APIs

Import Icons

Ready to reference icons? Here's a primer on Font Awesome icon naming and how to import from icon content packages.

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Before You Get Started

Make sure you already:

Referencing Icons

We recommend referencing icons in your HTML with a dedicated element you'll use only for icons. We find the <i> tag perfect for the job. That element will contain: 1) Font Awesome specific style prefix (e.g. fa-solid), and 2) the icon's name (prefixed with fa-) you want to display.

<i class="fa-solid fa-question-circle"></i> <!-- solid style of the question circle icon -->
<i class="fa-regular fa-question-circle"></i> <!-- regular style of the question circle icon -->
<i class="fa-light fa-question-circle"></i> <!-- light style of the question circle icon -->

<i class="fa-brands fa-facebook"></i>        <!-- facebook brand icon-->
<i class="fa-brands fa-facebook-f"></i>      <!-- facebook "f" brand icon-->

In Font Awesome 6, Font Awesome includes 6 different styles - Solid, Regular, Light, Thin, Duotone, and Brands. Here's a break down of each's use and availability.

Style Prefix Code Example Availability
Solid fa-solid <i class="fa-solid fa-flag"></i> Free
Regular fa-regular <i class="fa-regular fa-flag"></i> Pro only
Light fa-light <i class="fa-light fa-flag"></i> Pro only
Thin fa-thin <i class="fa-thin fa-flag"></i> Pro only
Duotone fa-duotone <i class="fa-duotone fa-flag"></i> Pro only
Brands fa-brands <i class="fa-brands fa-font-awesome"></i> Free
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Icon content "encoded" in JavaScript packages

The first version of Font Awesome used web fonts to encode icon data into a container the browser could use. In Version 5, we added support for SVG which lets us do some fun things with icon data.

Scalable Vector Graphics (opens new window) (SVGs) are made up of text information that can include paths (opens new window). We use the path data to draw the icons.

Here's an example from our code icon:

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 576 512" height="72px">
  <path d="M228.5 511.8l-25-7.1c-3.2-.9-5-4.2-4.1-7.4L340.1 4.4c.9-3.2 4.2-5 7.4-4.1l25 7.1c3.2.9 5 4.2 4.1 7.4L235.9 507.6c-.9 3.2-4.3 5.1-7.4 4.2zm-75.6-125.3l18.5-20.9c1.9-2.1 1.6-5.3-.5-7.1L49.9 256l121-102.5c2.1-1.8 2.4-5 .5-7.1l-18.5-20.9c-1.8-2.1-5-2.3-7.1-.4L1.7 252.3c-2.3 2-2.3 5.5 0 7.5L145.8 387c2.1 1.8 5.3 1.6 7.1-.5zm277.3.4l144.1-127.2c2.3-2 2.3-5.5 0-7.5L430.2 125.1c-2.1-1.8-5.2-1.6-7.1.4l-18.5 20.9c-1.9 2.1-1.6 5.3.5 7.1l121 102.5-121 102.5c-2.1 1.8-2.4 5-.5 7.1l18.5 20.9c1.8 2.1 5 2.3 7.1.4z"/></svg>

Since it's just text, we can easily store this information in JavaScript files. This can be easier to deal with in some projects versus web font files and CSS.

Package names

Icon content packages are segmented by license and style:

Package name Style Prefix Example Availability
@fortawesome/free-solid-svg-icons Solid fa-solid Free
@fortawesome/free-regular-svg-icons Regular fa-regular Free
@fortawesome/free-brands-svg-icons Brands fa-brands Free
@fortawesome/pro-solid-svg-icons Solid fa-solid Pro only
@fortawesome/pro-regular-svg-icons Regular fa-regular Pro only
@fortawesome/pro-light-svg-icons Light fa-light Pro only
@fortawesome/pro-thin-svg-icons Thin fa-thin Pro only
@fortawesome/pro-duotone-svg-icons Duotone fa-duotone Pro only

Pro packages requires some extra configuration to allow NPM to install.

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Icon names

JavaScript naming doesn't use hyphens; it uses lower camel case (opens new window). So here are some basic examples of how imports and requires work.

Icon name Version 4 name Lower camel case Notes on usage
address-book fa-address-book faAddressBook The "B" is captialized after the hyphen
facebook-f fa-facebook faFacebookF It's in the Brands style and this was renamed to facebook-f
circle fa-circle-o faCircle Outline versions of icons are now in the Regular and Light styles
freebsd fa-freebsd faFreebsd OCD-warning: we know it's FreeBSD but consistency/guessability is the goal here

Importing these specific icons:

import { faAddressBook } from '@fortawesome/free-solid-svg-icons'
import { faFacebookF } from '@fortawesome/free-brands-svg-icons'
import { faCircle } from '@fortawesome/free-regular-svg-icons'
import { faFreebsd } from '@fortawesome/free-brands-svg-icons'

Import all icons by using the prefix:

import { library } from '@fortawesome/fontawesome-svg-core'
import { fas } from '@fortawesome/free-solid-svg-icons'
import { far } from '@fortawesome/free-regular-svg-icons'
import { fab } from '@fortawesome/free-brands-svg-icons'

<!-- Add all icons to the library so you can use it in your page -->
library.add(fas, far, fab)

To import the same icon from different styles:

import { library } from '@fortawesome/fontawesome-svg-core'
import { faCircle as fasFaCircle } from '@fortawesome/free-solid-svg-icons' // ES Module "as" syntax
import { faCircle as farFaCircle } from '@fortawesome/free-regular-svg-icons'

library.add(fasFaCircle, farFaCircle)