Fonts, Styles & Weights

Understanding the relationship between font families, styles, and weights is fundamental to working with Fontist.

Font Family

A Font Family is a collection of related fonts that share a common design. When you ask Fontist to install "Open Sans", you're requesting a font family.

Open Sans (Family)
├── Open Sans Regular
├── Open Sans Bold
├── Open Sans Italic
└── Open Sans Bold Italic

In Fontist

# Install a font family
fontist install "Open Sans"

# List fonts in a family
fontist list "Open Sans"

In Fontisan

Fontisan processes entire font families, providing:

• Format conversion for all styles
• Subsetting across the family
• Validation of family consistency

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Font Style

A Font Style is a specific variation within a font family, typically defined by weight and italic/roman distinction.

Common Styles

Style	Weight	Italic
Regular (Roman)	400	No
Italic	400	Yes
Bold	700	No
Bold Italic	700	Yes
Light	300	No
Medium	500	No
Black	900	No

Style Naming Conventions

Fonts use various naming conventions:

Full Name:      "Open Sans Bold Italic"
Family Name:    "Open Sans"
Style:          "Bold Italic"
PostScript Name: "OpenSans-BoldItalic"

In Fontist

# Install specific styles (via manifest)
fontist manifest-install fonts.yml

# fonts.yml
Open Sans:
  - Bold
  - Italic

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Font Weight

Font Weight is a numeric value representing the thickness of characters. The CSS/OpenType standard defines 9 weight values:

Value	Name	Common Use
100	Thin	Headlines
200	Extra Light	Display
300	Light	Body text (large)
400	Regular/Normal	Body text
500	Medium	Emphasis
600	Semi Bold	Subheadings
700	Bold	Strong emphasis
800	Extra Bold	Headlines
900	Black	Display

Weight in Fontist Manifests

# Request by style name
Roboto:
  - Bold      # Weight 700
  - Medium    # Weight 500

# Fontist returns paths to these specific weights

Weight vs Variable Fonts

With static fonts, each weight is a separate file:

Roboto-Regular.ttf    (weight 400)
Roboto-Medium.ttf     (weight 500)
Roboto-Bold.ttf       (weight 700)

With variable fonts, weight becomes a continuous axis:

# Variable font with weight axis 100-900
RobotoFlex-VF.ttf
  └── wght axis: 100 → 900 (any value)

See Variable Fonts for more details.

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Finding Font Names

To use a font with Fontist, you need to know its name:

# Search for a font
fontist list "Segoe"

# Check if a font is installed
fontist status "Open Sans"

Name Matching

Fontist matches names flexibly:

• "Open Sans" matches the family
• "Open Sans Bold" matches a specific style
• "OpenSans-Bold" matches PostScript name

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See Also

• Variable Fonts - Continuous weight and style axes
• Formats & Containers - File formats explained
• Requirements - Specifying fonts in manifests
• Manifests Guide - Working with font manifests