Linux xlsfonts command

Updated: 05/04/2019 by Computer Hope
xlsfont command

On Unix-like operating systems, the xlsfonts command displays a list of fonts available for the X Window System.

Description

xlsfonts lists the fonts that match the given pattern. The wildcard character "*" can match any sequence of characters (including none), and "?" to match any single character. If no pattern is given, "*" is assumed.

The "*" and "?" characters must be quoted to prevent them from being expanded by the shell.

Syntax

xlsfonts [-display host:dpy] [-l] [-ll] [-lll] [-m] [-C] [-1] [-w width] 
         [-n columns] [-u] [-o] [-fn pattern]

Options

-display host:dpy Specifies the X server to contact, where host is the hostname and dpy is the display identifier.
-d host:dpy Same as -display host:dpy.
-l Lists some attributes of the font on one line in addition to its name.
-ll Lists font properties in addition to -l output.
-lll Lists character metrics in addition to -ll output.
-m This option indicates that long listings should also print the minimum and maximum bounds of each font.
-C This option indicates that listings should use multiple columns. This is the same as -n 0.
-1 This option indicates that listings should use a single column. This is the same as -n 1.
-w width This option specifies the width in characters that should be used in figuring out how many columns to print. The default is 79.
-n columns This option specifies the number of columns to use in displaying the output. By default, it attempts to fit as many columns of font names into the number of character specified by -w width.
-u This option indicates that the output should be left unsorted.
-o This option indicates that xlsfonts should do an OpenFont (and QueryFont, if appropriate) rather than a ListFonts. This is useful if ListFonts or ListFontsWithInfo fail to list a known font (as is the case with some scaled font systems).
-fn pattern This option specifies the font name pattern to match.

Environment

DISPLAY The DISPLAY environment variable must be set to get the default host and display to use.

Note

Running "xlsfonts -l" can tie up your server for a very long time. This is a bug with single-threaded non-preemptable servers, not with xlsfonts itself.

Examples

xlsfonts

Lists all fonts available to the default X server and display.

X — Executable of the X Window System.
xfd — Display all the characters in an X font.
xset — A user preference utility for X.