lilypond.org/mftrace/): this is a small Python program that does the same job. `Mftrace` may use either `autotrace` (like `TeXtrace`) or Peter Selinger's [potrace](https://potrace.sourceforge.net/) to produce the initial outlines to process. `Mftrace` is said to be more flexible, and easier to use, than is `TeXtrace`, but both systems are increasingly being used to provide Type 1 fonts to the public domain.

The `MetaType1` system aims to use MetaFont font sources, by way of MetaPost and a bunch of scripts and so on, to produce high-quality Type 1 fonts. The first results, the [Latin Modern fonts](https://ctan.org/pkg/lm), are now well-established, and a bunch of existing designs have been reworked in MetaType1 format.

> <ctanpkg:Mf2pt1> is another translator of MetaFont font sources by way of MetaPost; in addition, available, <ctanpkg:mf2pt1> will use [Fontforge](https://fontforge.org/) (if it's available) to auto-hint the result of its conversion (<ctanpkg:Mf2pt1> is also written in `perl`).

:::{sources}
[Making outline fonts from MetaFont](faquk:FAQ-textrace)
:::