Skip to main content

CI Build Status PyPI Version Codecov Join the chat at https://gitter.im/fonttools-dev/glyphsLib

glyphsLib

This Python library provides a bridge from Glyphs source files (.glyphs) to UFOs and Designspace files via defcon and designspaceLib.

The main methods for conversion are found in __init__.py. Intermediate data can be accessed without actually writing UFOs, if needed.

Write and return UFOs

The following code will write UFOs and a Designspace file to disk.

import glyphsLib

master_dir = "master_ufos"
ufos, designspace_path = glyphsLib.build_masters("MyFont.glyphs", master_dir)

If you want to interpolate instances, please use fontmake instead. It uses this library under the hood when dealing with Glyphs files.

Load UFO objects without writing

import glyphsLib

ufos = glyphsLib.load_to_ufos("MyFont.glyphs")

Read and write Glyphs data as Python objects

from glyphsLib import GSFont

font = GSFont(glyphs_file)
font.save(glyphs_file)

The glyphsLib.classes module aims to provide an interface similar to Glyphs.app’s Python Scripting API.

Note that currently not all the classes and methods may be fully implemented. We try to keep up to date, but if you find something that is missing or does not work as expected, please open a issue.

Go back and forth between UFOs and Glyphs

  1. You can use the ufo2glyphs and glyphs2ufo command line scripts to round-trip your source files. By default, the scripts try to preserve as much metadata as possible.

    # Generate master UFOs and Designspace file
    glyphs2ufo Example.glyphs
    
    # Go back
    ufo2glyphs Example.designspace
    
    # You can also combine single UFOs into a Glyphs source file.
    ufo2glyphs Example-Regular.ufo Example-Bold.ufo
  2. Without a designspace file, using for example the Inria fonts by Black[Foundry]:

    import glob
    from defcon import Font
    from glyphsLib import to_glyphs
    
    ufos = [Font(path) for path in glob.glob("*Italic.ufo")]
    # Sort the UFOs because glyphsLib will create masters in the same order
    ufos = sorted(ufos, key=lambda ufo: ufo.info.openTypeOS2WeightClass)
    font = to_glyphs(ufos)
    font.save("InriaSansItalic.glyphs")

    Here is the resulting glyphs file

  3. With a designspace, using Spectral from Production Type:

    import glob
    from fontTools.designspaceLib import DesignSpaceDocument
    from glyphsLib import to_glyphs
    
    doc = DesignSpaceDocument()
    doc.read("spectral-build-roman.designspace")
    font = to_glyphs(doc)
    font.save("SpectralRoman.glyphs")

    Here is the resulting glyphs file

  4. In both programmatic cases, if you intend to go back to UFOs after modifying the file with Glyphs, you should use the minimize_ufo_diffs parameter to minimize the amount of diffs that will show up in git after the back and forth. To do so, the glyphsLib will add some bookkeeping values in various userData fields. For example, it will try to remember which GSClass came from groups.plist or from the feature file.

The same option exists for people who want to do Glyphs->UFOs->Glyphs: minimize_glyphs_diffs, which will add some bookkeeping data in UFO lib. For example, it will keep the same UUIDs for Glyphs layers, and so will need to store those layer UUIDs in the UFOs.

import glob
import os
from fontTools.designspaceLib import DesignSpaceDocument
from glyphsLib import to_glyphs, to_designspace, GSFont

doc = DesignSpaceDocument()
doc.read("spectral-build-roman.designspace")
font = to_glyphs(doc, minimize_ufo_diffs=True)
doc2 = to_designspace(font, propagate_anchors=False)
# UFOs are in memory only, attached to the doc via `sources`
# Writing doc2 over the original doc should generate very few git diffs (ideally none)
doc2.write(doc.path)
for source in doc2.sources:
    path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(doc.path), source.filename)
    # You will want to use ufoNormalizer after
    source.font.save(path)

font = GSFont("SpectralRoman.glyphs")
doc = to_designspace(font, minimize_glyphs_diffs=True, propagate_anchors=False)
font2 = to_glyphs(doc)
# Writing font2 over font should generate very few git diffs (ideally none):
font2.save(font.filepath)

In practice there are always a few diffs on things that don’t really make a difference, like optional things being added/removed or whitespace changes or things getting reordered…

Make a release

Use git tag -a to make a new annotated tag, or git tag -s for a GPG-signed annotated tag, if you prefer.

Name the new tag with with a leading ‘v’ followed by three MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH digits, like in semantic versioning. Look at the existing tags for examples.

In the tag message write some short release notes describing the changes since the previous tag.

Finally, push the tag to the remote repository (e.g. assuming your upstream is called origin):

$ git push origin v0.4.3

This will trigger the CI to build the distribution packages and upload them to the Python Package Index automatically, if all the tests pass successfully.

