Question: I am trying to use the pigpen font <https://ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/pigpen> by Oliver Corff.

The pigpen.tex file is *really* small and seems equivalent to the following:

```
\font\pp=pigpen

```

but the following won't produce a valid PDF using xetex

```
\font\pp=pigpen

{\pp HELLO WORLD}

\bye

```

> 
> `Sorry, pfa format not supported`
> 
> 
> 

What am I missing?

Answer: 
[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/omIVD.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/omIVD.png)

If I run your example in texlive 2022 get

```
xdvipdfmx:fatal: Sorry, pfa format not supported; please convert the font to pfb, e.g., with t1binary.

```

and indeed texlive does only have a `pfa` version rather than the compressed `pfb` form.

So...

```
t1binary /usr/local/texlive/2022/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/public/pigpen/pigpen.pfa  pigpen.pfb

```

Makes a `pigpen.pfb` in the current directory

```
cp  /usr/local/texlive/2022/texmf-dist/fonts/map/dvips/pigpen/pigpen.map .

```

makes a `pigpen.map` which looks like

```
pigpen <<pigpen.pfa

```

edit that so it says

```
pigpen <<pigpen.pfb

```

Then

```
xetex --no-pdf yourfile

```

will make `yourfile.xdv` and `xdvipdfmx` will make the pdf if you supply the modified map

```
xdvipdfmx -f pigpen.map yourfile.xdv 

```

produces a PDF with the output above.
I made an experiment. I copied the `pigpen.pfa` file from

```
/usr/local/texlive/2022/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/public/pigpen/pigpen.pfa

```

to a working directory with the name `originalpigpen.pfa` and ran

```
t1binary originalpigpen.pfa -o pigpen.pfa

```

(yes, the produced PFB file with extension `.pfa`). Running your example file is now successful.

Now you can use the personal tree

```
mkdir -p $(kpsewhich -var-value=TEXMFHOME)/fonts/type1/public/pigpen
mv pigpen.pfa $(kpsewhich -var-value=TEXMFHOME)/fonts/type1/public/pigpen

```

and the PFB file masqueraded as PFA will be found with precedence over the distributed one.

[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5z602.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5z602.png)

I made a [query on the TeX Live list](https://tug.org/pipermail/tex-live/2022-November/048671.html), let's see what happens. The hack suggested above should be innocuous when the file format is changed at the distribution level.