Fonts

The module ezdxf.fonts.fonts manages the internal usage of fonts and has no relation how the DXF formats manages text styles.

Font Locations

TrueType Fonts

The font manager searches the following directories recursively for .ttf, .ttc and .otf font files.

Windows:
- ~/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Fonts
- <SystemRoot>/Fonts
Linux and other *nix like systems:
- /usr/share/fonts
- /usr/local/share/fonts
- ~/.fonts
- ~/.local/share/fonts
- ~/.local/share/texmf/fonts
macOS:
- /Library/Fonts
- /System/Library/Fonts

The fc-list command on Linux shows all available fonts and their location.

The default font is selected in the following order, if none of them is available on your system - install one of them, the open source fonts can be found in the github repository in the folder ezdxf/fonts.

Arial.ttf
DejaVuSansCondensed.ttf
DejaVuSans.ttf
LiberationSans-Regular.ttf
OpenSans-Regular.ttf

Basic Stroke Fonts

There is no universal way to find the basic stroke fonts of CAD applications on a system, beside scanning all drives. Set the paths to the stroke fonts in your config file manually to tell ezdxf where to search for them, all paths are search recursively, see also option ezdxf.options.support_dirs:

[core]
support_dirs =
    "C:\Program Files\Bricsys\BricsCAD V23 en_US\Fonts",
    ~/shx_fonts,
    ~/shp_fonts,
    ~/lff_fonts,

The .shx fonts can be found on the internet but be aware that they are not free as all websites claim. The LibreCAD font files (.llf) can be downloaded from their github repository: https://github.com/LibreCAD/LibreCAD/tree/master/librecad/support/fonts

Important

When you add new font directories to support_dirs or new fonts to one of the support directories, you have to rebuild the font cache to use these fonts, see section Rebuilding the Font Cache for more information.

Font Caching

The fonts available on a system are cached automatically, the cache has to be rebuild by the build_system_font_cache() function to recognize new installed fonts or when you add new font directories to the config file.

The cache is stored in the users home directory “~/.cache/ezdxf” or the directory specified by the environment variable “XDG_CACHE_HOME”.

Rebuilding the Font Cache

When you add new fonts to your system or add a font directory to the support directories in the config file you have to rebuild the font-cache of ezdxf to recognize these new fonts:

import ezdxf
from ezdxf.fonts import fonts

fonts.build_system_font_cache()

or call the ezdxf launcher to do that:

ezdxf --fonts

Functions

ezdxf.fonts.fonts.make_font(font_name: str, cap_height: float, width_factor: float = 1.0) → AbstractFont

Returns a font abstraction based on class AbstractFont.

Supported font types:

.ttf, .ttc and .otf - TrueType fonts
.shx, .shp - Autodesk® shapefile fonts
.lff - LibreCAD font format

The special name “*monospace” returns the fallback font MonospaceFont for testing and basic measurements.

Note

The font definition files are not included in ezdxf.

Parameters:

font_name – font file name as stored in the Textstyle entity e.g. “OpenSans-Regular.ttf”
cap_height – desired cap height in drawing units.
width_factor – horizontal text stretch factor

ezdxf.fonts.fonts.get_font_face(font_name: str, map_shx=True) → FontFace

Returns the FontFace definition for the given font filename e.g. “LiberationSans-Regular.ttf”.

This function translates a DXF font definition by the TTF font file name into a FontFace object. Returns the FontFace of the default font when a font is not available on the current system.

Parameters:

font_name – raw font file name as stored in the Textstyle entity
map_shx – maps SHX font names to TTF replacement fonts, e.g. “TXT” -> “txt_____.ttf”

ezdxf.fonts.fonts.find_font_face(font_name: str) → FontFace: Returns the FontFace definition for the given font filename e.g. “LiberationSans-Regular.ttf”.

ezdxf.fonts.fonts.find_font_file_name(font_face: FontFace) → str: Returns the true type font file name without parent directories e.g. “Arial.ttf”.

ezdxf.fonts.fonts.find_best_match(*, family: str = 'sans-serif', style: str = 'Regular', weight: int = 400, width: int = 5, italic: bool | None = False) → FontFace | None

Returns a FontFace that matches the given properties best. The search is based the descriptive properties and not on comparing glyph shapes. Returns None if no font was found.

Parameters:

family – font family name e.g. “sans-serif”, “Liberation Sans”
style – font style e.g. “Regular”, “Italic”, “Bold”
weight – weight in the range from 1-1000 (usWeightClass)
width – width in the range from 1-9 (usWidthClass)
italic – True, False or None to ignore this flag

ezdxf.fonts.fonts.get_entity_font_face(entity: DXFEntity, doc: Drawing | None = None) → FontFace

Returns the FontFace defined by the associated text style. Returns the default font face if the entity does not have or support the DXF attribute “style”. Supports the extended font information stored in Textstyle table entries.

