Python PIL: font weight and style

Question

On my computer I have only one file for Ubuntu Condensed font, it seems. Namely:

/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ubuntu-font-family/Ubuntu-C.ttf

However, in LibreOffice I can make this font bold and italic:

On Ubuntu font tester web page I can also set different font weights (namely, regular and bold) and different font styles (namely, normal and italic) for the Ubuntu Condensed family. In CSS this might translate to:

/* CSS for bold and italic Ubuntu Condensed font */
font-family: Ubuntu Condensed;
font-style: italic;
font-weight: 700;

Or:

/* CSS for regular and normal Ubuntu Condensed font */
font-family: Ubuntu Condensed;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: 400;

However, when it comes to Python's PIL/Pillow, I couldn't find any working option in ImageFont that would modify the font's style and/or weight other than load different font files with ImageFont.truetype() function.

For the "regular" Ubuntu font (not Condensed) I could load one of the four separate files to get normal, bold, italic and bold+italic styles in Python:

/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ubuntu-font-family/Ubuntu-R.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ubuntu-font-family/Ubuntu-RI.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ubuntu-font-family/Ubuntu-B.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ubuntu-font-family/Ubuntu-BI.ttf

But not for Ubuntu Condensed.

So the question is, is it possible to draw an image with bold and/or italic Ubuntu Condensed font in PIL/Pillow? Or is it possible, at least, to generate four Ubuntu Condensed files, so that it can be used like the Ubuntu font from Python?

Have you already tried the ImageFont module? It has load() and TrueType() functions that might be useful here. (Edit: here's the documentation!) — ladygremlin
@ladygremlin, I probably did. But I still don't see how to provide one file Ubuntu-C.ttf for Ubuntu Condensed and then choose style that I want (like, italic or normal). There seems to be no options for this. — Andriy Makukha

Friedrich Friedrich · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-19T19:49:33

You can select the font-variant you want using the method set_variation_by_name.

In order to get all the variants use the method get_variation_names which should give you a list of names.

>>> from PIL import ImageFont
>>> 
>>> font = ImageFont.truetype(...)
>>> font.get_variation_names()
[b'Normal', b'Bold', b'Italic', b'Bold, Italic']
>>> font.set_variation_by_name('Italic')

This should give you the desired font variant.

Python PIL: font weight and style

1 Answers