The harfbuzz-raku project is focused on Raku binding to the HarfBuzz
library and its functionality. In particular
- Text Shaping - The selection and positioning of glyphs to display text
- Font Subsetting - Reduction of a font to the set of used glyphs, e.g. for embedding in a PDF or for use as a web-page font.
The minimum supported version of harfbuzz is 3.0.0 for HarfBuzz::Subset, or 2.7.4 for other Raku HarfBuzz modules.
harbuzz 3.0.0+ is packaged on Debian 12+. Earlier Debian versions and other platforms may need to build from source.
$ cat /etc/debian_version # 12.0 or better
$ sudo apt install libharfbuzz-dev
To build from source:
wget -q https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz/archive/8.1.1.tar.gz
tar xvzf 8.1.1.tar.gz
cd harfbuzz-8.1.1
./autogen.sh
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
The various HarfBuzz Raku modules can then be installed, using an appropriate module manager, such as zef. For example:
zef install HarfBuzz::Subset
Base HarfBuzz bindings. This distribution includes HarfBuzz::Shaper, which may be enough to perform basic shaping.
FreeType integration (via the Raku Font::FreeType module.
Note that HarfBuzz can load OpenType and TrueType format fonts directly. The FreeType integration most likely to be useful for other font formats, that can be loaded by Font::FreeType.
HarfBuzz/Cairo integration for glyph positioning and display.
Binding to HarfBuzz's font-subsetting capabilities.