Secure Global Desktop Administration Guide > Applications, documents and hosts > How do I use my own X fonts?

How do I use my own X fonts?

There are two ways to make your own X fonts available through Secure Global Desktop:

• Copy your fonts in .pcf format to a directory on each array member, including a fonts.dir file mapping filenames to X logical font descriptions, and then modify the X Protocol Engine's Font Path on each array member to include that directory. Fonts may be compressed or gzipped.
• Configure a font server on your network, and modify the X Protocol Engine's Font Path on each array member to include the location of the font server.

Each array member's X Protocol Engine may use a different font path. However, to avoid inconsistent display of applications, you should ensure the same fonts (in the same order) are available to all X Protocol Engines.

For a new font path to take effect, restart the Secure Global Desktop server on each array member.

After restarting a Secure Global Desktop server, you can check the validity of a font path by starting an xterm (or other graphical terminal) through Secure Global Desktop and then using the command xset q.

The fonts.dir file

A font directory must include a fonts.dir file, mapping font filenames to X logical font descriptions. An example line from a fonts.dir file is:

COURBO10.pcf  -Adobe-Courier-Bold-0-Normal-10-100-75-75-M-60-ISO8859-1

If your font directory doesn't include a fonts.dir file, you can use a program such as mkfontdir (available for most UNIX systems) to create one.

You may also include a fonts.alias file, which specifies aliases for the fonts in the directory. This file maps aliases to X logical font descriptions. For example:

variable  *-helvetica-bold-r-normal-*-*-140-*

Font servers

A font server is a program that makes fonts on a host available on the network. Font servers make font administration easier by centralizing fonts, reducing duplication.

To name a font server in a font path, you need to know the name of the font server and the port on which fonts are being served. For example, if the font server boston uses port 7000/tcp, add the font path entry tcp/boston:7000.

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