Font Optimizer

Automate your web typography workflow with this Composer dev-tool.

Converts TTF fonts to optimized WOFF2 subsets using Python FontTools. Works with Laravel, Symfony, and vanilla PHP projects.

Prerequisites

Requires Python 3 and FontTools with Brotli support on your system.

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y python3 python3-fonttools python3-brotli
# macOS
brew install python3 && pip3 install fonttools brotli

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Installation

composer require --dev uxcode-fr/font-optimizer

After installation, Composer automatically checks that Python 3 and fontTools are available:

✓ font-optimizer: Python3 + fontTools detected.

If the check fails, you will see:

⚠ font-optimizer requires Python3 + fontTools to work.
Run: sudo apt install -y python3 python3-fonttools python3-brotli

The binary is available at vendor/bin/font-optimizer.

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Configuration

Configuration is loaded from config/font-optimizer.php if present, otherwise from the extra section of composer.json.

Option A — config/font-optimizer.php (Laravel, Symfony, vanilla PHP)

Laravel — publish the default config:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=font-optimizer-config

Other projects — create the file manually at the root of your project:

<?phpreturn [
'source' => 'resources/fonts', // directory containing .ttf source files'destination' => 'public/fonts', // directory where output files will be saved'unicodes' => 'U+0020-007F,U+00A0-00FF,U+0152-0153,U+20AC,U+2019,U+201C,U+201D', // Unicode ranges to subset'features' => 'kern,liga', // OpenType features to preserve'flavor' => 'woff2', // output format: woff2 or woff'name_ids' => '*', // name table IDs to keep (* = all)'hinting' => true, // keep hinting instructions
];

Option B — composer.jsonextra section (all projects)

{
"extra": {
"font-optimizer": {
"source": "resources/fonts",
"destination": "public/fonts",
"unicodes": "U+0020-007F,U+00A0-00FF,U+0152-0153,U+20AC,U+2019,U+201C,U+201D",
"features": "kern,liga",
"flavor": "woff2",
"name_ids": "*",
"hinting": true
}
}
}

Configuration options

Key	Description	Allowed values	Default
source	Directory containing your source .ttf files	Any path relative to the project root	resources/fonts
destination	Directory where output files will be saved	Any path relative to the project root	public/fonts
unicodes	Unicode ranges to include in the subset — use * to keep all glyphs (no subsetting)	Hex codepoints or ranges (U+0020-007F), comma-separated, or *	Basic Latin + Latin-1 + Œœ
features	OpenType layout features to preserve	See OpenType feature tags, comma-separated, or *	kern,liga
flavor	Output font format	woff2, woff	woff2
name_ids	Name table record IDs to keep	Comma-separated IDs (0–19), or *	*
hinting	Keep hinting instructions	true, false	true

OpenType feature tags

Tag	Description
kern	Kerning adjustments between glyph pairs
liga	Standard ligatures (fi, fl, ff…)
clig	Contextual ligatures
calt	Contextual alternates
ccmp	Glyph composition / decomposition
locl	Localized forms (language-specific glyph variants)
mark	Mark positioning (diacritic placement)
mkmk	Mark-to-mark positioning
case	Case-sensitive forms (punctuation for all-caps)
frac	Diagonal fractions (1/2, 3/4)
sups	Superscript
subs	Subscript
smcp	Small capitals
onum	Oldstyle figures
tnum	Tabular figures
zero	Slashed zero
ss01–ss20	Stylistic sets

Unicode range examples

Range	Characters
U+0020-007F	Basic Latin (ASCII printable)
U+00A0-00FF	Latin-1 Supplement (accented, ©, €…)
U+0100-017F	Latin Extended-A (Œœ, Šš, Žž…)
U+0400-04FF	Cyrillic
U+0370-03FF	Greek and Coptic
U+2000-206F	General Punctuation (—, …, ", "…)
U+20A0-20CF	Currency Symbols (€, £, ¥…)

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Usage

vendor/bin/font-optimizer

Output example:

🗜️ Optimizing Inter-Regular.ttf (312 KB)...
✓ inter-regular.woff2 (28 KB, -91%)
🗜️ Optimizing Inter-Bold.ttf (318 KB)...
✓ inter-bold.woff2 (30 KB, -91%)

Convert without subsetting

To convert TTF fonts to WOFF/WOFF2 without any subsetting (keep all glyphs), set unicodes to * and features to *:

return [
'source' => 'resources/fonts',
'destination' => 'public/fonts',
'unicodes' => '*', // keep all glyphs — no subsetting'features' => '*', // keep all OpenType features'flavor' => 'woff2',
];

Composer shortcut (optional)

Add to your composer.json:

{
"scripts": {
"fonts": "vendor/bin/font-optimizer"
}
}

Then run:

composer fonts

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Why use this?

• Performance — reduces font file size by up to 70–90% via WOFF2 and Unicode subsetting.
• Automation — no more manual CLI commands or online converters.
• Consistency — every developer on your team uses the same optimization settings.

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Articles

• PHP Composer Font Optimizer (EN)
• PHP Composer Font Optimizer (FR)

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Authors

• uxcode
• wixiweb
• arnolem

Contributing

Feel free to fork this repo and submit pull requests. For major changes, please open an issue first.

License: MIT