How to work with fonts and labels in MapTiler Server

This article provides information about how to work with labels and custom fonts in MapTiler Server. It also shows how to adjust map styles in other ways. This how-to is intended for all those who need to work with their maps offline and cannot use MapTiler Cloud online map hosting.

MapTiler recommends using MapTiler Cloud online map hosting for the majority of use cases. In those rare when customers need to host their maps in a completely offline environment (often times a highly secured one), MapTiler Server is the recommended solution.

Setting up fonts and labels in MapTiler Server

To set up fonts and labels for your offline maps, you are going to first need the help of another MapTiler product - it is MapTiler Cloud. In the Advanced editor tool, you can open your map style and adjust the overall looks of the map, including labels and fonts. Here is how to do it.

Once you are done adjusting your map style and fonts, you should export your map style as a style.json file. Here is how to do it - see "How to export your custom style as a style.json file".

At the moment, MapTiler Cloud supports a fixed list of fonts that you can use for styling your maps, in case you would be interested in working with custom fonts, please check out this article and place your vote in the feature ideas section.

Once you have your style.json file on your local machine, you should upload it to the same folder where your maps for offline serving are stored. Here is how to add map style to MapTiler Server.

MapTiler Server starter pack currently contains the following fonts:
'Noto Sans Bold'
'Noto Sans Regular'
'Roboto Medium'
'Noto Sans Italic'
'Roboto Condensed Italic'
'Roboto Regular'

Conclusion

If you for some reason need to host your maps offline and therefore you cannot use MapTiler Cloud hosting and the near-to-endless possibilities of customization, there are ways how to customize labels and fonts even in MapTiler Server. All you need to do is make sure all fonts you work with are stored locally on your machine and your map styles (style.json files) are defined the right way and stored correctly in the same folder as your map files.

Useful links

How to create and use custom fonts in MapTiler Server
MapTiler Cloud API
Advanced map customization
How to set the language for your map
Quick map customization - labels for roads and traffic
How to add a map style to MapTiler Server
How to add data to MapTiler Server