Font descriptions

A FontDescription holds the strings in the font's name table: the family name, the full name, the style, the version, the copyright and others. You can read it without adding the font to a collection, which is fast. Use it to build a font picker, check licences, or index a folder of fonts.

Read the description of a font file

using PinataLabs.Typography;

FontDescription description = FontDescription.LoadDescription("fonts/OpenSans-Regular.ttf");

Console.WriteLine(description.FontNameInvariantCulture);          // Open Sans Regular
Console.WriteLine(description.FontFamilyInvariantCulture);        // Open Sans
Console.WriteLine(description.FontSubFamilyNameInvariantCulture); // Regular
Console.WriteLine(description.Style);                             // Regular

LoadDescription also takes a Stream.

Read every font in a collection file

For a .ttc file, LoadFontCollectionDescriptions returns one description for each font in it:

foreach (FontDescription d in FontDescription.LoadFontCollectionDescriptions("fonts/Helvetica.ttc"))
{
    Console.WriteLine(d.FontNameInvariantCulture);
}

Read other names

GetNameById reads any of the standard names. KnownNameIds lists them:

using System.Globalization;
using PinataLabs.Typography.WellKnownIds;

CultureInfo culture = CultureInfo.InvariantCulture;
string version = description.GetNameById(culture, KnownNameIds.Version);          // Version 3.000
string copyright = description.GetNameById(culture, KnownNameIds.CopyrightNotice);
string license = description.GetNameById(culture, KnownNameIds.LicenseDescription);

KnownNameIds value	Contains
CopyrightNotice	The copyright notice.
FontFamilyName	The family name, for example Open Sans.
FontSubfamilyName	The style name, for example Bold Italic.
UniqueFontID	A unique identifier for the font.
FullFontName	The family and style together, for example Open Sans Bold.
Version	The version string.
PostscriptName	The PostScript name, with no spaces.
Trademark	The trademark notice.
Manufacturer	The name of the font vendor.
Designer	The name of the designer.
Description	A description of the font.
VendorUrl	The website of the vendor.
DesignerUrl	The website of the designer.
LicenseDescription	A description of the licence.
LicenseInfoUrl	Where to read the licence.
TypographicFamilyName	The family name for fonts with more than the four basic styles.
TypographicSubfamilyName	The style name that goes with TypographicFamilyName.
SampleText	Sample text chosen by the designer.

If the font does not have the name, the result is an empty string.

Names in other languages

FontName, FontFamily, FontSubFamilyName and GetNameById take a CultureInfo. They return the name in that language if the font has it. If it does not, they return the US English name, then the first Windows name, then the first name of any kind. The InvariantCulture properties use the same order, so they return the US English name when the font has one.

string name = description.FontFamily(CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("zh-CN"));

Get the description of a loaded font

A font that you already loaded has its description in its metrics:

FontDescription description = font.FontMetrics.Description;