Fonts to be used with LED Matrix Clocks and other LED Matrix projects
These fonts are designed with LED Matrix Clocks in mind, especially a unit that uses EspHoMaTriXv2 or EspHome-Led-PixelClock. They are BDF and TTF Fonts, so they can be directly implemented with ESPHome (and perhaps Arduino).
Because these are bitmap fonts, the size of these fonts is pixel-fixed. They are not resizable. This is a good thing.
Most characters will be 3 pixels wide, but certain characters like G and M and & are wider. Punctuation characters are generally 1 or 2 pixels wide. All characters have 1 empty column on the right side, except the space which is exactly 2 pixels, certain unicode hyphens, and perhaps some Ognok-accented Latin characters.
I will continue adding characters to fonts as I have time. If you wish your language to be a priority or if you need some certain characters added, open an issue and I'll see what I can do.
Suitable when using the full height of an 8-row matrix
Everything big and blocky - looks great as a time screen
[ BDF Download | TTF Download ]
Below the baseline is usually reserved for tails but with the 'X' fonts, there is no baseline - everything takes up the full 8 rows of pixels
[ BDF Download | TTF Download ]
Most characters have been lightened and stylized
[ BDF Download | TTF Download ]
Lightened and stylized in 8 full rows - this one looks really good on info screens!
[ BDF Download | TTF Download ]
Suitable when using a weekday band underneath the time on an 8-row matrix
Please note a lot of accented characters in the non-X fonts were pushed below the baseline to make them look slightly less terrible.
Everything big and blocky
[ BDF Download | TTF Download ]
Big and blocky in 6 full rows
[ BDF Download | TTF Download ]
Lightened and stylized
[ BDF Download | TTF Download ]
Lightened and stylized in 6 full rows
[ BDF Download | TTF Download ]
To reduce the space that the font takes up during the compile please use code as such:
font:
- file: fonts/MatrixLight6.bdf
id: special_font
glyphs: |
! "#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz°
If using a TTF file, you must specify the font size:
font:
- file: fonts/MatrixLight8.ttf
id: default_font
glyphs: |
! "#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz°
size: 8
! "#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~
¡¢£¤¦§©ª«®°±²³´µ¶¥·¹º»¿ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖ×ØÙÚÛÜÝÞßàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõö÷øùúûüýþÿ
Because of the BDF-Pillow flaw (see below), I made a few "useless" characters in the Latin Extended-A look like something else. You can still use a BDF file if you use these special characters in the glyphs list and in Home Assistant.
¨¬¯¸¼½¾
| Character | Appears As |
|---|---|
¨ |
₿ Bitcoin |
¸ |
Ξ Ethereum |
¬ |
℃ Degree C |
¯ |
℉ Degree F |
¼ |
€ Euro |
½ |
₩ Won |
¾ |
₴ Hryvnia |
ĀāĂ㥹ĆćĈĉĊċČčĎďĐđĒēĔĕĖėĘęĚěĜĝĞğĠġĢģĤĥĦħĨĩĪīĬĭĮįİıIJijĴĵĶķĸĹĺĻļĽľĿŀŁłŃńŅņŇňʼnŊŋŌōŎŏŐőŒœŔŕŖŗŘřŚśŜŝŞşŠšŢţŤťŦŧŨũŪūŬŭŮůŰűŲųŴŵŶŷŸŹźŻżŽžſ
АаБбВвГ㥴ДдЕеЄєЖжЗзИиІіЇїЙйКкЛлМмНнОоПпРрСсТтУуФфХхЦцЧчШшЩщЬьЮюЯя
ΑΒΓΔΕΖΗΘΙΚΛΜΝΞΟΠΡΤΥΦΧΨΩΆΈΉΊΌΎΏΪΫαβγδεζηθικλμνξοπρςστυφχψωάέήίϊϋόύώ
Note these have not been eye-tested by an actual Greek person. Please let me know if they're okay!
Vietnamese uses these characters, already present in Basic Latin and Extended-A sets:
ABCDEGHIKLMNOPQRSTUVXYabcdeghiklmnopqrstuvxyÀÁÂÃÈÉÊÌÍÒÓÔÕÙÚÝàáâãèéêìíòóôõùúýĂăĐđĨĩŨũ
As well as these:
ƠơƯưẠạẢảẤấẦầẨẩẪẫẬậẮắẰằẲẳẴẵẶặẸẹẺẻẼẽẾếỀềỂểỄễỆệỈỉỊịỌọỎỏỐốỒồỔổỖỗỘộỚớỜờỞởỠỡỢợỤụỦủỨứỪừỬửỮữỰựỲỳỴỵỶỷỸỹ
Note these have not been eye-tested by an actual Vietnamese person. Please let me know if they're okay! A lot of characters in Chunky8 (and some in Light8) had to be pushed below the baseline to make the accent possible. The 8X fonts are probably okay. I do wonder if the vowels with horns or dots are actually legible (particulary the O's in positions 7896 to 7907).
Please note that these characters are much wider than the standard characters because tails, staffs, and curves are quite important to the IPA. They are mostly based on the Light8 style and are identical in all 8-series fonts.
