Question

Given a specific Unicode character, let’s say 嗎, how do I iterate over all fonts installed in the system and list the ones that contain a glyph for this character?

Answer 1

I’ve tested this on .NET 4.0, you need to add reference to PresentationCore to get the font & typeface types to work. Also check Fonts.GetFontFamilies overloads.

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Windows.Markup;
using System.Windows.Media;

class Program
{
    public static void Main(String[] args)
    {
        PrintFamiliesSupportingChar('a');
        Console.ReadLine();
        PrintFamiliesSupportingChar('â');
        Console.ReadLine();
        PrintFamiliesSupportingChar('嗎');
        Console.ReadLine();
    }

    private static void PrintFamiliesSupportingChar(char characterToCheck)
    {
        int count = 0;
        ICollection<FontFamily> fontFamilies = Fonts.GetFontFamilies(@"C:\Windows\Fonts\");
        ushort glyphIndex;
        int unicodeValue = Convert.ToUInt16(characterToCheck);
        GlyphTypeface glyph;
        string familyName;

        foreach (FontFamily family in fontFamilies)
        {
            var typefaces = family.GetTypefaces();
            foreach (Typeface typeface in typefaces)
            {
                typeface.TryGetGlyphTypeface(out glyph);
                if (glyph != null && glyph.CharacterToGlyphMap.TryGetValue(unicodeValue, out glyphIndex))
                {
                    family.FamilyNames.TryGetValue(XmlLanguage.GetLanguage("en-us"), out familyName);
                    Console.WriteLine(familyName + " supports ");
                    count++;
                    break;
                }
            }
        }
        Console.WriteLine();
        Console.WriteLine("Total {0} fonts support {1}", count, characterToCheck);
    }
}