FontSearch

A cross-platform Python library for discovering and analyzing system fonts with minimal dependencies.

Features

• Cross-platform: Works on Windows, macOS, and Linux
• Minimal dependencies: Core functionality uses only Python standard library
• Advanced filtering: Filter by text support, font types, random sampling
• Font analysis: Optional advanced features with fonttools
• CLI interface: Command-line tool for quick font discovery
• GUI interface: Graphical font viewer with advanced features
• Internationalization: Support for 10 major languages (5.2B+ speakers)
• Ligature controls: OpenType ligature support (contextual & historical) with Pillow
• Easy integration: Simple API for use in other projects
• Clean output: Suppresses fonttools warnings for professional usage

Installation

Basic installation (no dependencies)

pip install fontsearch

Full installation (with fonttools for advanced features)

pip install fontsearch[full]

GUI installation (with GUI support and ligatures)

pip install fontsearch[gui]

Complete installation (all features including ligatures)

pip install fontsearch[all]

Quick Start

Python API

import fontsearch

# Get all installed fonts
fonts = fontsearch.get_fonts()
print(f"Found {len(fonts)} fonts")

# Get detailed font information
font_info = fontsearch.find_fonts()
for font in font_info[:5]:
    print(f"{font.name} ({font.font_type.name if font.font_type else 'Unknown'})")
    print(f"  Path: {font.path}")

# Find fonts supporting specific text (requires fonttools)
emoji_fonts = fontsearch.find_fonts(text="🌷😀")
print(f"Fonts supporting emojis: {len(emoji_fonts)}")

# Filter by font type
from fontsearch import FontType
ttf_fonts = fontsearch.find_fonts(types=[FontType.TTF])
print(f"TrueType fonts: {len(ttf_fonts)}")

# Get random sample
random_fonts = fontsearch.find_fonts(random_order=True, max_results=10)
print("10 random fonts:")
for font in random_fonts:
    print(f"  {font.name}")

# Advanced filtering
german_fonts = fontsearch.find_fonts(
    text="äöü ß",
    types=[FontType.TTF, FontType.OTF],
    max_results=20
)

GUI Widget Component

FontSearch includes a reusable tkinter widget that can be embedded in other applications:

import tkinter as tk
from fontsearch import FontPickerWidget

def on_font_selected(font_name):
    print(f"Selected font: {font_name}")

root = tk.Tk()
root.title("My App with FontSearch")

# Embed FontSearch widget
font_picker = FontPickerWidget(
    root,
    width=600,
    height=400,
    on_font_selected=on_font_selected,
    show_language_selector=True,
    show_ligature_controls=True
)
font_picker.pack(fill=tk.BOTH, expand=True, padx=10, pady=10)

root.mainloop()

Widget Features:

• 🎨 Embeddable component for any tkinter application
• 🌍 10 language support with automatic detection
• 🔤 Ligature controls for advanced typography
• 🎯 Font selection callbacks for integration
• ⚙️ Configurable UI elements (show/hide controls)
• 📱 Responsive design with proper scaling

See WIDGET_INTEGRATION_GUIDE.md for complete integration examples.

Command Line Interface

# List all fonts
fontsearch

# Launch graphical user interface
fontsearch --gui

# Launch advanced GUI with SVG support
fontsearch --gui-advanced

# Launch internationalized GUI (10 languages)
fontsearch --gui-i18n

# Find fonts supporting emojis
fontsearch --text "🌷😀"

# Only TrueType and OpenType fonts
fontsearch --types TTF,OTF

# 10 random fonts with paths
fontsearch --random --max 10 --paths

# German character support
fontsearch --text "äöü ß" --paths

API Reference

Core Functions

get_fonts() -> List[str]

Returns a list of all installed font names.

get_font_files() -> Dict[str, Path]

Returns a dictionary mapping font names to their file paths.

find_fonts(text=None, types=None, random_order=False, max_results=None) -> List[FontInfo]

Advanced font search with filtering options.

Parameters:

• text (str, optional): Filter fonts that support these characters. Requires fonttools.
• types (List[FontType], optional): Filter by font file types (TTF, OTF, etc.).
• random_order (bool): Return results in random order.
• max_results (int, optional): Maximum number of results to return.

Returns: List of FontInfo objects.

check_font_supports_text(font_path: Path, text: str) -> bool

Check if a font file supports all characters in the given text. Requires fonttools.

Data Classes

FontInfo

@dataclass
class FontInfo:
    name: str              # Font display name
    path: Path             # Path to font file
    font_type: FontType    # Font file type (TTF, OTF, etc.)

FontType (Enum)

• FontType.TTF - TrueType fonts (.ttf)
• FontType.OTF - OpenType fonts (.otf)
• FontType.TTC - TrueType collections (.ttc)
• FontType.WOFF - Web fonts (.woff)
• FontType.WOFF2 - Web fonts v2 (.woff2)

Examples

Find fonts for multilingual text

import fontsearch

# Find fonts supporting multiple languages
multilingual_text = "Hello 你好 مرحبا Здравствуйте"
fonts = fontsearch.find_fonts(text=multilingual_text)

print(f"Fonts supporting multilingual text: {len(fonts)}")
for font in fonts:
    print(f"  {font.name}")

Analyze font distribution by type

import fontsearch
from collections import Counter

fonts = fontsearch.find_fonts()
type_counts = Counter(font.font_type.name if font.font_type else 'Unknown' 
                     for font in fonts)

print("Font distribution by type:")
for font_type, count in type_counts.most_common():
    print(f"  {font_type}: {count}")

Random font sampler

import fontsearch

def get_random_font_sample(n=5):
    """Get a random sample of fonts."""
    return fontsearch.find_fonts(random_order=True, max_results=n)

# Get 5 random fonts
sample = get_random_font_sample(5)
for font in sample:
    print(f"{font.name} - {font.path}")

GUI Integration

import fontsearch

# Perfect for GUI font selectors
all_fonts = fontsearch.find_fonts()
font_names = [font.name for font in all_fonts]

# Real-time filtering for search-as-you-type
def filter_fonts(search_text):
    return fontsearch.find_fonts(text=search_text, max_results=20)

# Font categorization
ttf_fonts = fontsearch.find_fonts(types=[fontsearch.FontType.TTF])

GUI Interface

FontSearch includes a graphical user interface for interactive font browsing:

# Launch GUI from command line
fontsearch --gui

# Or run directly
python -m fontsearch.gui

GUI Features:

• Interactive font browsing with pagination
• Real-time text filtering
• Font type filtering
• Ligature controls (contextual and historical)
• Font preview with custom text
• Professional interface with clean output

Dependencies

Core (no dependencies)

The core functionality works with Python standard library only:

• Font discovery on Windows (via registry)
• Font discovery on macOS (via system directories)
• Font discovery on Linux (via fontconfig or directory scanning)
• Basic filtering and sorting

Optional (fonttools)

Advanced features require fonttools:

pip install fonttools

Features enabled with fonttools:

• Text support checking (check_font_supports_text)
• Character coverage analysis
• Advanced font metadata reading

Platform Support

• Windows: Uses Windows Registry and system font directories
• macOS: Uses system font directories and system_profiler
• Linux: Uses fontconfig (fc-list) with fallback to directory scanning

License

GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 (LGPL-3.0) - see LICENSE file for details.

Author

Michel Weinachter - Initial developer and maintainer

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Changelog

1.0.0

• Initial release
• Cross-platform font discovery
• Advanced filtering API
• CLI interface
• Minimal dependencies design
• Warning suppression for clean output