---

CTFontCollection Reference

Overview

The CTFontCollection opaque type represents a font collection, that is, a group of font descriptors taken together as a single object.

Font collections provide the capabilities of font enumeration, access to global and custom font collections, and access to the font descriptors comprising the collection.

Functions by Task

Creating Font Collections

• CTFontCollectionCreateFromAvailableFonts
• CTFontCollectionCreateWithFontDescriptors
• CTFontCollectionCreateCopyWithFontDescriptors

Getting Font Descriptors

• CTFontCollectionCreateMatchingFontDescriptors
• CTFontCollectionCreateMatchingFontDescriptorsSortedWithCallback

Getting the Type Identifier

• CTFontCollectionGetTypeID

Functions

CTFontCollectionCreateCopyWithFontDescriptors

Returns a copy of the original collection augmented with the given new font descriptors.

CTFontCollectionRef CTFontCollectionCreateCopyWithFontDescriptors (
   CTFontCollectionRef original,
   CFArrayRef descriptors,
   CFDictionaryRef options
);

Parameters

original

The original font collection reference.

descriptors

An array of font descriptors to augment those of the original collection.

options

The options dictionary. For possible values, see “Constants.”

Return Value

A copy of the original font collection augmented by the new font descriptors and options.

Discussion

The new font descriptors are merged with the existing descriptors to create a single set.

Availability

• Available in Mac OS X v10.5 and later.

Declared In

CTFontCollection.h

CTFontCollectionCreateFromAvailableFonts

Returns a new font collection containing all available fonts.

CTFontCollectionRef CTFontCollectionCreateFromAvailableFonts (
   CFDictionaryRef options
);

Parameters

options

The options dictionary. For possible values, see “Constants.”

Return Value

A new collection containing all fonts available to the current application.

Availability

• Available in Mac OS X v10.5 and later.

Declared In

CTFontCollection.h

CTFontCollectionCreateMatchingFontDescriptors

Returns an array of font descriptors matching the collection.

CFArrayRef CTFontCollectionCreateMatchingFontDescriptors (
   CTFontCollectionRef collection
);

Parameters

collection

The font collection reference.

Return Value

A retained reference to an array of normalized font descriptors matching the collection definition.

Availability

• Available in Mac OS X v10.5 and later.

Declared In

CTFontCollection.h

CTFontCollectionCreateMatchingFontDescriptorsSortedWithCallback

Returns the array of matching font descriptors sorted with the callback function.

CFArrayRef CTFontCollectionCreateMatchingFontDescriptorsSortedWithCallback (
   CTFontCollectionRef collection,
   CTFontCollectionSortDescriptorsCallback sortCallback,
   void *refCon
);

Parameters

collection

The collection reference.

sortCallback

The sorting callback function that defines the sort order.

refCon

Pointer to client data define context for the callback.

Return Value

An array of font descriptors matching the criteria of the collection sorted by the results of the sorting callback function.

Availability

• Available in Mac OS X v10.5 and later.

Declared In

CTFontCollection.h

CTFontCollectionCreateWithFontDescriptors

Returns a new font collection based on the given array of font descriptors.

CTFontCollectionRef CTFontCollectionCreateWithFontDescriptors (
   CFArrayRef descriptors,
   CFDictionaryRef options
);

Parameters

descriptors

An array of font descriptors.

options

The options dictionary. For possible values, see “Constants.”

Return Value

A new font collection based on the provided font descriptors.

Discussion

The contents of the returned collection are defined by matching the provided descriptors against all available font descriptors.

Availability

• Available in Mac OS X v10.5 and later.

Declared In

CTFontCollection.h

CTFontCollectionGetTypeID

Returns the type identifier for Core Text font collection references.

CFTypeID CTFontCollectionGetTypeID (
   void
);

Return Value

The identifier for the opaque type CTFontCollection.

Availability

• Available in Mac OS X v10.5 and later.

Declared In

CTFontCollection.h

Data Types

CTFontCollectionRef

A reference to a font collection.

typedef const struct __CTFontCollection * CTFontCollectionRef;

Availability

• Available in Mac OS X v10.5 and later.

Declared In

CTFontCollection.h

CTFontCollectionSortDescriptorsCallback

The collection sorting callback.

typedef CFComparisonResult (*CTFontCollectionSortDescriptorsCallback)(CTFontDescriptorRef first, CTFontDescriptorRef second, void *refCon);

Discussion

This callback can be specified to obtain the matching font descriptors of a collection in sorted order. The callback function should return the comparison result of the first descriptor to the second descriptor.

Declared In

CTFontCollection.h

Constants

kCTFontCollectionRemoveDuplicatesOption

An option key to specify filtering of duplicates.

const CFStringRef kCTFontCollectionRemoveDuplicatesOption;

Constants

kCTFontCollectionRemoveDuplicatesOption

Option key to specify filtering of duplicates.

Available in Mac OS X v10.5 and later.

Declared in CTFontCollection.h.

Discussion

Specify this option key in the options dictionary with a nonzero value to enable automatic filtering of duplicate font descriptors.

Declared In

CTFontCollection.h

---