Imagemagick fonts not found in OSX

Question

When trying to add annotations to images in ImageMagick, It failed with the following message:

convert: unable to read font `(null)' @ error/annotate.c/RenderFreetype...

How do I make Imagemagick find these fonts?

Answer 1

The easiest way to solve this issue is copying the font you need to a ~/ folder, or anywhere your script is, then give the direct path:

convert -font "~/MyFont.ttc"

Answer 2

Adopting Adam Matan's answer, here's how I got this to work with imagemagick 7+ on macOS 10.12+ installed with homebrew. (This also assumes you have perl installed.)

1. Download the perl script and save it to /usr/local/bin/imagick_type_gen

2. Make the script executable:

   • chmod +x /usr/local/bin/imagick_type_gen

3. Find the font path for imagemagick by running convert -list font | grep Path. This should return where imagemagick is looking for fonts. The Apple path for me was this:

   • /usr/local/Cellar/imagemagick/7.0.7-22/etc/ImageMagick-7/type-apple.xml

4. Run imagick_type_gen and direct the output to the path above:

   • imagick_type_gen > /usr/local/Cellar/imagemagick/7.0.7-22/etc/ImageMagick-7/type-apple.xml

5. Run convert -list font | less to see the font names imagemagick will use, e.g., some fonts will be labeled as GeorgiaB instead of Georgia Bold. (hit q to quit)

imagemagick should now see the fonts you have installed on the your system.

Answer 3

The solution that worked for me was given by Neville in this post:

1. Create an imagemagick configuration folder: mkdir ~/.magick
2. Save this Perl script as /tmp/script.pl
3. Make the script executable: chmod +x /tmp/script.pl
4. Run the script locally and redirect the output to the file type.xml in ~/.magick: /tmp/script.pl > ~/.magick/type.xml

This solved the fonts problem, while installing fondu, the imagemagick pkg file and some other tricks didn't.

Great! Now I can annotate some flickr cats with the image size and resolution (I want this for finding the optimal resolution for an app I'm working on).