This page describes how Meterian scans font files, which font formats are supported, and which metadata is collected, including name, version, license, and copyright attribution.
Meterian supports scanning font files to collect metadata useful for inventory, attribution, and compliance analysis.
The font scanner extracts metadata that is explicitly declared in the font files and does not attempt to infer usage rights beyond the available information.
The font scanner enables:
Detection of font files in projects
Collection of font name and version information
Extraction of explicit license and copyright attribution
Support for both modern and legacy font formats
Please note that additonal external tools are required for this functionality, so the use of the dockerized client, which includes them, is recommended. (otherwise, please consult the section "External tools" to use the thin client)
Enabling the Font Scanner
Font scanning is disabled by default.
To enable font collection, use the following option:
meterian --collect-fonts
It is generally recommended to enable only the font scanner when performing this analysis:
-meterian --collect-fonts-enabled-scanners=fonts
This limits the scan to font files only. Please note that the scanning is quite comples, it may require a sensible amount of time.
Supported Font Types
The following font formats are supported:
aaf
afm
bdf
cff
eot
fon
otb
otc
pcf
pfb
pfm
ttc
ttf
otf
woff
woff2
Both modern and legacy font formats are supported.
Collected Data
For each supported font file, the scanner attempts to collect the following information:
Field
Description
Name
Font family name or full font name
Version
Font version string
License
License text or license URL, if present
Copyright
Copyright notice or attribution if present
License information is collected only when it is explicitly embedded in the font metadata or associated structures.
Format Handling Notes
OpenType and TrueType Fonts
(ttf, otf, ttc, otc)
Metadata is extracted from standard OpenType tables, providing the most complete results.
WOFF and WOFF2
(woff, woff2)
Fonts are decompressed before metadata extraction and then processed as OpenType fonts.
Embedded OpenType
(eot)
Header metadata (such as name and version) is always collected.
When possible, the embedded font data is extracted to collect additional metadata.
Some EOT files use proprietary compression and may expose limited information.
Legacy Font Formats
(bdf, pcf, fon, pfb, pfm, afm, aaf)
Metadata availability depends on the format and embedded information. In some cases, only partial metadata can be collected.
External Tools (Thin Client)
When using the thin client, the following external tools are required for full font scanning support:
exiftool
woff2_decompress
eot2ttf
These tools must be available in the execution environment. You can for example install them on a Linux box using a similar set of commands:
When using the dockerized client, all required tools are already included.
Limitations
License and copyright data are collected only when explicitly present.
Some font formats expose limited metadata.
Proprietary compression schemes may prevent full metadata extraction.
