Selecting fonts from lists is a pain when you cant visualize how they'll look. Thats why I wrote a Python script using Pillow to auto-generate font previews.
# we're importing the needed libraries
import json
import requests
from PIL import Image, ImageDraw, ImageFont
from io import BytesIO
import os
# open fonts.json file to load fonts
with open('fonts.json') as f:
fonts = json.load(f)
# set directory for font previews
outdir = './font_previews'
# creates previews directory if it doesn't exist
os.makedirs(outdir, exist_ok=True)
# for each font in the fonts list, it will attempt the following:
for idx, font in enumerate(fonts):
try:
# downloads the font file from the URL provided in the font list
response = requests.get(font['url'])
# create a bytesIO object with downloaded font. This object behaves like a file object.
font_file = BytesIO(response.content)
# if the response from the server is not successful (status code 200),
# it will print a message and will skip the rest of the loop for the current font
if response.status_code != 200:
print(f"Skipping font {font['postscript_name']} due to unsuccessful download from {font['url']}.")
continue
# creates a new image with white background
img = Image.new('RGB', (500, 200), color='white')
# we can now do drawing operations on this opened image
draw = ImageDraw.Draw(img)
# loads the downloaded font file to be later used on the image
loadfont = ImageFont.truetype(font_file, 36)
# calculates size in pixels of the font family string
left, upper, right, lower = draw.textbbox((0, 0), font['family'], font=loadfont)
w, h = right - left, lower - upper
# calculates the center position in the image for our string to be placed
text_pos = ((img.width - w) / 2, (img.height - h) / 2)
# places the text (the font family string) at the calculated position
draw.text(text_pos, font['family'], fill='black', font=loadfont)
# sets the output filename
outfile = os.path.join(outdir, font['postscript_name'] + '.png')
# and saves the image in a PNG format
img.save(outfile)
# notifies by printing
print(f"Saved {outfile}")
except Exception as e:
# handles exceptions during font handling, notifies about the error.
print(f"An error occurred with font {font['postscript_name']}: {e}")
Read the full article here: https://www.seeratawan.me/blog/generating-font-previews-with-python-pillow-for-enhanced-ux/
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