File: README — Documentation by YARD 0.9.27

A simple library to find and download fonts for Windows, Linux and Mac.

Installation

Install it directly as:

gem install fontist

Or use it as part of your bundle by adding this line to your application’s Gemfile:

gem "fontist"

And then execute:

bundle install

Fetch formulas

After installation, please fetch formulas via the fontist command:

fontist update

Dependencies

Depends on ffi-libarchive-binary which has the following requirements:

zlib
Expat
OpenSSL (for Linux only)

These dependencies are generally present on all systems.

Upgrading Fontist

To v1.10+

Fontist versions beyond v1.10 utilize a new formula format. After the upgrade, please run fontist update to fetch the latest formulas.

Starting from v1.10, Fontist uses the “default family” instead of the “preferred family” when grouping styles.

For example, a request for the “Lato” font prior to v1.10 will return all styles: “Black”, “Black Italic”, “Bold”, and 15 other styles.

From v1.10 onwards, Fontist will return only the 4 default styles: “Regular”, “Italic”, “Bold” and “Bold Italic”.

In order to fetch other styles, you have to specify the exact font “subfamily”, such as “Lato Black”, or “Lato Heavy”, or use the --preferred-family option with CLI and Fontist.preferred_family = true with the Ruby library.

Note

Prior to v1.10 there was a bug with the “Courier” font formula, which allowed the font to be installed when requesting the font name “Courier”, but its font location was only obtainable using the full “Courier New” font name. From v1.10 onwards the behavior has been made consistent — only the proper “Courier New” name should be used.

Usage of the `fontist` command

Fontist command-line interface

These commands makes possible to operate with fonts via command line.

The CLI properly supports exit status, so in a case of error it returns a status code higher or equal than 1.

All searches are case-insensitive for ease of use.

Global options

All commands support the following options:

--preferred-family Use the preferred family names when searching for fonts. This format was used prior to v1.10.

Install fonts

Fontist checks whether this font is already installed, and if not, then installs the font and returns its installed paths.

The font name is the only argument to be supplied (the font family name).

$ fontist install "segoe ui"
These fonts are found or installed:
/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUI.TTF
/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUIB.TTF
/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUII.TTF
/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUIZ.TTF

Note	Specifying the formula’s name or the font’s filename is not supported.

Note	The `install` command is similar to the `Font.install` library call.

If there are several formulas with a requested font, then fontist searches for the newest version of the font among formulas with size below a limit (300 MB). This behavior can be changed with options.

Note	If styles of a font are spread among several formulas, then all available formulas would be installed.

Supported options:

-f, [--force]: Install even if it’s already installed in system
-F, [--formula]: Install by formula instead of font
-a, [--accept-all-licenses]: Accept all license agreements
-h, [--hide-licenses]: Hide license texts
-p, [--no-progress]: Hide download progress
-V, [--version=VERSION]: Install particular version of a font
-s, [--smallest]: Install the smallest formula
-n, [--newest]: Install the newest version of a font
-S, [--size-limit=N]: Specify size limit for a formula to be installed (default is 300 MB)

Uninstall fonts

Uninstalls any font supported by Fontist.

Returns paths of an uninstalled font, or prints an error telling that the font isn’t installed or could not be found in Fontist formulas. Aliased as remove.

$ fontist uninstall "segoe ui"
These fonts are removed:
/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUII.TTF
/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUIZ.TTF
/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUIB.TTF
/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUI.TTF

Status

Prints installed font paths grouped by formula and font.

$ fontist status "segoe ui"
segoe_ui
 Segoe UI
  Regular (/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUI.TTF)
  Bold (/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUIB.TTF)
  Italic (/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUII.TTF)
  Bold Italic (/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUIZ.TTF)

List

Lists installation status of fonts supported by Fontist.

$ fontist list "segoe ui"
segoe_ui
 Segoe UI
  Regular (installed)
  Bold (installed)
  Italic (installed)
  Bold Italic (installed)

$ fontist list "roboto mono"
google/roboto_mono
 Roboto Mono
  Regular (uninstalled)
  Italic (uninstalled)

List installed font paths

Returns locations of fonts specified in a YAML file as an input.

$ fontist manifest-locations MANIFEST_FILE

MANIFEST_FILE is the location of a manifest file that contains specification of one or multiple font and font styles.

