Font Awesome Icons

Font Awesome icons library provides 519 free scalable vector icons. This library is completely free for both personal and commercial use. Originally designed for Bootstrap, these icons can be customized easily.

Loading the Font Library

To load the Font Awesome library, copy and paste the following line in the <head> section of the webpage.

<head>
   <link rel = "stylesheet" href = "http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/font-awesome/4.3.0/css/font-awesome.min.css">
</head>

Using the Icon

Font Awesome provides several icons. Choose one of them and add the name of the icon class to any HTML element within the <body> tag. In the following example, we have used the icon of the Indian currency.

Live Demo 
<html>
   <head>
      <link rel = "stylesheet" href = "https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/font-awesome/4.3.0/css/font-awesome.min.css">
   </head>
	
   <body>
      <i class = "fa fa-inr"></i>
   </body>
	
</html>

It will produce the following output −

Defining the Size

You can increase or decrease the size of an icon by defining its size using CSS and using it along with the class name, as shown below. In the given example, we have declared the size as 6 em.

Live Demo 
<html>
   <head>
      <link rel = "stylesheet" href = "http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/font-awesome/4.3.0/css/font-awesome.min.css">
		
      <style>
         i.mysize {font-size: 10em;}
      </style>
		
   </head>
	
   <body>
      <i class = "fa fa-inr mysize"></i>
   </body>
	
</html>

It will produce the following output −

Defining the Color

Just like size, you can define the color of the icons using CSS. The following example shows how to change the color of the Indian currency icon.

Live Demo 
<html>
   <head>
      <link rel = "stylesheet" href = "https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/font-awesome/4.3.0/css/font-awesome.min.css">
		
      <style>
         i.custom {font-size: 6em; color: red;}
      </style>
		
   </head>
	
   <body>
      <i class = "fa fa-inr custom"></i>
   </body>
	
</html>

List of Categories

Font Awesome provides 519 icons in the following categories −

  • Web Application Icons
  • Hand Icons
  • Transportation Icons
  • Gender Icons
  • File Type Icons
  • Spinner Icons
  • Form Control Icons
  • Payment Icons
  • Chart Icons
  • Currency Icons
  • Text editor Icons
  • Directional Icons
  • Video Player Icons
  • Brand Icons

To use any of these icons, you have to replace the class name in the programs given in this chapter with the class name of the desired icon. In the coming chapters of this Unit (Font Awesome), we have explained category-wise the usage and the respective outputs of various Font Awesome icons.

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