foma is a package that helps Emacs users downloading font files and switching between different fonts. Its name is simply FOnt MAnagement or Font Obsessed Man’s Artifact.

Installation

Currently, you can only install this package manually. Here is a sample installation script for elpaca:

(use-package foma
  :ensure (foma :type git :host github :repo "drcxd/foma" :files ("*.el")))

Configuration

Sample configuration and TL;DR usage

Here is a sample configuration:

(use-package foma
  :ensure (foma :type git :host github :repo "drcxd/foma" :files ("*.el"))
  :init
  (setq foma-default-sans "Noto Sans"
        foma-default-mono "Noto Sans Mono"
        foma-default-serif "Noto Serif"
        foma-default-chinese "LXGW WenKai"
        foma-use-serif t
        foma-google-fonts-api-key "" ;; your google fonts api key here
        foma-default-weight 'regular
        foma-default-height 140
        foma-fonts '(("Cascadia Code" zip "https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-code/releases/download/v2407.24/CascadiaCode-2407.24.zip")
                     ("LXGW WenKai" zip "https://github.com/lxgw/LxgwWenKai/releases/download/v1.510/lxgw-wenkai-v1.510.zip")
                     ("Noto Sans" google)
                     ("Noto Sans Mono" google)
                     ("Noto Sans Serif" google))
        foma-profiles '((:name "Cascadia" :mono "Cascadia Code")
                        (:name "IBM" :mono "IBM Plex Mono" :sans "IBM Plex Sans")
                        (:name "Noto"
                               :mono "Noto Sans Mono"
                               :sans "Noto Sans"
                               :serif "Noto Serif")))
  :config
  ;; NOTE: A warning is rasied when the fonts used in the profile is
  ;; not installed.
  (foma-apply-profile-by-day))

Use foma-download-all-fonts to download the font files specified in fomat-fonts and install them in your OS manually so that foma-apply-* can work properly.

Note that to download any fonts from Google Fonts, you need to provide a Google Fonts API key yourself! (Every one can obtain one for free.)

Detailed Explanation

foma provides two major functions: downloading fonts and switching between font profiles. To use foma, you have to describe the fonts which you want to download, and the font profiles which you want to switch between.

Fonts

In foma, a font definition is simply a list with at most three elements: the font’s name, its source type, and a URL if its source is a .zip file hosted somewhere on the Internet.

foma supports downloading fonts from .zip files that containing .ttf or .otf files. For such a font, its definition must be a three element list:

'("Cascadia Code" zip "https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-code/releases/download/v2407.24/CascadiaCode-2407.24.zip")

foma also supports downloading fonts from Google Fonts as long as you provide a Google Fonts API key through the variable foma-google-fonts-api-key. Anyone can apply one for free. For such a font, its definition is a two element list:

'("Noto Sans" google)

All fonts definitions are stored in foma-fonts. foma-download-all-fonts will download every font and extract .ttf and .otf files from the .zip file. The extraction depends on 7zip, please make sure it is installed on your system. They are stored in the directory specified by foma-fonts-dir, which is relative to user-emacs-directory.

Font Profiles

In foma, a font profile is a property list. The essential property of the list is :name, though you possibly would like to specify other properties:

• :mono: The name of mono space font of this profile.
• :sans: The name of sans font of this profile.
• :serif: The name of serif font of this profile.
• :chinese: The name of Chinese font of this profile.
• :use-serif: If non-nil, then use the serif font rather than sans for proportional text.
• :weight: The weight of the fonts of this profile.
• :height: The height (size) of the fonts of this profile.

Each property has a fallback default value foma-default-* which can be customized and accessed by the package when the property is missing in a profile.

All font profiles are stored in foma-profiles. You can apply one profile by its name with foma-apply-profile. The package also provides two different applying scheme: apply randomly (foma-apply-profile-rand) or by date (foma-apply-profile-by-day).

Personal Notes

This is a package derived from an aggregation of my personal code managing fonts in Emacs. I enjoy the aesthetics of fonts and there are lots of them around the world. To name a few, Cascadia Code, JetBrains Mono, Aporetic… I wanted to settle down with one of them, but I found that even the fonts I appreciated the most would make me feel exhaustive after seeing them months after months. Thus, the idea of quickly switching different fonts come to my mind. In fact, there is a similar package out there, the Fontaine by Protesilaos. However, its vision is a little different from my own. It features customizing different faces so that you can use different fonts for code, text, mode line, header line, etc.. Though it does provide means to switch between different profiles, but that is not its focus. Using certain fonts persistently for a longer time is still implicitly implied by that package.