A manifest file manifest.yml could look like:

Segoe UI:
- Regular
- Bold
Roboto Mono:
- Regular

The following command will return the following YAML output:

$ fontist manifest-locations manifest.yml

---
Segoe UI:
  Regular:
    full_name: Segoe UI
    paths:
    - "/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUI.TTF"
  Bold:
    full_name: Segoe UI Bold
    paths:
    - "/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUIB.TTF"
Roboto Mono:
  Regular:
    full_name:
    paths: []

Since “Segoe UI” is installed, but “Roboto Mono” is not.

Install fonts from manifest

Install fonts from a YAML Fontist manifest:

$ fontist manifest-install --confirm-license manifest.yml

Where manifest.yaml is:

---
Segoe UI:
  Regular:
    full_name: Segoe UI
    paths:
    - "/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUI.TTF"
  Bold:
    full_name: Segoe UI Bold
    paths:
    - "/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUIB.TTF"
Roboto Mono:
  Regular:
    full_name: Roboto Mono Regular
    paths:
    - "/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/RobotoMono-VariableFont_wght.ttf"

Help

List of all commands could be seen by:

fontist help

Configuration

By default Fontist uses the ~/.fontist directory to store fonts and its files. It could be changed with the FONTIST_PATH environment variable.

FONTIST_PATH=~/.fontist_new fontist update

Usage of the Fontist Ruby library

`Fontist::Font`

The Fontist::Font is your go-to place to deal with any font using Fontist.

This interface allows you to find a font or install a font.

Finding a font

The Fontist::Font.find interface can be used a find a font in your system.

It will look into the operating system specific font directories, and also the fontist specific ~/.fontist directory.

Fontist::Font.find(name)

If Fontist finds a font, then it will return the paths.
Otherwise, it will either raise an unsupported font error, or trigger display of installation instructions for that specific font.

Install a font

The Fontist::Font.install interface can be used to install any supported font.

This interface first checks if you already have that font installed or not and if you do then it will return the paths.

If you don’t have a font but that font is supported by Fontist, then it will download the font and copy it to ~/.fontist directory and also return the paths.

Fontist::Font.install(name, confirmation: "no")

If there are issues detected with the provided font, such as the font is not supported, those errors would be raised.

List all fonts

The Fontist::Font interface exposes an interface to list all supported fonts.

This might be useful if want to know the name of the font or the available styles. You can do that by using:

Fontist::Font.all

The return values are OpenStruct objects, so you can easily do any other operation you would do in any ruby object.

`Fontist::Formula`

The fontist gem internally usages the Fontist::Formula interface to find a registered formula or fonts supported by any formula. Unless, you need to do anything with that you shouldn’t need to work with this interface directly. But if you do then these are the public interface it offers.

Find a formula

The Fontist::Formula.find interface allows you to find any of the registered formula. This interface takes a font name as an argument and it looks through each of the registered formula that offers this font installation. Usages:

Fontist::Formula.find("Calibri")

This method will search and return a Fontist formula for the provided keyword which allows for further processing, such as licence checks or proceeding with installation of the font in your system.

List font styles supported by a formula

Normally, each font name can be associated with multiple styles or collection, for example the Calibri font might contains a regular, bold or italic styles fonts and if you want a interface that can return the complete list then this is your friend.

You can use it as following:

Fontist::Formula.find_fonts("Calibri")

List all formulas

The Fontist::Formula interface exposes an interface to list all registered font formula. This might be useful if want to know the name of the formula or what type fonts can be installed using that formula. Usages:

Fontist::Formula.all

The return values are OpenStruct objects, so you can easily do any other operation you would do in any ruby object.

`Fontist::Manifest`

Global options

Fontist can be switched to use the preferred family names. This format was used prior to v1.10.

Fontist.preferred_family = true

`Fontist::Manifest::Locations`

Fontist lets you find font locations from a defined manifest Hash in the following format:

{
  "Segoe UI"=>["Regular", "Bold"],
  "Roboto Mono"=>["Regular"]
}

Calling the following code returns a nested Hash with font paths and names. Font name is useful to choose a specific font in a font collection file (TTC).

