CTkFontAwesome

Requires Python 3.8+

CTkFontAwesome is a maintained continuation and repackaging of the original TkFontAwesome project by Israel Dryer.

A library that enables you to use FontAwesome icons in your CustomTkinter / Tkinter application.

You may use any of the 2k+ free Font Awesome icons bundled with the package. The fill colour and size are customised to your specifications and then rendered with packaged Font Awesome fonts plus Pillow, so normal image generation works on Windows, Linux, and macOS without requiring Cairo, GTK, CairoSVG, or tksvg.

Highlights

• Use 2k+ bundled free Font Awesome icons without downloading assets at runtime
• Render icons with bundled Font Awesome fonts and Pillow by default
• Generate customtkinter.CTkImage objects for DPI-aware CustomTkinter widgets
• Generate tkinter.PhotoImage objects for Tkinter widgets
• Launch an icon browser to search icons, preview them, and copy ready-to-use code
• Access raw SVG XML when you want to manage rendering yourself

Icon Browser

CTkFontAwesome includes an installable browser for searching the bundled icon set, previewing icons, and copying ready-to-use CustomTkinter code snippets.

ctkfontawesome-browser

The browser is included in the base install. If you want live CustomTkinter previews in the browser, install the optional CustomTkinter dependency:

python -m pip install "ctkfontawesome[images]"

Installation

python -m pip install ctkfontawesome

This installs Pillow plus the bundled icon metadata and font assets. The default icon_to_image() and icon_to_pil() rendering path does not require any native Cairo or GTK runtime.

If you also want icon_to_ctkimage() for CustomTkinter widgets, install the optional CustomTkinter dependency:

python -m pip install "ctkfontawesome[images]"

If you explicitly want the legacy SVG-to-raster Cairo backend, install CairoSVG separately:

python -m pip install "ctkfontawesome[cairosvg]"

tksvg is not used by this project.

CustomTkinter Usage

Use icon_to_ctkimage() when you want a customtkinter.CTkImage for CustomTkinter widgets.

import customtkinter as ctk
from ctkfontawesome import icon_to_ctkimage

app = ctk.CTk()
icon = icon_to_ctkimage("eye", fill="#1D9F75", scale_to_width=28)

button = ctk.CTkButton(app, text="Preview", image=icon, compound="left")
button.pack(padx=20, pady=20)

app.mainloop()

Tkinter Usage

Use icon_to_image() when you want a tkinter.PhotoImage for standard Tkinter widgets.

import tkinter as tk
from ctkfontawesome import icon_to_image

root = tk.Tk()
fb = icon_to_image("facebook", fill="#4267B2", scale_to_width=64)
send = icon_to_image("paper-plane", fill="#1D9F75", scale_to_width=64)

tk.Label(root, image=fb).pack(padx=10, pady=10)
tk.Button(root, image=send).pack(padx=10, pady=10)

root.mainloop()

Usage Without CairoSVG

If you only need the bundled icon data, use icon_to_svg(). CairoSVG is only required when you explicitly choose the legacy SVG backend.

from ctkfontawesome import icon_to_svg

svg = icon_to_svg("facebook")
print(svg[:80])

Development

poetry install

To install the optional image backend in the Poetry environment:

poetry install --extras images

To run the icon browser during development:

poetry run ctkfontawesome-browser

To run the automated test suite:

poetry run pytest -q

If you are using the project virtualenv directly instead of Poetry:

.venv/bin/python -m pytest -q

To refresh the bundled free Font Awesome assets from the upstream npm package, use the repo-level maintainer helper:

./utils/get_new_fa_icons.sh --python .venv/bin/python

This maintainer command installs @fortawesome/fontawesome-free into a temporary directory, then refreshes:

• ctkfontawesome/svgs.py
• packaged metadata under ctkfontawesome/assets/metadata/
• packaged font files under ctkfontawesome/assets/fonts/

The helper also runs the generated-data smoke test after refreshing those assets.

Requirements for the update workflow:

• npm must be available on PATH
• the selected Python must have fonttools and brotli installed

Example preparation:

.venv/bin/python -m pip install fonttools brotli

Recommended update workflow:

1. Refresh the checked-in bundled assets:

   ./utils/get_new_fa_icons.sh --python .venv/bin/python
   

2. Run the automated test suite:

   .venv/bin/python -m pytest -q
   

If you want to inspect a candidate svgs.py file without touching the checked-in module, the lower-level Python helper is still available:

.venv/bin/python development/update_fontawesome.py --output /tmp/svgs_new.py
.venv/bin/python development/smoke_test_fontawesome_update.py /tmp/svgs_new.py

The smoke test validates the generated module shape, checks a known icon is present, and compares counts with the current checked-in data. The repo-level wrapper runs the default smoke test automatically when refreshing the checked-in assets.

To compare a generated file against the current checked-in data:

.venv/bin/python development/smoke_test_fontawesome_update.py /tmp/svgs_new.py --compare-to ctkfontawesome/svgs.py

To bump the package version and create a git commit and tag:

poetry run bump2version patch

Use minor or major instead of patch when appropriate. The bump updates both pyproject.toml and ctkfontawesome/__init__.py.

Once installed, you can launch the browser with:

ctkfontawesome-browser

API: icon_to_image()

(
    name=None,
    fill=None,
    scale_to_width=None,
    scale_to_height=None,
    scale=1
)

Parameters

Name	Type	Description	Default
name	str	The name of the FontAwesome icon.	None
fill	str	The fill colour of the rendered icon.	None
scale_to_width	int	Adjust image width to this size (in pixels); maintains aspect ratio.	None
scale_to_height	int	Adjust image height to this size (in pixels); maintains aspect ratio.	None
scale	float	Scale the image width and height by this factor.	1

API: icon_to_ctkimage()

Same parameters as icon_to_image(), but returns a customtkinter.CTkImage for DPI-aware use in CustomTkinter widgets. This API requires the ctkfontawesome[images] optional dependency for CustomTkinter.

icon_to_ctkimage() also accepts an optional dark_fill argument so light and dark theme variants can use different colours.

API: Explicit CairoSVG backend

The default backend is Pillow plus packaged Font Awesome fonts. If you need the legacy SVG route for a specific use case, pass backend="cairosvg" to icon_to_pil(), icon_to_image(), or icon_to_ctkimage() after installing ctkfontawesome[cairosvg].

API: icon_to_svg()

Returns the raw SVG XML string for the requested icon name.

License

The CC BY 4.0 license applies to all FontAwesome free icons used in the library. The MIT License applies to all other work.

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Maintainer: Clive Bostock Original project concept and implementation by Israel Dryer 📦 Available on PyPI | 🐙 GitHub