Using Ligatures

Our ligatures feature allows you to more easily insert icons into a document’s text layer. Learn the basics of creating a text layer, selecting an icon, and adjusting the style and weight below.

Before You Get Started

Make sure you’ve:

• Set up Font Awesome in your project and charged your proton pack.

When working in desktop applications, like Adobe Illustrator, Figma, and Sketch, you can use Font Awesome as a typeface in any text area. We have ligatures for each and every icon so you can type in the name of the icon you want and it will magically appear.

A Note on Duotone

The ligature-based desktop font for Duotone has some limitations. Alternately, you can add them as SVG files into your designs.

Add an Icon using Ligatures

Open a Document in Your Desktop App

After completing the steps in set up, open a new or existing document in the Desktop app you want to use Font Awesome icons in. We’ll use a new document in Figma for the walkthrough below.

Create a New Text Layer

However your app allows you, create a new layer or text block to insert text into.

A new text layer created in a Figma document

Set the Font/Typeface to Font Awesome 6

Next, using your app’s font/typeface selector, find and select the Font Awesome icon family you want to use for the current text layer/block:

Font/Typeface name	What’s included
Font Awesome 6 Free	only the Free icons
Font Awesome 6 Pro	includes Classic Solid, Regular, Light, and Thin styles
Font Awesome 6 Duotone	includes Duotone Solid
Font Awesome 6 Sharp	includes Sharp Sharp Solid, Regular, Light, and Thin styles (Sharp Duotone is coming soon!)
Font Awesome 6 Brands	only Brand Icons
Font Awesome Kit (kit-ID)	includes Custom Icons in a Kit Download (if you’re using one)

Selecting Font Awesome 6 Pro typeface

Type the Icon’s Name

Next, you’re all set to reference the icon you want to use. Just start typing the icon’s name and as you finish, our ligatures should convert the letters into the correct symbol. Geee, Mr. Wizard!

“rocket” typed into the text layer renders the icon

Don’t worry if other icons appear as you are typing the text for the icon you want. Once you’re done, our ligatures will honor the final word you’ve typed. You can also type in an icon’s alias, if you like to stay undercover like Ethan Hunt.

Enable Those Ligatures!

Make sure you’ve set your program to enable ligatures so your icon names can transmogrify into icons.

Adding Kit Custom Icons

If you are using the Kit custom icon font, it works the same as all the other Font Awesome font ligatures. You can just type in the name of the icon and it will appear!

Choose a Style by Adjusting Font Weights

Font Awesome 6 comes in several styles, depending on the typeface you’re using. If you’ve installed all .otfs, you can change the weight of your text layer/block to switch between the different icon styles. (Duotone and Brands have their own font that only have one weight.)

Font/Typeface	Style	Weight
Font Awesome 6 Free	Solid Regular	900 400
Font Awesome 6 Pro	Classic Solid Classic Regular Classic Light Classic Thin	900 400 300 100
Font Awesome 6 Sharp	Sharp Solid Sharp Regular Sharp Light Sharp Thin	900 400 300 100

Switching from regular to thin style of rocket using font weight

Exporting and Prepping for Production

Remember to convert your icon text layers to vector outlines or rasterized copies before sending the file to others. The production folks may not have access to the Font Awesome font files that those text layers need to display the icons.

Duotones and Ligatures

You can also add duotone icons into your designs using ligatures, but you’ll need to add each of the icon’s layers separately, and then take an extra step to align the two layers.

Open your desktop design app and create a text box with the font set to Font Awesome 6 Duotone. To get the primary layer, type the icon’s name and then one hash (#). To get the secondary layer, type name and two hashes (##).

Layer	Shortcut	Example
Primary layer	[icon-name]#	crow#
Secondary layer	[icon-name]##	crow##

Typing crow# will get you the body of the crow, and typing crow## will get you the beak and legs.

Then change the font size to the size you want them to appear and set the text boxes to the same height and width. Adjust the color and opacity of the two layers as you like. The last step is to align the two text boxes to overlap using the align tools for vertical and horizontal center.

Assemble and align the parts of the duotone icon

Other Ways to Use Duotone Icons

You can also add duotone icons as as a single unit, but there are a few gotchas to consider. First, your graphics program or application will need to support embedded opacity within typefaces. (Otherwise, both layers of the duotone icon will appear as 100% black.) Also, you won’t be able to change the color or opacity of the icon or its parts, unless you first convert the icon to outlines. The icon will default to black, with the second layer at 40% opacity. For this reason, we recommend using the two-part method above.