The IPA mostly uses these characters:
ɐɑɒɓɔɕɖɗɘəɚɛɜɝɞɟɠɡɢɣɤɥɦɧɨɪɫɬɭɮɯɰɱɲɳɴɵɶɸɹɺɻɼɽɾɿʀʁʂʃʄʅʈʉʊʋʌʍʎʏʐʑʒʔʕʘʙʚʛʜʝʟʡʢ
If you're unable to display all characters, depending on your needs, you can try adding the obsolete characters:
ɩɷʆʇʓʖʗʞʠʣʤʥʦʧʨ
Possibly the disordered speech characters:
ʩʪʫʬʭ
And finally, the Additions for Sinology:
ʮʯ
오후전일월화수목금토요
一二三四五六天七八九十星期月上下午
Note that 上下午 are squished a bit to allow display of 上午 & 下午 more easily.
The regular space (as available on most keyboards) is 2 pixels wide. Here are some other available spaces.
| Space | Name | Unicode | Width |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Thin Space | U+2009 | 1 pixel |
|
En Space | U+2002 | 3 pixels |
|
Em Space | U+2003 | 4 pixels |
In case those spaces are no use to you (they're invisible and ESPHome will likely treat them as spaces), here are some other available spaces using the Unicode encircled number set.
⓪①②③④⑤⑥⑦⑧⑨⑩
| Space | Name | Unicode | Space Width |
|---|---|---|---|
⓪ |
Circled 0 | U+24EA | 0 pixels |
① |
Circled 1 | U+2460 | 1 pixel |
② |
Circled 2 | U+2461 | 2 pixels |
③ |
Circled 3 | U+2462 | 3 pixels |
④ |
Circled 4 | U+2463 | 4 pixels |
⑤ |
Circled 5 | U+2464 | 5 pixels |
⑥ |
Circled 6 | U+2465 | 6 pixels |
⑦ |
Circled 7 | U+2466 | 7 pixels |
⑧ |
Circled 8 | U+2467 | 8 pixels |
⑨ |
Circled 9 | U+2468 | 9 pixels |
⑩ |
Circled 10 | U+2469 | 10 pixels |
The regular hypen-minus (as available on most keyboards) is 3 pixels wide plus a space. Here are some other available punctuations.
‐–—―•
| Mark | Name | Unicode | Width |
|---|---|---|---|
‐ |
Hypen | U+2010 | 1 pixel wide, no space |
– |
En Hypen | U+2013 | 2 pixels wide + space |
— |
Em Hyphen | U+2014 | 4 pixels wide + space |
― |
Horizontal Bar | U+2015 | 4 pixels wide, no space |
• |
Bullet | U+2022 | 1 pixel wide + space |
₡₢₦₩₪₫€₭₮₱₲₴₵₸₹₺₼₽₾₿
℃℉
One of these characters may appear if the character you call for is unavailable.
| Appearance | Name | Unicode |
|---|---|---|
 |
Null | U+0000 |
 |
White Box | U+25A1 |
 |
Unknown Character | U+FFFD |
Note that adding them to the glyphs list in an ESPHome does not seem to help when trying to display an actually unknown character (my clock just paints a wide block) but here are the latter two anyways (null isn't usable this way):
□�
Any characters included in the glyphs list that are not actually in the font will cause ESPHome to error when compiling. Any character requested not included in the glyphs list should result in an error and/or a block or blank being displayed by your clock.
Also note that there is a limit of 256 characters that can be used. This is a hard limit set by Pillow, a python dependency that converts fonts to bitmaps usable by ESPHome. If your glyphs list is longer, any characters beyond that limit will simply not be displayed.
UnicodeEncodeError: 'latin-1' codec can't encode character '\u0416' in position 0: ordinal not in range(256)
This error has to do with the way that Pillow interprets a BDF font file as being in the Latin-1 codepage if the character list doesn't match what it expects. Since that part of Pillow is quite old, there seems to be no interest in fixing it to match UTF standards. So, if you wish to use Unicode characters (anything outside of Latin Basic and Extended-A), you must use a TTF file instead.
These TTF files are not usable by Windows, since they include only bitmaps. They are also not very useful when editing the font. So the BDF files will always be considered as master files.
When using EspHoMaTriX, check that this is in your yaml (edit as needed):
ehmtxv2:
default_font_id: default_font
default_font_yoffset: 6
special_font_id: special_font
special_font_yoffset: 8
Please note that yoffset can be tricky. You should use a number that corresponds with the baseline of the font. For these fonts, there is actually nothing below the font baseline; I've designed the fonts so the non-X fonts are actually raised 1 pixel above the baseline so the tails appear correctly.
If you wish a character set to be added, open an issue, make a request! Please keep your communication lines open because I'm not likely familiar with your language and I'll have questions!
Check out FontForge: https://fontforge.org/en-US/
Andrew J.Swan for huge help with Cyrillic characters.
Originally, I used Tom Thumb as a base. There may be still be some resemblance but that's just because there's only so much you can do with such limited pixels. Nevertheless, if you're interested in a 4x6 (3x5 useable) monospaced font you can click here.
Also, some inspiration for the Korean characters was borrowed from Dalmoori Font, a very nice Hangul pixel font.
The Chinese characters are almost 100% copied from Boutique Bitmap 7x7 Font, a Chinese pixel font and stretched a bit in the X-series.