Read font metadata

Read the family, style, version, and license fields stored in a font. These values can populate an asset list or help you identify a file before conversion.

Print the name and license fields

Place a font at fonts/Inter-Regular.ttf and run this script beside vendor:

<?php

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

use Alto\Font\Font;

$font = Font::fromFile(__DIR__.'/fonts/Inter-Regular.ttf');
$metadata = $font->metadata();

printf("Family: %s\nStyle: %s\n", $metadata->family, $metadata->subfamily);
printf("Version: %s\n", $metadata->version ?? 'not provided');
printf("License: %s\n", $metadata->license ?? 'not provided');
printf("License URL: %s\n", $metadata->licenseUrl ?? 'not provided');

This prints the file's own values. Optional fields return null when absent; the example displays not provided instead. The license fields describe the font; consult the license supplied by its publisher for its terms.

Other optional fields include full and PostScript names, copyright, manufacturer, designer, designer URL, vendor URL, and description. $metadata->format identifies the loaded file container.

Read weight and style for matching

Continue the script with:

<?php

$descriptor = $font->descriptor();

printf(
    "Weight: %s, style: %s, stretch: %s\n",
    $descriptor->weight->css(),
    $descriptor->style->value,
    $descriptor->stretch->css(),
);

For a regular face, values typically describe weight 400, normal style, and 100% stretch. They are inferred from subfamily names and are used by font discovery; they do not implement the full CSS matching rules.

Read dimensions and glyph counts

$font->face() exposes unitsPerEm, ascender, descender, and glyphCount. Dimensions use font design units. To convert a value to a target size of 16 pixels, multiply it by 16 / $font->face()->unitsPerEm.

For collections, faceIndex identifies the selected face and faceCount reports the number of faces. tables lists OpenType table tags; it does not expose raw table bytes. See Glyphs for individual measurements.

Names and languages

Name selection keeps the first decodable record for each field rather than selecting by language. Non-ASCII legacy Mac Roman names may not be transcoded correctly. Applications needing localized names should treat these fields as best available values.