Editing Metafont (section)

==Example==
The following example creates a closed beanlike shape for the character "B" of a font:
<syntaxhighlight lang="matlab">
%file name: beta.mf
%mode_setup;
% Define a beanlike shape for the character B
beginchar("B",11pt#,11pt#,0);
  % Setup coordinates as an equation system
  y1=y2=y3=0;
  y4=y5=y6=h;
  x1=x4=0;
  x2=x5=w;
  x3=x6=2*w;

  % Define pen
  pickup pencircle xscaled 0.2w yscaled 0.04w rotated 45;

  % Draw the character curve
  % z1 is the same as (x1, y1)
  draw z1..z3..z6{z2-z6}..z5..{z4-z2}z4..cycle;
endchar;

end
</syntaxhighlight>
This yields the following glyph:

[[File:metafont-example-output.svg|284px|class=skin-invert]]

The above example will be processed with a command line such as:<ref name=grandsir>{{cite web|url=http://metafont.tutorial.free.fr/|title=METAFONT Tutorial|author=Christophe Grandsir}}</ref>

<syntaxhighlight lang=bash>
mf '\mode=ljfour; mode_setup; input beta.mf';
gftopk beta.600gf beta.600pk
</syntaxhighlight>

Then it can be used in a LaTeX file such as the following<ref name=grandsir/> (all files should dwell in the same directory, or the TeX system should be informed about them using appropriate methods):
<syntaxhighlight lang="latex">
\documentclass{article}

\newfont{\letterbeta}{beta}
\newcommand{\otherbeta}{{\letterbeta B}}

\begin{document}
Let's try having a strange \otherbeta\ here.
\end{document}
</syntaxhighlight>
The resulting PDF file should look like this:
[[File:Tex mf beta.pdf|187px]]