wldevries / TrueType

A TrueType parser for reading, glyphIds, names, descriptions, and kerning information from TrueType fonts

Roy-T.TrueType

Current version: 0.2.0

A TrueType parser for reading, glyphIds, names, descriptions, and kerning information from TrueType fonts. Supports .NetStandard 1.6, .Net 4.6.1 and higher.

You can directly add this library to your project using NuGet:

Install-Package RoyT.TrueType

For more information please visit my blog at http://roy-t.nl.

To learn more about the TrueType font format and terminology used here see the Open Type specification.

Why choose this library?

• It can read the following tables of all fonts that exist in a standard Windows 10 installation:

  • CMAP, character to glyph index mapping table
  • KERN, inter character spacing (kerning)
  • NAME, multilingual strings for font names, styles, ...
  • MAXP, memory requirements
  • HMTX, horizontal metrics table
  • VMTX, vertical metrics table
  • HHEA, horizontal header table
  • VHEA, vertical header table
  • OS2 OS/2 and Windows Metric Table

• It exposes both an easy to use API to directly get useful information from these tables, but also exposes the tables themselves so you add your own interpretation of the data

• It works on both .Net Core 1.0 and .Net 4.6.1 and higher by targetting .Net standard 1.6

Limitations

• This library aims to read meta-information from .ttf files, it does not give you enough information to render glyphs yourself. For that you need OpenType and HarfBuzz.

Supported Cmap formats

Reference

Subtable format	supported/unsupported	remarks
Segmented mapping to delta values	supported	Most common
Trimmed table mapping	supported
Segmented coverage	supported
Byte encoding table	supported	Least common
High-byte mapping through table	unsupported	I have not seeen a font that uses this yet, samples welcome
Mixed 16-bit and 32-bit coverage	unsupported	I have not seeen a font that uses this yet, samples welcome
Trimmed array	unsupported	I have not seeen a font that uses this yet, samples welcome
Many-to-one range mappings	unsupported	I have not seeen a font that uses this yet, samples welcome
Unicode Variation Sequences	unsupported	Specifies variations of a single glyph

Usage example

var font = TrueTypeFont.FromFile(@"C:\Windows\Fonts\arial.ttf");

// Using the helper functions
var glyphIndex = GlyphHelper.GetGlyphIndex('A', font);  // 36
var horizontalKerning = KerningHelper.GetHorizontalKerning('A', 'W', font);   // -76
var name = NameHelper.GetName(NameId.FontSubfamilyName, new CultureInfo("nl-NL"), font); // Standaard

// Diving in deep yourself to get some specific information is also possible
if (font.KernTable.SubtableCount > 0)
{
    var leftCode = GlyphHelper.GetGlyphIndex(left, font);
    var rightCode = GlyphHelper.GetGlyphIndex(right, font);

    foreach (var subTable in font.KernTable.Subtables)
    {
        if (subTable.Format0 != null && subTable.Direction == Direction.Vertical
            && subTable.Values == Values.Kerning)
        {
            var pair = new KerningPair((ushort)leftCode, (ushort)rightCode);

            if (subTable.Format0.Map.TryGetValue(pair, out var value))
            {
                // Do something
            }
        }
    }
}