diff --git a/Tests/fonts/10x20-ISO8859-1-fewer-characters.pcf b/Tests/fonts/10x20-ISO8859-1-fewer-characters.pcf
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..c065f59a9da
Binary files /dev/null and b/Tests/fonts/10x20-ISO8859-1-fewer-characters.pcf differ
diff --git a/Tests/test_font_pcf.py b/Tests/test_font_pcf.py
index 288848f2619..92ed60362fd 100644
--- a/Tests/test_font_pcf.py
+++ b/Tests/test_font_pcf.py
@@ -49,6 +49,14 @@ def test_sanity(request, tmp_path):
     save_font(request, tmp_path)
 
 
+def test_less_than_256_characters():
+    with open("Tests/fonts/10x20-ISO8859-1-fewer-characters.pcf", "rb") as test_file:
+        font = PcfFontFile.PcfFontFile(test_file)
+    assert isinstance(font, FontFile.FontFile)
+    # check the number of characters in the font
+    assert len([_f for _f in font.glyph if _f]) == 127
+
+
 def test_invalid_file():
     with open("Tests/images/flower.jpg", "rb") as fp:
         with pytest.raises(SyntaxError):
diff --git a/src/PIL/PcfFontFile.py b/src/PIL/PcfFontFile.py
index 0556c2bbc58..442ac70c49d 100644
--- a/src/PIL/PcfFontFile.py
+++ b/src/PIL/PcfFontFile.py
@@ -84,8 +84,7 @@ def __init__(self, fp, charset_encoding="iso8859-1"):
         #
         # create glyph structure
 
-        for ch in range(256):
-            ix = encoding[ch]
+        for ch, ix in enumerate(encoding):
             if ix is not None:
                 x, y, l, r, w, a, d, f = metrics[ix]
                 glyph = (w, 0), (l, d - y, x + l, d), (0, 0, x, y), bitmaps[ix]
@@ -219,10 +218,6 @@ def _load_bitmaps(self, metrics):
         return bitmaps
 
     def _load_encoding(self):
-
-        # map character code to bitmap index
-        encoding = [None] * 256
-
         fp, format, i16, i32 = self._getformat(PCF_BDF_ENCODINGS)
 
         first_col, last_col = i16(fp.read(2)), i16(fp.read(2))
@@ -232,6 +227,9 @@ def _load_encoding(self):
 
         nencoding = (last_col - first_col + 1) * (last_row - first_row + 1)
 
+        # map character code to bitmap index
+        encoding = [None] * min(256, nencoding)
+
         encoding_offsets = [i16(fp.read(2)) for _ in range(nencoding)]
 
         for i in range(first_col, len(encoding)):