Using Fonts

Godot allows you to set specific fonts for different UI nodes.

There are three different places where you can setup font usage. The first is the theme editor. Choose the node you want to set the font for and select the font tab. The second is in the inspector for control nodes under Theme Overrides > Fonts. Lastly, in the inspector settings for themes under Default Font.

If no font override is specified anywhere, Open Sans SemiBold is used as the default project font.

Note

Since Godot 4.0, font sizes are no longer defined in the font itself but are instead defined in the node that uses the font. This is done in the Theme Overrides > Font Sizes section of the inspector.

This allows changing the font size without having to duplicate the font resource for every different font size.

There are 2 kinds of font files: dynamic (TTF/OTF/WOFF/WOFF2 formats) and bitmap (BMFont .fnt format or monospaced image). Dynamic fonts are the most commonly used option, as they can be resized and still look crisp at higher sizes. Thanks to their vector-based nature, they can also contain a lot more glyphs while keeping a reasonable file size compared to bitmap fonts. Dynamic fonts also support some advanced features that bitmap fonts cannot support, such as ligatures (several characters transforming into a single different design).

Tip

You can find freely licensed font files on websites such as Google Fonts and Font Library.

Fonts are covered by copyright. Double-check the license of a font before using it, as not all fonts allow commercial use without purchasing a license.

See also

You can see how fonts work in action using the BiDI and Font Features demo project.

Dynamic fonts

Godot supports the following dynamic font formats:

• TrueType Font or Collection (.ttf, .ttc)

• OpenType Font or Collection (.otf, .otc)

• Web Open Font Format 1 (.woff)

• Web Open Font Format 2 (.woff2, since Godot 3.5)

While .woff and especially .woff2 tend to result in smaller file sizes, there is no universally "better" font format. In most situations, it's recommended to use the font format that was shipped on the font developer's website.

Bitmap fonts

Godot supports the BMFont (.fnt) bitmap font format. This is a format created by the BMFont program. Many BMFont-compatible programs also exist, like BMGlyph.

Alternatively, you can import any image to be used as a bitmap font. This is only supported for monospaced fonts (fonts where each character has the same width). To do so, select the image in the FileSystem dock, go to the Import dock, change its import type to Font Data (Monospace Image Font) then click Reimport:

Changing import type to Font Data (Monospace Image Font)

The font's character set layout can be in any order, but orders that match standard Unicode are recommended as they'll require far less configuration to import. For example, the bitmap font below contains ASCII characters and follows standard ASCII ordering:

Credit: LibreQuake (scaled and cropped to exclude extended range)

The following import options can be used to import the above font image successfully:

Import options to use for the above example font

The Character Ranges option is an array that maps each position on the image (in tile coordinates, not pixels). The font atlas is traversed from left to right and top to bottom. Characters can be specified with decimal numbers (127), hexadecimal numbers (0x007f) or between single quotes ('~'). Ranges can be specified with a hyphen between characters.

For instance, 0-127 (or 0x0000-0x007f) denotes the full ASCII range. As another example, ' '-'~' is equivalent to 32-127 and denotes the range of printable (visible) ASCII characters.

Make sure the Character Ranges option doesn't exceed the number of Columns × Rows defined. Otherwise, the font will fail to import.

If your font image contains margins not used for font glyphs (such as attribution information), try adjusting Image Margin. This is a margin applied only once around the whole image.

If your font image contains guides (in the form of lines between glyphs) or if spacing between characters appears incorrect, try adjusting Character Margin. This margin is applied for every imported glyph.

Loading a font file

To load a font file (dynamic or bitmap), use the resource dropdown's Quick Load or Load option next to a font property, then navigate to the font file in question:

Loading a font file

You can also drag-and-drop a font file from the FileSystem dock to the inspector property that accepts a Font resource.

Warning

In Godot 4.0 and later, texture filter and repeat properties are defined in the location where the texture is used, rather than on the texture itself. This also applies to fonts (both dynamic fonts and bitmap fonts).

Fonts that have a pixel art appearance should have bilinear filtering disabled by changing the Rendering > Textures > Canvas Textures > Default Texture Filter project setting to Nearest.

The font size must also be an integer multiple of the design size (which varies on a per-font basis), and the Control node using the font must be scaled by an integer multiple as well. Otherwise, the font may look blurry. Font sizes in Godot are specified in pixels (px), not points (pt). Keep this in mind when comparing font sizes across different software.

The texture filter mode can also be set on individual nodes that inherit from CanvasItem by setting CanvasItem.texture_filter.

Advanced font features

Antialiasing

You can adjust how the font should be smoothed out when rendering by adjusting antialiasing and hinting. These are different properties, with different use cases.

Antialiasing controls how glyph edges should be smoothed out when rasterizing the font. The default antialiasing method (Grayscale) works well on every display technology. However, at small sizes, grayscale antialiasing may result in fonts looking blurry.

The antialiasing sharpness can be improved by using LCD subpixel optimization, which exploits the subpixel patterns of most LCD displays by offsetting the font antialiasing on a per-channel basis (red/green/blue). The downside is that this can introduce "fringing" on edges, especially on display technologies that don't use standard RGB subpixels (such as OLED displays).

In most games, it's recommended to stick to the default Grayscale antialiasing. For non-game applications, LCD subpixel optimization is worth exploring.

From top to bottom: Disabled, Grayscale, LCD Subpixel (RGB)

Note

Antialiasing cannot be changed on MSDF-rendered fonts – these are always rendered with grayscale antialiasing.

Hinting

Hinting controls how aggressively glyph edges should be snapped to pixels when rasterizing the font. None results in the smoothest appearance, which can make the font look blurry at small sizes. Light (default) is sharper by snapping glyph edges to pixels on the Y axis only, while Full is even sharper by snapping glyph edges to pixels on both X and Y axes. Depending on personal preference, you may prefer using one hinting mode over the other.

From top to bottom: None, Light, Full hinting

Note

If changing the hinting mode has no visible effect after clicking Reimport, it's usually because the font doesn't include hinting instructions. This can be resolved by looking for a version of the font file that includes hinting instructions, or enabling Force Autohinter in the Import dock. This will use FreeType's autohinter to automatically add hinting instructions to the imported font.

Subpixel positioning

Subpixel positioning can be adjusted. This is a FreeType feature that allows glyphs to be rendered more closely to their intended form. The default setting of Auto automatically enables subpixel positioning at small sizes, but disables it at large font sizes to improve rasterization performance.

You can force the subpixel positioning mode to Disabled, One half of a pixel or One quarter of a pixel. One quarter of a pixel provides the best quality, at the cost of longer rasterization times.

Changing antialiasing, hinting and subpixel positioning has the most visible effect at smaller font sizes.

Warning

Fonts that have a pixel art appearance should have their subpixel positioning mode set to Disabled. Otherwise, the font may appear to have uneven pixel sizes.

This step is not required for bitmap fonts, as subpixel positioning is only relevant for dynamic fonts (which are usually made of vector elements).

Mipmaps

By default, fonts do not have mipmaps generated to reduce memory usage and speed up rasterization. However, this can cause downscaled fonts to become grainy. This can be especially noticeable with 3D text that doesn't have Fixed Size enabled. This can also occur when displaying text with a traditional rasterized (non-