OpenType Bitmap (.otb) packaging of the classic Adobe Courier X11 bitmap font, plus two variants with adjusted line spacing
for use in modern GTK / Pango applications.
All three variants (OTB, OTB1, OTB2) at 9 pt — Regular, Bold, Italic, and Bold Italic:
The Adobe Courier bitmap font family carries copyright notices by Adobe Systems Incorporated (1984-1989, 1994) and Digital
Equipment Corporation (1988, 1994). It has shipped with the X Window System for a very long time as part of the
xorg-fonts-100dpi and xorg-fonts-75dpi packages and is available on most Linux systems as
/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/courR*.pcf.gz (and similar). The fonts were originally distributed in BDF / PCF form, accompanied by
a permissive (MIT/X11-style) license notice that allows redistribution and modification (see LICENSE). Modern Pango (and
therefore GTK 3 / 4) no longer renders classic PCF / BDF bitmap fonts reliably. The OpenType Bitmap (OTB) container, however, is
recognized by FreeType / Fontconfig / Pango and lets these bitmap fonts work in current GTK applications.
This repository contains the Adobe Courier bitmaps repackaged as .otb files in three variants.
- X.Org master repository (BDF originals): https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/font/adobe-100dpi and https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/font/adobe-75dpi
- Debian / Ubuntu packages:
xfonts-100dpi,xfonts-75dpi - Arch Linux package:
xorg-fonts-100dpi,xorg-fonts-75dpi - Fedora / RHEL:
xorg-x11-fonts-100dpi,xorg-x11-fonts-75dpi
Three font families are provided. They contain identical glyph bitmaps but differ in their built-in line spacing. Choose the one that best matches your application:
| Family | Built-in line spacing | Use when |
|---|---|---|
Adobe Courier (OTB) |
original (tight) | You want the original X11 look, or your toolkit lets you adjust line spacing yourself (e.g. KDE / Qt). |
Adobe Courier (OTB1) |
+1 px above | GTK applications: a little extra room for accents on capitals. |
Adobe Courier (OTB2) |
+1 px above, +1 below | GTK applications: comfortable spacing for both top accents and bottom diacritics; gives spell-checkers enough room for squiggly underlines. |
The three families have distinct family names, so they can be installed in parallel and selected independently.
Available pixel sizes (each in Regular, Bold, Oblique, Bold Oblique): 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 17, 18, 20, 24, 25, 34.
Install all three variants:
./install-all-user.sh
Or install individually:
adobe-courier-otb/install-user.sh adobe-courier-otb1/install-user.sh adobe-courier-otb2/install-user.sh
Files are placed under ~/.local/share/fonts/adobe-courier-otb{,1,2}/ and the font cache is refreshed automatically.
sudo ./install-all-system.sh
Files are placed under /usr/local/share/fonts/adobe-courier-otb{,1,2}/.
For a single variant:
rm -rf ~/.local/share/fonts/adobe-courier-otb1 && fc-cache -f
(adjust path/variant as needed; use sudo for system installs).
Use the family name exactly as listed above:
Adobe Courier (OTB)Adobe Courier (OTB1)Adobe Courier (OTB2)
Pango / GTK font strings: Adobe Courier (OTB1) 14px. The px suffix ensures Pango asks for the bitmap strike at that pixel
size.
Variants OTB1 and OTB2 are derived from OTB by small Python scripts that adjust font metrics (using fontTools):
python3 adobe-courier-otb1/make-otb1.py python3 adobe-courier-otb2/make-otb2.py
Requires Python 3 with the fontTools package (pip install fonttools or your distro's python3-fonttools).
The Adobe Courier bitmap font data is covered by a permissive (MIT/X11-style) license; see LICENSE for the full text.
The Python scripts and shell scripts in this repository are placed in the public domain (0BSD); see LICENSE.