---
author: ''
category: ''
date: 2009/09/30 00:07
description: ''
link: ''
priority: ''
slug: BB838
tags: programming, python
title: Dear Lazyweb, what's the pythonic cross-platform fc-match?
type: text
updated: 2009/09/30 00:07
url_type: ''
---
Here's what fc-match does::

  $ fc-match "Droid Sans"
  DroidSans.ttf: "Droid Sans" "Regular"

Or even::

  $ fc-match "Droid Sans" -v | grep file:
        file: "/usr/share/fonts/TTF/DroidSans.ttf"

So, how does one do that, going from a font family name or font name to a font *file*, where there's no fontconfig?

I found code for this in matplotlib's font_manager_ module but it looks hard to untangle, and requiring matplotlib is a bit over the top.

If there's no portable solution, I would be happy enough with three standalone solutions instead, and promise to publish an abstraction layer over them ;-)

So, dear windows and mac pythonistas, any pointers?

.. _font_manager: http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/api/font_manager_api.html