Fontist::Manifest::Locations.from_hash(manifest)

{
  "Segoe UI"=> {
    "Regular"=>{
      "full_name"=>"Segoe UI",
      "paths"=>["/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUI.TTF"]
    },
    "Bold"=>{
      "full_name"=>"Segoe UI Bold",
      "paths"=>["/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUIB.TTF"]
    }
  },
  "Roboto Mono"=> {
    "Regular"=>{
      "full_name"=>nil,
      "paths"=>[]
    }
  }
}

`Fontist::Manifest::Install`

Fontist lets you not only to obtain font locations but also to install fonts from the manifest:

Fontist::Manifest::Install.from_hash(manifest, confirmation: "yes")

It will install fonts and return their locations:

{
  "Segoe UI"=> {
    "Regular"=>{
      "full_name"=>"Segoe UI",
      "paths"=>["/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUI.TTF"]},
    "Bold"=>{
      "full_name"=>"Segoe UI Bold",
      "paths"=>["/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/SEGOEUIB.TTF"]
    }
  },
  "Roboto Mono"=> {
    "Regular"=>{
      "full_name"=>"Roboto Mono Regular",
      "paths"=>["/Users/user/.fontist/fonts/RobotoMono-VariableFont_wght.ttf"]
    }
  }
}

Support of YAML format

Both commands support a YAML file as an input with a from_file method. For example, if there is a manifest.yml file containing:

---
Segoe UI:
- Regular
- Bold
Roboto Mono:
- Regular

Then the following calls would return font names and paths, as from the from_hash method (see Fontist::Manifest::Install and Fontist::Manifest::Locations).

Fontist::Manifest::Locations.from_file("manifest.yml")
Fontist::Manifest::Install.from_file("manifest.yml", confirmation: "yes")

Using Fontist with proxies

Fontist uses Git internally for fetching formulas and fonts.

In order to use Git functionality behind a proxy, you need to update your own Git config via the git config command or the ~/.gitconfig preference file.

There are many ways to configure your local Git install to use proxies.

The simplest, global way of setting a proxy for Git is the following.

For HTTP

git config --global http.proxy http://{user}:{pass}@{proxyhost}:{port}

For HTTPS, you may need to handle SSL/TLS verification errors after setting the proxy since the encryption end is located at your HTTPS proxy endpoint:
```
git config --global http.proxy https://{user}:{pass}@{proxyhost}:{port}
git config --global https.proxy https://{user}:{pass}@{proxyhost}:{port}
```

For SOCKS, you will need to decide on the SOCKS protocol

git config --global http.proxy '{protocol}://{user}:{pass}@{proxyhost}:{port}'
git config --global https.proxy '{protocol}://{user}:{pass}@{proxyhost}:{port}'

For example,

git config --global http.proxy 'socks5h://user:pass@socks-proxy.example.org'
git config --global https.proxy 'socks5h://user:pass@socks-proxy.example.org'

The list of supported SOCKS protocols for the {protocol} field:

socks://: for SOCKS below v5
socks5://: for SOCKS v5
socks5h://: for SOCKS below v5 + host resolution via SOCKS

You could actually set different proxy behavior for individual Git repositories — please see this great guide on how to use Git proxies (thanks to the GitHub user evantoli).

Authoring Fontist formulas

Creating a Fontist formula from a font archive

A formula could be generated from a fonts archive. Just specify a URL to the archive:

fontist create-formula https://www.latofonts.com/download/lato2ofl-zip/
cp lato.yml ~/.fontist/formulas/Formulas/

Though indexes are auto-generated now, maintainers should rebuild indexes in the main repo for backward compatibility with Fontist versinos prior to 1.9.x.

A formula index should be rebuilt when a new formula is generated or an existing one changed:

fontist rebuild-index --main-repo

Then, both the formula and the updated indexes should be committed and pushed to the formula repository:

cd ~/.fontist/formulas
git add Formulas/lato.yml index.yml filename_index.yml
git commit -m "Add Lato formula"

Maintenance (for Fontist maintainers only!)

Warning

This section is only for Fontist maintainers.

Dynamically importing formulas from Google Fonts

Google Fonts provides probably the largest collection of widely-used, freely and openly licensed fonts.

Fontist’s formula library includes support for all openly-licensed fonts provided through Google Fonts, and maintains Fontist formulas for all such fonts.

A GHA workflow checks for updated fonts on Google Fonts daily.

In case an update is found, it could be fetched to the library by:

bin/fontist google import

The script would update formulas which should be committed to a separate repository formulas:

cd ~/.fontist/versions/{last_version}/formulas
git add Formulas/google
git commit -m "Google Fonts update"
git push

Dynamically importing formulas from SIL

SIL International is an internationally recognized faith-based nonprofit organization that serves language communities worldwide.

SIL provides a number of unique fonts that support smaller language communities that with Unicode code often not (yet) supported by mainstream fonts.

Fontist aims to support all SIL fonts and provides their formulas in the default Fontist formula repository.

They can be updated with:

fontist import-sil
cd ~/.fontist/versions/{last_version}/formulas
git add Formulas/sil
git commit -m "SIL fonts update"
git push

Dynamically importing formulas from macOS

macOS provides fonts which can be manually downloaded with the Font Book app. When such font is requested, fontist prints information on how to install it.

