#### 4.1.38 mf

The ‘mf‘ terminal driver creates an input file to the METAFONT program. Thus a figure may be used in the TeX document in the same way as is a character.

To use a picture in a document, the METAFONT program must be run with the output file from ‘gnuplot‘ as input. Thus, the user needs a basic knowledge of the font creating process and the procedure for including a new font in a document. However, if the METAFONT program is set up properly at the local site, an unexperienced user could perform the operation without much trouble.

The text support is based on a METAFONT character set. Currently the Computer Modern Roman font set is input, but the user is in principal free to choose whatever fonts he or she needs. The METAFONT source files for the chosen font must be available. Each character is stored in a separate picture variable in METAFONT. These variables may be manipulated (rotated, scaled etc.) when characters are needed. The drawback is the interpretation time in the METAFONT program. On some machines (i.e. PC) the limited amount of memory available may also cause problems if too many pictures are stored.

The ‘mf‘ terminal has no options.