Metadata

Release files for glyphsLib 6.16.1

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for glyphsLib 6.16.1
File Size Uploaded
glyphslib-6.16.1.tar.gz 26.2 MB Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for glyphsLib 6.16.1
File Interpreter ABI Platform
glyphslib-6.16.1-py3-none-any.whl Python 3 none any Details

Total release size: 27.1 MB

Release files / glyphslib-6.16.1.tar.gz

Download URL glyphslib-6.16.1.tar.gz
Size 26.2 MB
Tags Source
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
55f3373b8590adc4d01ba6e3762e2c9a8b9ca3f08d2c4e87af1d893baa993dc6
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
c04e345ac54a943d71ad99e024d37514d0dcede639217b6973d5d2e8affbf29f
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
Yes
Uploaded via twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14

Provenance

Provenance describes where a file came from. On PyPI, provenance is shared via attestations, which provide a verifiable record of the build or publishing details. View details, limitations and caveats.

PyPI Publish Attestation

PyPI verified that this artifact, at this checksum, originated from the publisher listed below.

Signed by GitHub Actions, verified by PyPI on Oct 16, 2026.

Transparency log

Release files / glyphslib-6.16.1-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL glyphslib-6.16.1-py3-none-any.whl
Size 942.7 kB
Tags Python 3
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
f6f48257b9dce05da0089215a13cf8366d940cd2995ffb4a9c0a6eca49109758
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
3afe4a3aa61f3a23cb12a94a14e23b119ba738b34a33f20da175e07d8a9c2062
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
Yes
Uploaded via twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14

Provenance

Provenance describes where a file came from. On PyPI, provenance is shared via attestations, which provide a verifiable record of the build or publishing details. View details, limitations and caveats.

PyPI Publish Attestation

PyPI verified that this artifact, at this checksum, originated from the publisher listed below.

Signed by GitHub Actions, verified by PyPI on Oct 16, 2026.

Transparency log

Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

This release

6.16.1 This release

2 release files

6.15.0

2 release files

6.13.1

2 release files

6.12.7

2 release files

6.12.6

2 release files

6.12.4

2 release files

6.12.2

2 release files

6.12.1

2 release files

6.12.0

2 release files

6.11.6

2 release files

6.11.5

2 release files

6.11.4

2 release files

6.11.3

2 release files

6.11.2

2 release files

6.11.0

2 release files

6.10.3

2 release files

6.10.2

2 release files

6.10.1

2 release files

6.10.0

2 release files

6.9.6

2 release files

6.9.5

2 release files

6.9.4

2 release files

6.9.3

2 release files

6.9.2

2 release files

6.9.1

2 release files

6.9.0

2 release files

6.8.2

2 release files

6.8.1

2 release files

6.8.0

2 release files

6.7.2

2 release files

6.7.1

2 release files

6.7.0

2 release files

6.6.6

2 release files

6.6.5

2 release files

6.6.4

2 release files

6.6.3

2 release files

6.6.2

2 release files

6.6.1

2 release files

6.6.0

2 release files

6.5.0

2 release files

6.4.1

2 release files

6.4.0

2 release files

6.3.0

2 release files

6.2.5

2 release files

6.2.4

2 release files

6.2.3

2 release files

6.2.2

2 release files

6.2.1

2 release files

6.2.0

2 release files

6.1.0

2 release files

6.0.7

2 release files

6.0.6

2 release files

6.0.5

2 release files

6.0.4

2 release files

6.0.3

2 release files

6.0.2

2 release files

6.0.1

2 release files

6.0.0

2 release files

5.3.2

2 release files

5.3.1

2 release files

5.3.0

2 release files

5.2.0

2 release files

5.1.11

2 release files

5.1.9

2 release files

5.1.8

2 release files

5.1.7

2 release files

5.1.6

2 release files

5.1.5

2 release files

5.1.4

2 release files

5.1.3

2 release files

5.1.2

2 release files

5.1.1

2 release files

5.1.0

2 release files

5.0.1

2 release files

5.0.0

2 release files

4.1.2

2 release files

4.1.1

2 release files

4.1.0

2 release files

4.0.0

2 release files

3.3.1

2 release files

3.3.0

2 release files

3.2.0

2 release files

3.1.4

2 release files

3.1.3

2 release files

3.1.2

2 release files

3.1.1

2 release files

3.1.0

2 release files

3.0.3

2 release files

3.0.2

2 release files

3.0.1

2 release files

3.0.0

2 release files

2.4.0

2 release files

2.3.1

2 release files

2.3.0

2 release files

2.2.1

2 release files

2.2.0

2 release files

2.1.1

2 release files

2.1.0

2 release files

2.0.0

2 release files

1.8.0

2 release files

1.7.6

2 release files

1.7.5

2 release files

1.7.4

2 release files

1.7.3

2 release files

1.7.2

2 release files

1.7.1

2 release files

1.7.0

2 release files

1.6.0

2 release files

1.5.2

2 release files

1.5.1

2 release files

1.5.0

2 release files

1.4.0

2 release files

1.3.0

2 release files

1.2.0

2 release files

1.1.0

2 release files

Anthropic, PBC Visionary sponsor Bloomberg Visionary sponsor Hudson River Trading Visionary sponsor Meta Visionary sponsor NVIDIA Visionary sponsor Microsoft Sustainability sponsor Depot Continuous Integration AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page