In order to know which fonts are available in a current version of macOS, for each version there is a formula containing all supported fonts.

A new formula can be generated with:

fontist import macos --name "Big Sur" --fonts-link "https://support.apple.com/en-om/HT211240#download"
cd ~/.fontist/versions/{last_version}/formulas
git add Formulas/macos
git commit -m "Add Big Sur macOS formula"
git push

Here --fonts-link is a link to a page containing a list of available fonts in the Font Book app.

If the import is run on a different version of macOS, then a proper version should be set in the platforms attribute of the generated formula:

platforms:
- macos-20

Development

Setup

Clone the repository.

git clone https://github.com/fontist/fontist

Setup your environment.

bin/setup

Run the test suite

bin/rspec

Formula storage

All official Fontist formulas are kept in the formulas repository.

If you’d like to add a new formula repository or change settings for an existing one, please refer to its documentation.

Private Fontist formulas and font repositories

There is an ability to use private fonts via private Fontist repositories.

A Fontist repository is a Git repo which contains YAML formula files. Formulas can be created manually (see examples), or auto-generated from an archive.

A repository can be either a HTTPS or SSH Git repo. In case of SSH, a corresponding SSH key should be setup with ssh-agent in order to access this private repository.

The fontist repo setup command fetches a repository’s formulas, and saves the repository’s name and URL for later use.

Internally, all repositories are stored at ~/.fontist/formulas/Formulas/private.

fontist repo setup NAME URL

E.g.

fontist repo setup acme https://example.com/acme/formulas.git
# or
fontist repo setup acme git@example.com:acme/formulas.git

Then you can just install fonts from this repo:

fontist install "private font"

If the private Fontist formula repository is updated, you can fetch the updates with the repo update command:

fontist repo update acme

If there is a need to avoid using private formulas, the repo can be removed with:

fontist repo remove acme

Private formulas

Authorization of private archives in private formulas can be implemented with headers.

Here is an example which works with Github releases:

resources:
  fonts.zip:
    urls:
    - url: https://example.com/repos/acme/formulas/releases/assets/38777461
      headers:
        Accept: application/octet-stream
        Authorization: token ghp_1234567890abcdefghi

A token can be obtained on the GitHub Settings > Tokens page. This token should have at least the repo scope for access to these assets.

Releasing

Releasing is done automatically with GitHub Actions. Just bump and tag with gem-release.

For a patch release (0.0.x) use:

gem bump --version patch --tag --push

For a minor release (0.x.0) use:

gem bump --version minor --tag --push

Contributing

First, thank you for contributing! We love pull requests from everyone. By participating in this project, you hereby grant Ribose the right to grant or transfer an unlimited number of non exclusive licenses or sub-licenses to third parties, under the copyright covering the contribution to use the contribution by all means.

We are following Sandi Metz’s Rules for this gem, you can read the description of the rules here. All new code should follow these rules. If you make changes in a pre-existing file that violates these rules you should fix the violations as part of your contribution.

Here are a few technical guidelines to follow:

Open an issue to discuss a new feature.
Write tests to support your new feature.
Make sure the entire test suite passes locally and on CI.
Open a Pull Request.
Squash your commits after receiving feedback.
Party!

Credit

This gem is developed, maintained and funded by Ribose.

Installation

Fetch formulas

Dependencies

Upgrading Fontist

To v1.10+

Usage of the fontist command

Fontist command-line interface

Global options

Install fonts

Uninstall fonts

Status

List

List installed font paths

Install fonts from manifest

Help

Configuration

Usage of the Fontist Ruby library

Fontist::Font

Finding a font

Install a font

List all fonts

Fontist::Formula

Find a formula

List font styles supported by a formula

List all formulas

Fontist::Manifest

Global options

Fontist::Manifest::Locations

Fontist::Manifest::Install

Support of YAML format

Using Fontist with proxies

Authoring Fontist formulas

Creating a Fontist formula from a font archive

Maintenance (for Fontist maintainers only!)

Dynamically importing formulas from Google Fonts

Dynamically importing formulas from SIL

Dynamically importing formulas from macOS

Development

Setup

Formula storage

Private Fontist formulas and font repositories

Private formulas

Releasing

Contributing

Credit

Usage of the `fontist` command

`Fontist::Font`

`Fontist::Formula`

`Fontist::Manifest`

`Fontist::Manifest::Locations`

`Fontist::Manifest::Install`