Custom Fonts
A custom font can be specified for any series in the series YAML file. These customization options are not necessarily applied by all card types - i.e. Star Wars cards don't permit customizing the font at all.
It is very unlikely that a given font will require all customization options, but an example specification of all options is below:
series:
Breaking Bad:
year: 2008
font:
validate: true
color: "#ABCD00"
size: 110%
file: ./fonts/BreakingBad.ttf
case: lower
replacements:
á: a
é: e
vertical_shift: -10
interline_spacing: 25
kerning: 90%
stroke_width: 70%Below is a table of all the current options/attributes that can be set for a specific font.
| Name | YAML Attribute | Allowed Values | Default Value | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Font Validation | validate |
Boolean (true or false) |
Top-level font validation | ❌ |
| Font Color | color |
A valid ImageMagick color | This series' card type's TITLE_COLOR
|
❌ |
| Font Size | size |
Any positive number, formatted as value%
|
100% |
❌ |
| Font File | file |
A font file | This series' card type's TITLE_FONT
|
❌ |
| Font Case | case |
Either source, upper, lower, or title
|
This series' card type's DEFAULT_FONT_CASE
|
❌ |
| Font Replacements | replacements |
A mapping of character(s) to text | This series' card type's FONT_REPLACEMENTS
|
❌ |
| Font Vertical Shift | vertical_shift |
Title text vertical offset | 0 | ❌ |
| Font Interline Spacing | interline_spacing |
Title text interline spacing offset | 0 | ❌ |
| Font Kerning | kerning |
Any number, formatted as value%
|
100% |
❌ |
| Font Stroke Width | stroke_width |
Any number, formatted as value%
|
100% |
❌ |
Whether to validate that this font has all the necessary characters to create a title card for this series. This is described in detail below.
Custom font color. Must be a valid ImageMagick color.
How to scale the font size. Must be given as a percentage, with no change (the default value) being 100%.
Font file to use. If unspecified, the default font file for the card type is used.
NOTE: This file can be specified without an extension, and the Maker will "look" for any matching files. For example, for the font file of
some_font.ttf, specifyingfile: some_fontis completely valid if there is only one file that also starts withsome_font.
What 'case' to apply to the episode title text - i.e. uppercase, lowercase, etc.. Below are examples of each supported case:
In the following examples, an episode title of "example OF AN Episode title" is used
| Value | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
source |
As-is | example OF AN Episode title |
upper |
Uppercase | EXAMPLE OF AN EPISODE TITLE |
lower |
Lowercase | example of an episode title |
title |
Titlecase | Example of an Episode Title |
blank |
Empty | |
Not all fonts are created equal, and in the wide-range of episode titles that exist, there are some characters that are not supported by a given font. If left un-replaced, passing an unsupported character to the Maker will result in a blank space ( ), which is not always desirable.
This attribute can be used to specify any number of characters to replace in the series' episode titles. For example, if a given font does not have the characters of é, ü, or …, a reasonable replacement could be:
font:
replacements:
é: e
ü: u
…: ...All characters being replaced need to be singular, but they can be replaced with anything (see … in the above example).
How many pixels to vertically offset the title text by. A positive value moves the text up, negative down.
See use and motivation for this below.
How many pixels to offset the interline spacing between lines of title text. A positive value adds spacing between lines, negative decreases spacing.
This shouldn't be necessary if using a card's default font. However, some fonts are poorly formatted and have text that extends below their bounding box. For example, the South Park font is poorly formatted - see:
Because this font has text that extends beyond it's bounding box, multi-line title text can overlap both itself and the card itself.
How much to scale the kerning (see example of kerning below) for letters of title text. A value greater than 100% will decrease the spacing between letters, while a value less than 100% will increase it. If the font you're specifying has very wonky spacing (or you just want to have some fun), a negative value can be specified to further adjust the kerning.
Below is a visual example of kerning:
How much to scale the stroke width (see example of what stroke refers to) for title text. In order to allow for title text to appear legible even on nearly white source images, all currently implemented card types implement a black stroke effect. However, some thin custom fonts can appear distorted if the default stroke width is used. A value greater than 100% will increase the stroke width, while a value less than 100% will decrease it.
Below is an example of the range/effect of adjusting the stroke width:
The Maker utilizes the fonttools library to check whether all characters of each episode title are contained before attempting to create the Title Card. If enabled, then any title card whose episode title has any missing characters is skipped. If disabled, invalid characters are replaced my ImageMagick with a (space). This can be enabled globally, or for each series.
All invalid characters for a given title card are logged under the log level, with the idea that any invalid characters are given a suitable font replacement. For example, if a given font does not have the ü character, then a replacement of ü -> u might be specified and applied.
NOTE: Only episode titles are validated, so if you use some really wacky characters in you custom season titles or episode format text, then it's possible the Maker will create cards despite these characters being missing.