Typically, the production-ready font files will be made available under the Releases tab along with the source code for the font. Similarly, you can usually find and download the complete font family on GitHub for any Google Font since these are open-source fonts. This differs from the previous method in that it downloads the full, unoptimized font family in ttf (TrueType) format. In addition to assembling a link tag that you can include in your document’s head, Google Fonts also gives you the option of downloading all of the font files for that family straight from the site itself. Downloading the Full Font Family from Google Fonts or GitHub The final step is to copy-paste the declarations for your chosen charset(s) into your CSS and update the src property to point to your locally hosted font file(s) rather than Google’s server. ![]() For example: curl -L -o inter-regular.woff2 To download any of these files, you can use a command-line utility like wget or curl or even just navigate to the file directly via your browser. ![]() In this case, they’re hosted on Google’s dedicated resource domain for fonts,. Here’s what the one for latin looks like: /* latin */ /* other weights and charsets omitted for brevity */Įach ruleset specifies a src so the browser can locate those font files. If you navigate to this URL in your browser, the API will return a stylesheet with all the necessary declarations for your font. As I do this, the right sidebar assembles a link tag with query parameters to match the format required by the Google Fonts API: Suppose I visit Google Fonts, pick Inter as my font family, and select my desired font weights. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could download and self-host those very same font files without having to link to Google Fonts in the first place? Well, we actually can! When you link to Google Fonts, it already returns font files in woff2 format by default. Downloading woff2s Directly from Google’s Servers For example, the font Inter has some rendering issues on Mac with the version served by the app, whereas the version hosted by Google Fonts has already fixed those issues. This one of the easiest ways to download Google Fonts, but it does have a drawback: The app isn’t guaranteed to have all of the latest font file revisions, so you may run into some issues that the font’s designers have already patched elsewhere. ![]() The app also provides you with rulesets that you can copy-paste into your CSS. Head over to, search for your font, customize it to your liking, and download the files. I learned about this method from Sia Kiaramalegos in her article on Making Google Fonts Faster. I’ll also show you how to manually optimize and subset those font files using a CLI tool like glyphhanger.ĭownloading Any Google Font 1. Instead, I’d like to show you a few ways you can download Google Fonts as a first step. Many good articles have already been written on how to self-host fonts, so I won’t dive deep into all of the considerations. And in the unlikely event that Google Fonts ever goes down, your site won’t be impacted. Not only does this avoid exposing your users’ personal information to Google’s servers, but it’s also much faster than requesting fonts from the Google Fonts CDN. ![]() One way to avoid this problem entirely is to just self-host the Google Fonts you need. But this isn’t about what I think or whether the ruling is just-this is the new reality for German businesses and developers, and they’ll need to adapt accordingly. It’s unclear whether other European countries will follow suit, and there are certainly more invasive sites and platforms that don’t receive the same treatment. Whether or not you agree with the ruling, it has important implications because it means that German businesses may be unwittingly opening themselves up to lawsuits and fines if they’re linking to Google Fonts on their sites. On January 20, 2022, a Munich court ruled that linking to Google Fonts violates the GDPR in Germany because it allows any user’s IP address to be traced back to their physical address, which is considered personal data under the GDPR.
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