load a ttf font with the Windows API

Question

With CreateFont one can specify font name and a bunch of other properties. However, what if I have a font.ttf file, and I want that particular font to be loaded by windows? How do I specify that specific file to be used?

Answer 1

It's admittedly rather indirect, but you could utilize GDI interop with DWrite when running on Windows 7+.

#include <Windows.h>
#include <WindowsX.h>
#include <DWrite.h>

...

// Make the font file visible to GDI.
AddFontResourceEx(fontFileName, FR_PRIVATE, 0);
if (SUCCEEDED(GetLogFontFromFileName(fontFileName, &logFont)))
{
    logFont.lfHeight = -long(desiredPpem);
    HFONT hf = CreateFontIndirect(&logFont);
    HFONT oldFont = SelectFont(hdc, hf);
    ...
    // Do stuff...
    ...
    SelectFont(hdc, oldFont);
}
RemoveFontResource(fontFileName);

....

HRESULT GetLogFontFromFileName(_In_z_ wchar const* fontFileName, _Out_ LOGFONT* logFont)
{
    // DWrite objects
    ComPtr<IDWriteFactory> dwriteFactory;
    ComPtr<IDWriteFontFace> fontFace;
    ComPtr<IDWriteFontFile> fontFile;
    ComPtr<IDWriteGdiInterop> gdiInterop;

    // Set up our DWrite factory and interop interface.
    IFR(DWriteCreateFactory(
        DWRITE_FACTORY_TYPE_SHARED,
        __uuidof(IDWriteFactory),
        reinterpret_cast<IUnknown**>(&dwriteFactory)
        );
    IFR(g_dwriteFactory->GetGdiInterop(&gdiInterop));

    // Open the file and determine the font type.
    IFR(g_dwriteFactory->CreateFontFileReference(fontFileName, nullptr, &fontFile));
    BOOL isSupportedFontType = false;
    DWRITE_FONT_FILE_TYPE fontFileType;
    DWRITE_FONT_FACE_TYPE fontFaceType;
    UINT32 numberOfFaces = 0;
    IFR(fontFile->Analyze(&isSupportedFontType, &fontFileType, &fontFaceType, &numberOfFaces));

    if (!isSupportedFontType)
        return DWRITE_E_FILEFORMAT;

    // Set up a font face from the array of font files (just one)
    ComPtr<IDWriteFontFile> fontFileArray[] = {fontFile};
    IFR(g_dwriteFactory->CreateFontFace(
        fontFaceType,
        ARRAYSIZE(fontFileArray), // file count
        &fontFileArray[0], // or GetAddressOf if WRL ComPtr
        0, // faceIndex
        DWRITE_FONT_SIMULATIONS_NONE,
        &fontFace
        );

    // Get the necessary logical font information.
    IFR(gdiInterop->ConvertFontFaceToLOGFONT(fontFace, OUT logFont));

    return S_OK;
}

Where IFR is just a failure macro that returns on a FAILED HRESULT, and ComPtr is a helper smart pointer class (substitute with your own, or ATL CComPtr, WinRT ComPtr, VS2013 _com_ptr_t...).

Answer 2

I'm pretty sure you can't. All requests for fonts go through the font mapper, and it picks out the font file that comes the closest to meeting the specifications you've given. Though I'm not sure it even does in reality, it could at least theoretically use (for example) data from two entirely separate font files to create one logical font.

Answer 3

One possibility is to EnumFonts(), save the results. Then add your private font with AddFontResourceEx(), and EnumFonts() again, the difference is what you added. Note that TTF and bitmap fonts enumerate differently, but for this test, that shouldn't matter.

If you were using bitmap fonts, they could be easily parsed (.FNT and .FON). TTF you'd likely have to build (or borrow, as another commenter suggested FreeType) a parser to pull the "name" table out of the TTF file.

That seems like a lot of work for a font you're controlling or supplying with your app.

We use AddFontResourceEx() to add a private font, but since we control the font we're adding, we just hardcode the fontname passed to CreateFontIndirect() to match.

Answer 4

If you dont care about installing the font you can do so with AddFontResource then you can fetch the relationship between the physical .TTF and it logical/family name by looking at the mappings in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts.

I mentioned PrivateFontCollection in my comment because I thought you wanted to do this temporarily; you can load a TTF into a PFC with PrivateFontCollection::AddFontFile, fetch back the new FontFamily object from the collection & examime GetFamilyName. (I've done similar with the .net implementation of this but not the raw API)