TFM files
A TEX Font Metric file contains the crucial typesetting information for
a font, such as each character's height, depth and width.
The actual character images are not stored in a TFM file.
TFM files are the only source of font information used when running TEX;
it doesn't need to know anything about character images to be able
to create a DVI file.
See The TEXbook if you want to know more about how
TEX uses fonts, especially Chapter 4 and Appendix F.
reads TFM files when printing or viewing a DVI file
containing any of the non-PK fonts listed in your configuration file.
The dummy TFM file specified in your configuration file will also be read
if a requested PK file can't be found
(PK files are discussed in section ![[*]](/file/20872/Mac Magazin and MacEasy Magazine CD - Issue 32.iso/Grafik & Text/OzTeX3.0/LaTeX-docs/OzTeX/ozuser.tex/ozuser.txt/crossref.png)
).
will look for a TFM file in the current folder before looking in
the subfolders in TeX-fonts.
All the TFM files in the CM subfolder belong to the
Computer Modern family of fonts (created by Donald Knuth using 
).
The TFM files in the LaTeX subfolder are used by LATEX.
The TFM files in the PS subfolder correspond to PostScript fonts;
their names follow a scheme devised by Karl Berry in an attempt
to make TEX input files more portable. See section for
more information about these PostScript fonts.