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This programming language was devised by Donald Knuth as part of his famous
TEX typesetting system. One of the characteristics of METAFONT is that all the outlinesof the glyphs are defined with powerful geometrical equations, e.g., you can define a given point to be the intersection of a segment of line and a
Bézier curve.You can use METAFONT to render any kind of graphical output you wish, not just glyphs. However, MetaPost with its PostScript output is preferred for advanced illustrations.
METAFONT is most commonly invoked without a direct request from the user. DVI files can only contain references to typefaces, rather than the sets of raster or vector glyphs that other formats like PostScript allow. Consequently the glyphs in the typefaces need to be accessed whenever a request is made to view, print or convert a DVI file. Most TEX distributions are configured so that any fonts not currently available at the required resolution are generated by calls to METAFONT. The typefaces are then stored for later re-use.
METAFONT can also be run interactively, and has commands for displaying on the screen the images it produces. Knuth has said that he uses METAFONT as a kind of desk calculator for solving complicated equations.
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