MFT(1)                      General Commands Manual                     MFT(1)

NAME
       mft - translate Metafont or MetaPost code to TeX for prettyprinting

SYNOPSIS
       mft [options] source_file[.mf|.mp]

DESCRIPTION
       The mft program creates a TeX file from a Metafont or MetaPost program.
       It takes appropriate care of typographic details like page layout and
       the use of indentation, italics, boldface, etc., as illustrated in the
       book Computer Modern Typefaces by Donald Knuth.

       Special conventions in Metafont and MetaPost comments allow you to
       control things that would not otherwise come out right; section 1 of
       the mft source program and the mft section in the Web2C manual explain
       these rules.

       The mft program uses an optional change file (which works just as the
       change files to tangle(1) and weave(1) do) and one or several style
       files (which are prepended to everything).  If no style file is
       specified, the style file plain.mft for Metafont, or mplain.mft for
       MetaPost, is used.  These files are specified via the options below.

       The source_file, as well as any change and style files, are searched
       for using the MFINPUTS (for Metafont) or MPINPUTS (for MetaPost) and
       MFTINPUTS environment variables if you have set them, or else the
       corresponding system defaults.

       The output TeX file name is formed by using .tex in place of the
       extension of source_file.

OPTIONS
       See tex(1) for details of command-line parsing.

       -change=change_file[.ch]
              Apply the change file change_file to mf_file.

       -metapost
              Consider source_file to be a MetaPost source file; this is the
              default if mf_file has the extension .mp.

       -style=style_file[.mft]
              Use the style file style_file instead of plain.mft or
              mplain.mft; this option can be given more than once.

       The standard -help and -version options are also supported.

FILES
       mftmac.tex, mptmac.tex
              TeX macros used by the output from mft for Metafont and MetaPost
              input, respectively.

       plain.mft, mplain.mft
              Default style files.

       cmbase.mft
              Style file for Computer Modern.

       e.mft  Style file for Knuth's Volume E: Computer Modern Typefaces.

SEE ALSO
       mf(1), mpost(1), weave(1).
       Donald E. Knuth, Computer Modern Typefaces (Volume E of Computers &
       Typesetting).
       Donald E. Knuth et al., Metafontware.

       Package page on CTAN: https://ctan.org/pkg/mft
       Section in the Web2c manual:
       https://tug.org/texinfohtml/web2c.html#mft-invocation
       Typeset source code, including the typesetting controls:
       https://ctan.org/pkg/knuth-pdf

AUTHORS
       Donald E. Knuth wrote and still maintains the program. He ported it to
       Unix with the help of Pierre MacKay and the Unix port of weave by
       Howard Trickey and Pavel Curtis.

       Public discussion list and bug reports: https://lists.tug.org/tex-k

Web2C 2026                      7 January 2026                          MFT(1)