Pass a DXF document as argument doc to resolve text styles for virtual entities which are not assigned to a DXF document. The argument doc always overrides the DXF document to which the entity is assigned to.

ezdxf.fonts.fonts.get_font_measurements(font_name: str, map_shx=True) → FontMeasurements

Get FontMeasurements for the given font filename e.g. “LiberationSans-Regular.ttf”.

Parameters:

font_name – raw font file name as stored in the Textstyle entity
map_shx – maps SHX font names to TTF replacement fonts, e.g. “TXT” -> “txt_____.ttf”

ezdxf.fonts.fonts.build_system_font_cache(): Builds or rebuilds the font manager cache. The font manager cache has a fixed location in the cache directory of the users home directory “~/.cache/ezdxf” or the directory specified by the environment variable “XDG_CACHE_HOME”.

ezdxf.fonts.fonts.load(): Reload all cache files. The cache files are loaded automatically at the import of ezdxf.

ezdxf.fonts.fonts.sideload_ttf(font_path: str | PathLike, cap_height) → AbstractFont: This function bypasses the FontManager and loads the TrueType font straight from the file system, requires the absolute font file path e.g. “C:/Windows/Fonts/Arial.ttf”.

Warning

Expert feature, use with care: no fallback font and no error handling.

Classes

class ezdxf.fonts.fonts.AbstractFont(measurements: FontMeasurements)

The ezdxf font abstraction for text measurement and text path rendering.

name: The font filename e.g. “LiberationSans-Regular.ttf”

font_render_type: The font type, see enum FontRenderType

measurement: The FontMeasurements data.

abstractmethod text_width(text: str) → float: Returns the text width in drawing units for the given text string.

abstractmethod text_width_ex(text: str, cap_height: float, width_factor: float = 1.0) → float: Returns the text width in drawing units, bypasses the stored cap_height and width_factor.

abstractmethod text_path(text: str) → NumpyPath2d: Returns the 2D text path for the given text.

abstractmethod text_path_ex(text: str, cap_height: float, width_factor: float = 1.0) → NumpyPath2d: Returns the 2D text path for the given text, bypasses the stored cap_height and width_factor.

abstractmethod space_width() → float: Returns the width of a “space” character a.k.a. word spacing.

class ezdxf.fonts.fonts.MonospaceFont(cap_height: float, width_factor: float = 1.0, baseline: float = 0, descender_factor: float = DESCENDER_FACTOR, x_height_factor: float = X_HEIGHT_FACTOR)

Represents a monospaced font where each letter has the same cap- and descender height and the same width. The given cap height and width factor are the default values for measurements and rendering. The extended methods can override these default values.

This font exists only for generic text measurement in tests and does not render any glyphs!

class ezdxf.fonts.fonts.TrueTypeFont(font_name: str, cap_height: float, width_factor: float = 1.0): Represents a TrueType font. Font measurement and glyph rendering is done by the fontTools package. The given cap height and width factor are the default values for measurements and glyph rendering. The extended methods can override these default values.

class ezdxf.fonts.fonts.ShapeFileFont(font_name: str, cap_height: float, width_factor: float = 1.0): Represents a shapefile font (.shx, .shp). Font measurement and glyph rendering is done by the ezdxf.fonts.shapefile module. The given cap height and width factor are the default values for measurements and glyph rendering. The extended methods can override these default values.

class ezdxf.fonts.fonts.LibreCadFont(font_name: str, cap_height: float, width_factor: float = 1.0): Represents a LibreCAD font (.shx, .shp). Font measurement and glyph rendering is done by the ezdxf.fonts.lff module. The given cap height and width factor are the default values for measurements and glyph rendering. The extended methods can override these default values.

Font Anatomy

A Visual Guide to the Anatomy of Typography: https://visme.co/blog/type-anatomy/
Anatomy of a Character: https://www.fonts.com/content/learning/fontology/level-1/type-anatomy/anatomy

Font Properties

DXF to store fonts in the Textstyle entity as TTF file name e.g. “LiberationSans-Regular.ttf”.

The FontFace class can be used to specify a font in a more generic way:

family

font name e.g. “Liberation Sans” or “Arial”, may a generic font family name, either “serif”, “sans-serif” or “monospace”

style

“Regular”, “Italic”, “Oblique”, “Bold”, “BoldOblique”, …

width

(usWidthClass) A numeric value in the range 0-9

1	UltraCondensed
2	ExtraCondensed
3	Condensed
4	SemiCondensed
5	Normal or Medium
6	SemiExpanded
7	Expanded
8	ExtraExpanded
9	UltraExpanded

weight

(usWeightClass) A numeric value in the range 0-1000

100	Thin
200	ExtraLight
300	Light
400	Normal
500	Medium
600	SemiBold
700	Bold
800	ExtraBold
900	Black