MFT(1) General Commands Manual MFT(1)

mft - translate Metafont or MetaPost code to TeX for prettyprinting

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

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.

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

Apply the change file change_file to mf_file.
Consider source_file to be a MetaPost source file; this is the default if mf_file has the extension .mp.
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.

TeX macros used by the output from mft for Metafont and MetaPost input, respectively.
Default style files.
Style file for Computer Modern.
Style file for Knuth's Volume E: Computer Modern Typefaces.

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

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

7 January 2026 Web2C 2026