Font Extraction

Purpose

This guide covers extracting font files from various archive formats and installers.

References

MSI Format
CAB Format

Concepts

Fonts are often distributed in archive formats including ZIP, MSI installers, and CAB files. Excavate can extract fonts from all these formats.

Extracting from ZIP

# Extract all TrueType fonts
fonts = Excavate::Archive.new('fonts.zip').extract(filter: '**/*.ttf')

# Extract multiple font types
fonts = Excavate::Archive.new('fonts.zip').extract(
  filter: '**/*.{ttf,otf,woff,woff2}'
)

Extracting from MSI Installers

Windows font installers are often MSI files containing CAB archives:

# Extract fonts from MSI
fonts = Excavate::Archive.new('fonts.msi').extract(
  recursive_packages: true,
  filter: '**/*.{ttf,otf}'
)

puts "Extracted #{fonts.size} fonts"

Extracting from CAB Files

# Extract fonts from CAB archive
fonts = Excavate::Archive.new('fonts.cab').extract(
  filter: '**/*.{ttf,otf}'
)

Font Processing Workflow

Collect Font Information

font_info = Excavate::Archive.new('fonts.zip').files(
  filter: '**/*.{ttf,otf}'
) do |path|
  {
    name: File.basename(path),
    size: File.size(path),
    ext: File.extname(path).downcase
  }
end

# Group by type
by_type = font_info.group_by { |f| f[:ext] }
by_type.each do |ext, fonts|
  puts "#{ext}: #{fonts.size} fonts"
end

Copy to System Fonts Directory

require 'fileutils'

# Extract and copy fonts
Excavate::Archive.new('fonts.msi').files(
  recursive_packages: true,
  filter: '**/*.{ttf,otf}'
) do |source|
  font_name = File.basename(source)
  target = File.join('/Library/Fonts', font_name)  # macOS

  FileUtils.cp(source, target)
  puts "Installed: #{font_name}"
end

CLI Usage

# Extract fonts from MSI
excavate -r --filter "**/*.ttf" fonts.msi

# Extract from ZIP
excavate --filter "**/*.{ttf,otf}" fonts.zip

Common Font Sources

Example: Extract All Fonts from Directory

System Font Backups:: CAB or ZIP format

# Process all archives in a directory
all_fonts = []

Dir.glob('**/*.{zip,msi,cab}').each do |archive_path|
  fonts = Excavate::Archive.new(archive_path).files(
    recursive_packages: true,
    filter: '**/*.{ttf,otf}'
  ) do |path|
    File.basename(path)
  end

  all_fonts.concat(fonts)
  puts "#{archive_path}: #{fonts.size} fonts"
end

puts "Total fonts: #{all_fonts.size}"