# Guidelines on packaging fonts

**URL:** https://discourse.nixos.org/t/guidelines-on-packaging-fonts/7683
**Category:** Documentation
**Created:** [June 15, 2020, 6:35pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/guidelines-on-packaging-fonts/7683 "2020-06-15T18:35:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 2

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### Author: ![timokau](https://discourse.nixos.org/user_avatar/discourse.nixos.org/timokau/32/40_2.png) [@timokau](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/timokau)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2020, 7:32pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/guidelines-on-packaging-fonts/7683/2 "2020-06-15T19:32:32Z")

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I don’t know much about fonts, so I’ll only reply to general things I know answers to / have opinions on.

> [@Thra11](#):
>
> Having recently tried to package a font for the first time, I found myself with many questions and, despite looking in the manual, no answers.
> 
> - Should font variants be packaged individually or together (common to have serif and sans versions, as in this PR) (Perhaps they should even be grouped by foundry?)
> - Where multiple formats are available (e.g. otf, ttf, woff), should we choose a format or package all of them? If the latter, should they all be in a single package? or separated into fontname-ttf, fontname-otf, etc.?
> - What should the package name be? Just the font name? fontname-font? fontname-tff?
> - Any guidelines on what makes a font a good candidate for inclusion in nixpkgs. Only a tiny percentage of fonts are packaged at the moment, but I assume we don’t want to package every font we can find.

There are no clear guidelines, same as for package inclusion. The defacto guideline is: At least one person (you) cares enough about it to package it and let the PR be nitpicked until a reviewer is happy. Bonus points if there is _some_ indication of popularity (like a couple of stars on github or whatever the font equivalent is).

> [@Thra11](#):
>
> - Whether it’s ok to not have a version, given that many fonts don’t publish a version number.

You should use whatever upstream uses to differentiate the different versions of the fonts. If they do not use anything, use a date as the version (`version = "2020-06-15";` if it was last changed on 2020-06-15).

> [@Thra11](#):
>
> @puzzlewolf also kindly brought to my attention that despite many of the existing font packages just using `fetchzip`, it is preferable to use `mkDerivation` (with fetchzip for the src inside it if necessary).

👍

> [@Thra11](#):
>
> I propose adding a section to the nixpkgs manual detailing how to package fonts in nixpkgs. I’m happy to try and write the section myself if no-one else wants to, but I will first need to know the right answers.

Thats a good idea! I suggest you just start writing whatever you think is best. I have found that the best way to move forward in open source projects is just getting started on something. People will then come and nitpick it / provide suggestions. If you want to resolve all open questions first, you’ll probably never get started.

Long story short: Write the manual entry, post it here, rely on [xkcd: Duty Calls](https://xkcd.com/386/). If nobody complains, your opinion is now fact 😉 It can always be changed in the future.

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