Tobin J. Metafont for Beginners

Third Draft. — ‘W4, 1994. — 21 p.This is not a tutorial on Metafont. It is an attempted description of how some of the pitfalls in running the program may, hopefully, be avoided.Scope.
Where you can obtain this file.Acknowledgements.
Motivation.
What is Metafont?
Getting Metafont’s Attention.
Typing at Metafont’s ‘**’ prompt.
Typing on the Command Line.
‘Please type another input file name: ’.
Base files.
The plain base.
Loading a Different Base.
The Linkage Trick.
Making a Base; the LocalModes file.
Fonts.
ProofMode.
LocalfontMode.
Font Naming.
Using a New Font in TEX.
Magnification (and Resolution).
GFtoPK.
Storing the Fonts.
Environment Variables for emTEX and web2c.
Some Limitations of Metafont.
What Went Wrong?
Big fonts, but Unwanted.
Consequences of Some Typing Errors on Metafont’s command line.
Finding the Fonts.
MakeTeXPK.
Strange Paths; Not a cycle; Bad pos.
Metafont Mail List.
Conclusion.