Adafruit GFX Library Documentation

To build the fontconvert tool, you need to modify the makefile located in the fontconvert directory to ensure it points to the correct MinGW and Freetype paths.

1. Open the makefile in the fontconvert folder with a text editor.
2. Update the all, CC, CFLAGS, and LIBS definitions to match this configuration:

all: fontconvert

CC     = gcc
CFLAGS = -Wall -I c:/mingw/include/freetype2
LIBS   = -lfreetype

fontconvert: fontconvert.c
	$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $< $(LIBS) -o $@

clean:
	rm -f fontconvert

3. Open the MSYS command prompt.
4. Navigate to the fontconvert directory:

cd /c/adafruit_gfx_library\fontconvert

5. Run the build command:

make

This will generate fontconvert.exe in the fontconvert directory.

The library provides a fontconvert folder containing a command-line tool to convert TrueType Fonts (.ttf) into the Adafruit GFX header format.

You can also use the GFX Font Customiser tool (web version available here) to customize or correct the output from fontconvert, allowing you to create fonts with only a subset of characters to optimize memory usage.

The fontconvert tool requires the Freetype library to process font files.

1. Download the latest Freetype version (e.g., freetype-2.7.tar.gz) from freetype.org.
2. Unzip the file to C:\ and rename the folder to ft27.
3. Open the MSYS command prompt by running C:\MinGW\msys\1.0\msys.bat.
4. Navigate to the directory and build the library using the following commands:

cd /c
cd ft27
./configure --prefix=/mingw
make
make install

5. Verify the installation by checking for a freetype2 folder inside C:\MinGW\include.

To display images using drawBitmap(), you must convert image files (like BMP) into C arrays.

• Image2Code: A Java GUI utility that converts BMP files into the array code required for drawBitmap(). Available at: https://github.com/ehubin/Adafruit-GFX-Library/tree/master/Img2Code
• XBM Format: You can use GIMP to save files as .xbm and use the resulting array with the drawXBitmap() function.

To use fontconvert.c to create custom fonts on Windows, you must first install MinGW (Minimalist GNU for Windows).

1. Download and install MinGW from MinGW.org using the "Graphical User Interface Installer".
2. Open the MinGW Installation Manager.
3. In the left panel, select Basic Setup.
4. In the right panel, mark the following packages for installation:
   • mingw32-base
   • mingw-gcc-g++
   • mingw-gcc-objc
   • msys-base
5. Go to the Installation menu and select Apply changes.

The library includes a Fonts folder containing bitmap fonts. To use a custom font in your Arduino sketch:

1. #include the corresponding header file for the font.
2. Use the setFont() method, passing the address of the GFXfont struct.
3. To revert to the 'classic' fixed-space bitmap font, pass NULL to setFont().

You can install the library using one of two methods:

Method 1: Arduino Library Manager (Recommended)

Search for "Adafruit GFX" in the Arduino IDE Library Manager and install it.

Method 2: Manual Installation

1. Download the ZIP from the repository.
2. Uncompress the folder and rename it to Adafruit_GFX.
3. Ensure the folder contains Adafruit_GFX.cpp and Adafruit_GFX.h.
4. Place the Adafruit_GFX folder into your ArduinoSketchFolder/Libraries/ directory.
5. Restart the Arduino IDE.

Important: You must also install the latest Adafruit BusIO library for the GFX library to function. You can find this in the Library Manager or at https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_BusIO.

Once fontconvert.exe is built, you can convert .ttf files into header files compatible with the Adafruit GFX library.

Use the following command syntax: ./fontconvert <input_font.ttf> <font_size> > <output_header.h>

Example: To convert yourfonts.ttf to a 9pt font and save it to yourfonts9pt7b.h:

./fontconvert yourfonts.ttf 9 > yourfonts9pt7b.h

Place the resulting .h file in your project's Fonts folder.