Files

Use this section when the font you need is a file: installed on the machine, bundled with your application, or stored as bytes in a database, and when the result of your work has to become a file again. Reading never modifies the source. Writing always creates a new file and never replaces an existing one.

• Finding fonts selects a face by family, weight, and style from directories you name.
• Reading files loads a TTF, OTF, WOFF, WOFF2, or collection face from a path or from bytes.
• Writing files produces a TTF, WOFF, or WOFF2 file, or the bytes, from any loaded face.

Convert a file to a web font

The shortest useful script reads a TrueType file and writes it as WOFF, which every browser accepts in @font-face. Place a font at fonts/Inter-Regular.ttf beside vendor, create an output directory, and run:

<?php

require __DIR__.'/vendor/autoload.php';

use Alto\Font\Font;
use Alto\Font\Writer\WoffWriter;

$font = Font::fromFile(__DIR__.'/fonts/Inter-Regular.ttf');
$destination = __DIR__.'/output/inter.woff';

new WoffWriter()->write($font, $destination);

printf("Saved %s (%d bytes)\n", basename($destination), filesize($destination));

For the bundled Inter Latin sample this prints Saved inter.woff (31792 bytes) for a 66,912-byte TTF. The glyphs are untouched: the file is smaller because WOFF compresses each table. Subsetting is the step that removes glyphs, and Compression covers WOFF2, which compresses further but needs Brotli.

A browser loads the result through a regular declaration:

@font-face {
    font-family: 'Inter';
    src: url('/fonts/inter.woff') format('woff');
}

What a file can become

Any loaded face can be written as TTF, WOFF, or WOFF2, including one face taken out of a TTC or OTC collection, which comes out as a standalone font. A variable font is written with all its axes; see Variable fonts. Each run writes to a new path: choose a fresh filename or remove the previous output in your application.