Using your own font#
The built-in font is Go Mono. To use another, set FontFamily in a tape, or pass -font to ntrecord render and ntrecord play. (ntrecord record has no -font flag; record a .cast and render it with the font you want.)
Set FontFamily "JetBrains Mono" # an installed family, by name
Set FontFamily ./fonts/MyMono.ttf # or a font filentrecord render session.cast -o session.gif -font "JetBrains Mono"By name or by file#
| Value | What happens |
|---|---|
Go Mono (or monospace) | The built-in font, with regular, bold, italic, and bold italic. |
| An installed family name | Matched ignoring case and spaces against the font’s family or full name. Bold and italic faces are picked from the family; a style it lacks uses the regular face. |
A .ttf, .otf, or .ttc path | That one file, used for every style, so bold and italic text will not look different. A .ttc collection uses its first face. |
A name is searched for in the standard macOS and Linux font folders: /Library/Fonts, /System/Library/Fonts, ~/Library/Fonts, /usr/share/fonts, /usr/local/share/fonts, ~/.fonts, ~/.local/share/fonts, and $XDG_DATA_HOME/fonts. Font files larger than 32 MiB are skipped in that search; a path can be up to 64 MiB.
Prefer a path when the tape must work on other machines, since an installed font may not exist there. Relative paths are taken from the directory you ran ntrecord in, not from the tape’s folder.
Check it before recording#
ntrecord validate demo.tape loads the font, so a wrong name or path is reported without recording anything:
demo.tape: font family "Nope Font" not found; install it, use a .ttf/.otf path, or Set FontFamily "Go Mono"Use a monospaced font. The grid is sized from the font, so the same Columns and Rows give a different picture size with a different font. To fix the picture’s size instead, use Width and Height (see How it looks).
Characters the font lacks#
Text the chosen font cannot draw is looked up in fallback fonts before a replacement mark is shown. Which fallbacks exist, and how to control them (including NTRECORD_FONT_PATH), is described in rendering. CJK and other scripts need a suitable font installed, or one you name here.