Computers & Typesetting, Volume D: Metafont: The Program

The Complete Source Code and Program Listing for METAFONT

Now, 35 years after the first edition, the leading worldwide experts on these systems have spent several months inspecting every page thoroughly. We now believe that every i has been properly dotted, every t has been properly crossed, and every bug has been properly exterminated.

This volume contains the fully documented program listing for METAFONT, Donald E. Knuth’s revolutionary typeface design language.

Readers interested in software development and in Knuth’s programming style will find this a fascinating and instructive case study. Never before has a computer program with this much size and variety been spelled out so clearly and completely. Knuth presents all the algorithms and explains every detail of the METAFONT program, utilizing the WEB system of structured documentation that he developed as part of his TeX research project. METFONT’s new algorithms for computer graphics make this program especially interesting; traditional algorithms of parsing and macro expansion are present too, often with new twists. This book is an excellent lesson by example on how to put programming theory into practice.

METAFONT: The Program is the fourth in a five-volume series on Computers and Typesetting, all authored by Knuth. This series presents the results of nearly a decade of innovative research on the problems of preparing publications of high typographic quality.