Freetype Python provides bindings for the FreeType library. Only the high-level API is bound.
Documentation available at: http://freetype-py.readthedocs.org/en/latest/
From PyPI, recommended: pip install freetype-py. This will install the
library with a bundled FreeType binary, so you're ready to go on Windows,
macOS and Linux (all with 32 and 64 bit x86 architecture support).
Do note: if you specify the --no-binary paramater to pip, or use a different
architecture for which we don't pre-compile binaries, the package will default
to using an external FreeType library. Specify the environment variable
FREETYPEPY_BUNDLE_FT=1 before calling pip to compile a binary yourself.
If you don't want to or can't use the pre-built binaries, build FreeType
yourself: export FREETYPEPY_BUNDLE_FT=yesplease && pip install ..
This will download and compile FreeType with Harfbuzz support as specified in
setup-build-freetype.py. Set the environment variable PYTHON_ARCH to 32 or
64 to explicitly set an architecture, default is whatever your host machine
uses. On macOS, we will always build a universal 32 and 64 bit Intel binary.
Install just the pure Python library and let it find a system-wide installed FreeType at runtime.
Mac users
Freetype should be already installed on your system. If not, either install it
using `homebrew <http://brew.sh>`_ or compile it and place the library binary
file in '/usr/local/lib'.
Linux usersFreetype should be already installed on your system. If not, either install relevant package from your package manager or compile from sources and place the library binary file in '/usr/local/lib'.
Window users
There are no official Freetype binary releases available, but they offer some
links to precompiled Windows DLLs. Please see the `FreeType Downloads
<https://www.freetype.org/download.html>`_ page for links.
You can also compile the FreeType library from source yourself.
If you are using freetype-py on Windows with a 32-Bit version of Python, you
need the 32-Bit version of the Freetype binary. The same applies for a 64-Bit
version of Python.
Because of the way Windows searches for dll files, make sure the resulting
file is named 'freetype.dll' (and not something like Freetype245.dll).
Windows expects the library in one of the directories listed in the $PATH
environment variable. As it is not recommended to place the dll in a Windows
system folder, you can choose one of the following ways to solve this:
* Place library in a folder of your choice and edit the $PATH user
environment variable
* Place library in a folder of your choice and edit the $PATH system
environment variable
* For development purpose, place the library in the working directory of
the application
* Place the library in one of the existing directories listed in $PATH
To get a complete list of all the directories in the $PATH
environment variable (user and system), open a command promt and type
.. code::
echo %PATH%
Usage example
=============
.. code:: python
import freetype
face = freetype.Face("Vera.ttf")
face.set_char_size( 48*64 )
face.load_char('S')
bitmap = face.glyph.bitmap
print(bitmap.buffer)
Screenshots
===========
Screenshot below comes from the wordle.py example. No clever tricks here, just
brute force.
.. image:: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rougier/freetype-py/master/doc/_static/wordle.png
Screenshots below comes from the glyph-vector.py and glyph-vector-2.py
examples showing how to access a glyph outline information and use it to draw
the glyph. Rendering (with Bézier curves) is done using matplotlib.
.. image:: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rougier/freetype-py/master/doc/_static/S.png
.. image:: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rougier/freetype-py/master/doc/_static/G.png
Screenshot below comes from the glyph-color.py showing how to draw and combine
a glyph outline with the regular glyph.
.. image:: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rougier/freetype-py/master/doc/_static/outline.png
The screenshot below comes from the hello-world.py example showing how to draw
text in a bitmap (that has been zoomed in to show antialiasing).
.. image:: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rougier/freetype-py/master/doc/_static/hello-world.png
The screenshot below comes from the agg-trick.py example showing an
implementation of ideas from the `Texts Rasterization Exposures
<http://agg.sourceforge.net/antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/>`_ by
Maxim Shemarev.
.. image:: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rougier/freetype-py/master/doc/_static/agg-trick.png
Freezing apps
=============
Freetype implements a hook for PyInstaller to help simplify the freezing process
(it e.g. ensures that the freetype DLL is included). This hook requires
PyInstaller version 4+.