Fix emoji in Linux and get color emoji in Discord! Place this fontconfig file in ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf

fonts.conf

<?xml version="1.0"?><!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<!-- REQUIRES Noto fonts (along with Noto Color Emoji) 
     run `fc-list | grep -i -e "noto sans" -e "noto serif" -e "noto color emoji"` to confirm
-->

 <!-- Change the string in the family tag to whatever font -->
    <family>serif</family>
    <prefer><family>Noto Serif</family></prefer>
  </alias>
  <alias>
    <family>sans-serif</family>
    <prefer><family>Noto Sans</family></prefer>
  </alias>
  <alias>
    <family>sans</family>
    <prefer><family>Noto Sans</family></prefer>
  </alias>
  <alias>
    <family>monospace</family>
    <prefer><family>Noto Mono</family></prefer>
  </alias>

   <!-- This adds Noto Color Emoji to the font families sans, serif, sans-serif and monospace -->
  <match target="pattern">
        <test name="family"><string>monospace</string></test>
        <edit name="family" mode="append"><string>Noto Color Emoji</string></edit>
  </match>
  <match target="pattern">
        <test name="family"><string>sans</string></test>
        <edit name="family" mode="append"><string>Noto Color Emoji</string></edit>
  </match>

  <match target="pattern">
        <test name="family"><string>serif</string></test>
        <edit name="family" mode="append"><string>Noto Color Emoji</string></edit>
  </match>
  <!-- Discord loads the system's sans-serif font family, add Noto Color Emoji to it -->
  <match target="pattern">
        <test name="family"><string>sans-serif</string></test>
        <edit name="family" mode="append"><string>Noto Color Emoji</string></edit>
    </match> 

   <!-- Add emoji generic family -->
  <alias binding="strong">
    <family>emoji</family>
    <default><family>Noto Color Emoji</family></default>
  </alias>

  <!-- Alias requests for the other emoji fonts -->
  <alias binding="strong">
    <family>Apple Color Emoji</family>
    <prefer><family>Noto Color Emoji</family></prefer>
    <default><family>emoji</family></default>
  </alias>
  <alias binding="strong">
    <family>Segoe UI Emoji</family>
    <prefer><family>Noto Color Emoji</family></prefer>
    <default><family>emoji</family></default>
</alias>

<!-- Run "fc-cache -fv" after saving the file and kill and restart whichever app (like discord) and enjoy emoji -->

</fontconfig>

Hey!

thx for this! I have one question how do you change which emoji set discord uses?

Discord uses the sans-serif font so changing "Noto Color Emoji" in line 42 will change that. This only for emoji in names ie emoji in channel/category/server/user name

Discord uses the sans-serif font so changing "Noto Color Emoji" in line 42 will change that. This only for emoji in names ie emoji in channel/category/server/user name

https://github.com/eosrei/twemoji-color-font is it possible to use this on discord? do you know any other emoji sets that work? thx!

Yes, you can install that font and replace "Noto Color Emoji" in line 42 with "Twitter Color Emoji". And pretty much any font that provides emoji would work like symbola (b/w only) etc. (only applicable to emoji in names)

Thanks, works like a charm 👍

Thank you very much for the fix, this made things look much better! 🙂
Helped a lot in reducing that "this is linux, you don't get beautiful things" feel. 🙃

The part after “This adds Noto Color Emoji to the font families …” could probably be made into a standalone file that can be inserted into /etc/fonts/conf.d/ or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/fontconfig/conf.d/.

And that way, it could be made into e.g. an package that one can install to select an emoji font, e.g. on Arch:

pkgname=noto-fonts-blobmoji-prefer
...
depends=(noto-fonts-blobmoji)
sources=(50-noto-fonts-blobmoji.conf)

package() {
    install -Dm644 {,/etc/fonts/conf.d/}50-noto-fonts-blobmoji.conf
}

Yes, you can install that font and replace "Noto Color Emoji" in line 42 with "Twitter Color Emoji". And pretty much any font that provides emoji would work like symbola (b/w only) etc. (only applicable to emoji in names)

That does not seem to work for me, I just get the standard black and white emojis then 🤔

Thanks! I was not able to get the Twitter Emoji to work that @3k2 mentions but I was able to get the noto sans emoji to be fully ready in discord :)

Unfortunately, this does not work for me. Previously it worked when I used Snap and changed the font config in a ~/snap/discord folder. But as of today, because I needed to update discord, I had to install Discord with the deb file. Now when adding this to the default font config, it won't work. Does anyone have any suggestions?

@joellidin did you edit the font config in ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf ?

I'm on the new version of Discord today as and it works for me with the font config file thats provided above.

The file is not created by default so you might need to make it. Otherwise, do you have noto-sans-emoji installed?

Yeah, this is really embarrassing, but I noticed I accidentally had used font.conf instead of fonts.conf...

Thanks!

This should be default for all discord installs honestly, sooo much better.
Thanks for your work, spread the word around to fellow linux users!

I just reinstalled Void Linux on my rig here and I was having the stupid boxy issue in Discord channel names. Installing a crapton of unicode emoji fonts as well as placing this fonts.conf file into ~/.config/fontsconfig/ fixed the issue for me! Thanks for posting it!

missing <alias> between line 7 and 8

Ah crap I messed it up in the last two revisions. Use older version for now

On Tue, Feb 15, 2022 at 1:12 PM Johannes ***@***.***> wrote: ***@***.**** commented on this gist. ------------------------------ missing between line 7 and 8 — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <https://gist.github.com/6b8830cc08a22bc5bc24c76ef799510a#gistcomment-4066503>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABWJLT6JHKAIUWBYLFMKJUTU3KQSRANCNFSM4H2ONI4Q> . Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675> or Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub>. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

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there's a <alias> beacon missing between line 7 & 8 in the current revision.

Thanks a lot for the snippet. I've been using for quite a while :)

UPDATE: it works, I just hadn't installed the colour-emojis 🤦

This isn't working for me. I downloaded the script and saved it to the ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf, fixed the missing <alias> tag, and updated the font cache with fv-cache -fv, and restarted Discord.

As you can see in the images, emojis don't render with color when in username, servername or channelname. The other ones in text or as reactions seem to render properly.

The whole noto family, including emojis, is installed, and detected by fv-cache.

I'm on void linux, with i3 wm.

I no longer use this so I can't help, sorry.