Sample Rails settings to use custom fonts in ImageMagick on Heroku

If you use ImageMagick and output text in images, you probably want to use custom fonts. This repo contains sample code that I use to manage fonts, test them with ImageMagick locally on my Mac, and use them in production on Heroku.

To add a new font:

1 Save the font (.ttf or .otf) in .fonts/

2 Run rake fonts:refresh to update your rails app configuration

3 Verify that your fonts are listed on the output of #2

Fonts installed in .fonts/ should be automatically detected by ImageMagick running on Heroku. If you aren't running Heroku, ymmv.

To test your new font locally (on a Mac)

To test fonts on your local machine, ImageMagick needs to know about our installed fonts.

1 Run rake fonts:mac_install . This sets up configurations in the ~/.magick/ folder for the current user, which are read by ImageMagick.

2 Ensure our fonts are listed in the output of #1

3 restart your Rails server

To create pretty pictures with text

I use the rmagick gem, which provides a nicer interface on top of ImageMagick.

require 'rmagick'
include Magick

image_specs = Magick::Image.read("caption:I am pink") do
  self.size = "800x600"
  self.colorspace = RGBColorspace
  self.background_color = "Transparent"
  self.gravity = Magick::CenterGravity
  self.depth = 8
  self.format = 'PNG'
  self.fill = '#ff72ee'
  self.font = 'GotischWeissUNZ1AI'
end.first
image_specs.write 'i-am-pink.png'

Notes:

This repo is being provided for educational purposes only and will not be maintained.

The included perl script is run by the rake task. It is sourced directly from ImageMagick at https://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/scripts/imagick_type_gen. It is strongly recommended that use that script as is, and obtain the latest version from that URL instead of this repo.

The included sample font (Gotisch Weiss) is licensed under the SIL [Open Font License](Open\ Font\ License.txt).