fc-cache

fc-cache scans the font directories on the system and builds font information cache files for applications using fontconfig for their font handling.

If directory arguments are not given, fc-cache uses each directory in the current font configuration. Each directory is scanned for font files readable by FreeType. A cache is created which contains properties of each font and the associated filename. This cache is used to speed up application startup when using the fontconfig library.

Note that fc-cache must be executed once per architecture to generate font information customized for that architecture. On a subsequent run, fc-cache will augment the cache information files with the information for the new architecture.

Options

This program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes ('-'). A summary of options is included below.

-f --force

Force re-generation of apparently up-to-date cache files, overriding the timestamp checking.

-s --system-only

Only scan system-wide directories, omitting the places located in the user's home directory.

-v --verbose

Display status information while busy.

-? --help

Show summary of options.

-V --version

Show version of the program and exit.

dirs

A list of directories to scan for fonts.

Files

fonts.cache-2

These files are generated by fc-cache and contain maps from file names to font properties. They are read by the fontconfig library at application startup to locate appropriate fonts.

See Also

fc-list (1).

The fontconfig user's guide, in HTML format: /usr/share/doc/fontconfig/fontconfig-user.html.

Author

This manual page was written by Keith Packard <> and Josselin Mouette <>.