Metafont is a system for producing shapes; it was designed for producing complete typeface families, but it can also produce geometric designs, dingbats, etc. And it has considerable mathematical and equation-solving capabilities which can be useful entirely on their own.
Metafont is a batch language, like C or Pascal: you compile a Metafont program into a corresponding font, rather than interactively drawing lines or curves. This approach has both considerable disadvantages (people unfamiliar with conventional programming languages will be unlikely to find it usable) and considerable advantages (you can make your design intentions specific and parameterizable). For a complete description of the Metafont language, see The METAFONTbook (see section References).
Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.