Getting started

Read a font that is already on your machine, then check that it covers the text you want to display with it. A dozen lines of PHP give you the family, the style, the glyph count, and the list of missing characters, which is what you need to know before shipping a font with an application or cutting a subset from it.

Install the package as described in Installation.

Read a font installed on your system

Every desktop system ships TrueType fonts. The script below tries the usual locations and reads the first file that exists. Save it as font.php beside vendor and run php font.php:

<?php

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

use Alto\Font\Font;

$candidates = [
    '/System/Library/Fonts/Supplemental/Verdana.ttf',    // macOS
    'C:\Windows\Fonts\verdana.ttf',                      // Windows
    '/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSans.ttf',   // Debian, Ubuntu
    '/usr/share/fonts/dejavu-sans-fonts/DejaVuSans.ttf', // Fedora
];

$path = array_find($candidates, static fn (string $candidate): bool => is_file($candidate))
    ?? throw new RuntimeException('No known system font found. Use the path of one of your own TrueType files.');

$font = Font::fromFile($path);
$metadata = $font->metadata();

printf("%s %s, %s, %d glyphs\n", $metadata->family, $metadata->subfamily, $metadata->format->value, $font->face()->glyphCount);

On macOS this prints:

Verdana Regular, truetype, 913 glyphs

The values come from the file's own tables. Loading reads the file into memory and never modifies it. If none of the candidates exists, replace the list with the path of a font you have: a .ttf from any foundry works, while an .otf with CFF outlines is refused, see Formats.

Check that the font covers your text

Add this to the same script. The text is an interface string with accented letters, an arrow, and a check mark:

<?php

use Alto\Font\Subset\UnicodeSet;

$missing = [];
foreach (UnicodeSet::fromText('Résumé → Suivant ✓') as $codepoint) {
    if (null === $font->glyphIdForCodepoint($codepoint)) {
        $missing[] = sprintf('U+%04X', $codepoint);
    }
}

echo [] === $missing ? "Every character is available.\n" : 'Missing: '.implode(', ', $missing)."\n";

With Verdana this prints Missing: U+2192, U+2713: the font has the accented letters but neither the arrow nor the check mark. A missing codepoint has no entry in the font's character map. The check is per character; shaping and fallback happen in the application that uses the font.

Where to go next

If loading fails, Reading files lists the causes.