Table of Contents

Font Metadata and Inspection

Sometimes you need to inspect a font long before you care about laying text out with it. Maybe you are building an importer, a picker, or a diagnostics tool. FontDescription is the lightweight part of the API for that job.

Read metadata without loading the font for layout

Use FontDescription.LoadDescription(...) when you only need descriptive information from a single font file or stream.

using System.Globalization;
using SixLabors.Fonts;
using SixLabors.Fonts.WellKnownIds;

FontDescription description = FontDescription.LoadDescription("fonts/SourceSans3-Regular.ttf");

string family = description.FontFamilyInvariantCulture;
string fullName = description.FontNameInvariantCulture;
string subfamily = description.FontSubFamilyNameInvariantCulture;
string version = description.GetNameById(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, KnownNameIds.Version);

This is a better fit than FontCollection.Add(...) when you are building font pickers, diagnostics, import tools, or metadata listings.

Work with localized names

FontDescription exposes both invariant and culture-aware name accessors:

  • FontNameInvariantCulture
  • FontFamilyInvariantCulture
  • FontSubFamilyNameInvariantCulture
  • FontName(culture)
  • FontFamily(culture)
  • FontSubFamilyName(culture)
using System.Globalization;
using SixLabors.Fonts;

FontDescription description = FontDescription.LoadDescription("fonts/SourceSans3-Regular.ttf");
CultureInfo english = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("en-US");

string familyName = description.FontFamily(english);

Read additional name-table entries

Use GetNameById(...) with KnownNameIds when you need more than the basic family and subfamily fields.

Common values include:

  • KnownNameIds.Version
  • KnownNameIds.PostscriptName
  • KnownNameIds.Designer
  • KnownNameIds.Manufacturer
  • KnownNameIds.LicenseDescription
  • KnownNameIds.LicenseInfoUrl
  • KnownNameIds.SampleText
using System.Globalization;
using SixLabors.Fonts;
using SixLabors.Fonts.WellKnownIds;

FontDescription description = FontDescription.LoadDescription("fonts/SourceSans3-Regular.ttf");

string designer = description.GetNameById(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, KnownNameIds.Designer);
string sample = description.GetNameById(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, KnownNameIds.SampleText);

Inspect font collections

Use FontDescription.LoadFontCollectionDescriptions(...) when a file contains multiple faces, such as a .ttc collection.

using System;
using SixLabors.Fonts;

ReadOnlyMemory<FontDescription> descriptions =
    FontDescription.LoadFontCollectionDescriptions("fonts/NotoSansCJK-Regular.ttc");

If you are loading a collection into a FontCollection, the AddCollection(...) overloads can also return the descriptions that were discovered during the load.

Inspect loaded families and fonts

Once a family has been loaded, there are a few additional inspection helpers worth knowing about:

using System;
using SixLabors.Fonts;

FontCollection collection = new();
FontFamily family = collection.Add("fonts/SourceSans3-Regular.ttf");

foreach (FontStyle style in family.GetAvailableStyles().Span)
{
    Console.WriteLine(style);
}

Font font = family.CreateFont(16);
FontDescription description = font.FontMetrics.Description;

What Style means

FontDescription.Style is the resolved FontStyle for that face. Fonts derives it from the face metadata in the font tables, so it is a useful quick check when you want to know whether a face is marked as bold, italic, or both.

For loading fonts into collections, see Loading Fonts and Collections. For working with installed machine fonts, see System Fonts.

If you want the face-level metrics that drive layout and glyph inspection rather than just the descriptive metadata, see Font Metrics.

Practical guidance

  • Use metadata inspection before loading untrusted or user-supplied font files into normal collections.
  • Store invariant names for stable configuration and localized names for UI.
  • Inspect family styles before assuming bold or italic faces are available.
  • Use font paths for diagnostics, not as the only identity for a face.
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