Portable Compiled Format

Portable Compiled Format (PCF) is a bitmap font format used by X Window System in its core font system, and has been used for decades. PCF fonts are usually installed, by default, on most Unix-based operating systems, and are used in terminals such as xterm. PCF fonts replaced Bitmap Distribution Format due to a slight efficiency increase, however most applications have moved on to scalable fonts.^[1]

Portable Compiled Format

Filename extension	.pcf
Internet media type	application/x-font-pcf
Developed by	X.Org Foundation
Type of format	Bitmap font format
Open format?	yes
Website	The X11 PCF bitmap font file format

See also

• Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format
• Server Normal Format