Fonts

Graphviz draws the text in your graph, so the fonts are the ones on the computer that runs Graph Modeler. The app does not carry any fonts of its own. This page says how the app finds the fonts, what to do after you install one, and what happens to a font when you share the picture.

How the app finds the fonts

The Font list in the Designer shows the fonts installed on your computer that Graphviz can really draw, each with a picture of it drawn by Graphviz. It is made like this:

1. The system is asked which fonts are installed. The way depends on the operating system, and is described below.
2. Each font is tried out. Graphviz draws text with a name it does not know in a stand-in font, without saying so in the picture. So the app has Graphviz measure the same text in each font and in a font that does not exist, and a font that Graphviz could not load is left out. This is why a font you can see in a word processor may be missing from the list: it is not a font that Graphviz can use under that name.
3. The answer is kept. The list and the pictures are saved in the app's data folder and used again at the next start. They are made again when Graphviz is updated or the set of installed fonts changes.

The three fonts Graphviz knows without any help, Times-Roman, Helvetica and Courier, are offered even if the system does not list them. Times-Roman is what Graphviz uses when no font is named.

The list is made once each time the app starts, and when Graphviz is found again. After you install a font, close Graph Modeler and open it again.

A font that is not in the list

The Font box is also a text box. You can type any name, and the preview shows what Graphviz makes of it. If the preview looks like the default font, Graphviz did not find the font under that name, and the next sections are the place to look.

Type the name as the system knows the family, such as Bahnschrift or Segoe UI, and use the Bold and Italic buttons for the style. The app joins them to the name for you (Segoe UI Bold Italic). A style that is part of a font's name, such as Bahnschrift SemiBold, is a separate name in some systems and only a style of the family in others, so it may be offered or not. The picture in the list is the test.

A family whose name ends in a word that Graphviz takes for a style, such as Times New Roman, is written with a comma after it (Times New Roman,) so that Graphviz reads the whole of it as the name. The Designer does this for you when the font is chosen from the list.

Windows

The app asks Windows for the font families it has installed.

To add a font, open the font file (.ttf or .otf) and choose Install for all users, or copy it into the Fonts folder (C:\Windows\Fonts), which needs administrator rights. Then restart Graph Modeler.

Installing for all users is the dependable way. If the font is still not in the list after a restart, the name Windows shows for the family is the one to type.

Linux

Graphviz finds fonts through fontconfig, and so does the app: it asks fc-list for the families it knows. If fc-list is not installed, the app tries a short list of well-known font names and keeps the ones Graphviz can draw. Install the fontconfig package: Graphviz relies on it for fonts.

To add a font, copy the file into ~/.local/share/fonts for yourself, or into /usr/local/share/fonts for everyone on the computer. Then ask fontconfig to look again, and restart Graph Modeler:

fc-cache -f

To see whether fontconfig has it, and under what name, list the fonts and look for yours. The name to use is the family name it prints:

fc-list : family | sort -u | grep -i "part of the name"

macOS

The app asks fc-list first, as on Linux. Graphviz from Homebrew brings fontconfig with it. A program started from the Finder does not get the folders that Homebrew adds to a terminal, so fc-list is often not found. In that case the app reads the list from the system's own font report instead, which includes the fonts you have installed with Font Book. If that fails too, a short list of fonts that ship with macOS is offered, and the ones that are not installed are left out.

To add a font, open the font file and press Install Font in Font Book, or copy it into ~/Library/Fonts (for you) or /Library/Fonts (for everyone). Then restart Graph Modeler.

If a font you installed does not appear, or appears and is not drawn, tell Support what you did and what the Designer showed.

When you share the picture

How a font travels depends on the file you publish.

• PNG is a picture made up of dots, so it looks the same everywhere. The font only has to be installed on the computer that made it.
• SVG keeps the text as text, with the name of the font. The computer that opens the file draws the letters, so a font that you installed and the other person did not will be replaced by another one there, and the text may be wider or narrower than the boxes that Graphviz sized for yours. A font that most computers have, such as Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman or Courier New, is the safer choice for an SVG that goes to other people.
• The app writes bold and italic into an SVG in a way a browser understands. See the SVG tab.

If you must use a special font in an SVG, send the PNG along with it, or tell the people who open it which font to install.

Starting over

If the list looks wrong, close Graph Modeler and delete the fonts folder in the app's data folder. It is made again at the next start. The folder is named Graph Modeler, and is in:

System	Where
Windows	%APPDATA%\Graph Modeler\fonts
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/Graph Modeler/fonts
Linux	~/.config/Graph Modeler/fonts