Inspect Font Files and Collections

This recipe is a good starting point when you have a font file in hand and want to learn what it contains before you add it to your app's normal font collection with FontDescription.

Read a single font file

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 useful for import tools, font pickers, diagnostics, and file-inspection utilities.

Use invariant names when you need stable storage, configuration, or logs. Use culture-specific names when presenting font choices to people, because many families expose localized names that are more useful in UI than the invariant English metadata.

Inspect a font collection such as a .ttc

using System;
using SixLabors.Fonts;

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

foreach (FontDescription description in descriptions.Span)
{
    Console.WriteLine(description.FontNameInvariantCulture);
}

If you do want to load the collection afterward, use FontCollection.AddCollection(...).

Inspection does not add the font to a collection. That separation is useful for upload validation and tooling: you can reject, categorize, or display font metadata before deciding whether the file should participate in normal font resolution.

For the broader metadata API, see Font Metadata and Inspection.

Practical guidance

• Inspect uploaded font files before adding them to an application collection.
• Use collection inspection for .ttc and .otc files because one file can contain multiple faces.
• Store invariant names for stable configuration and localized names for display.
• Load the font only after metadata inspection says it belongs in the normal resolution path.