Build fails without HarfBuzz even when ENABLE_HARFBUZZ=OFF
Author: chanicpanicCreated Sep 19, 2026Updated Sep 19, 2026
The build seems to expect the HarfBuzz library to be available even when the CMake ENABLE_HARFBUZZ build option was set to OFF.
Build Script
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -qy --no-install-recommends install \
build-essential \
cmake \
libfreetype6-dev \
libwoff-dev \
ninja-build \
python3.12-dev \
;
curl -Lo fontforge.zip https://github.com/fontforge/fontforge/archive/bcf453ac349246e395aab9a451f47baac520b3cf.zip
unzip fontforge.zip
mv fontforge-bcf453ac349246e395aab9a451f47baac520b3cf fontforge
cd fontforge
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -G Ninja \
-D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="$PWD/target" \
-D ENABLE_DOCS=OFF \
-D ENABLE_GUI=OFF \
-D ENABLE_HARFBUZZ=OFF \
-D ENABLE_LIBGIF=OFF \
-D ENABLE_LIBJPEG=OFF \
-D ENABLE_LIBPNG=OFF \
-D ENABLE_LIBREADLINE=OFF \
-D ENABLE_LIBSPIRO=OFF \
-D ENABLE_LIBTIFF=OFF \
-D ENABLE_NATIVE_SCRIPTING=OFF \
-D ENABLE_PYTHON_EXTENSION=ON \
-D ENABLE_PYTHON_SCRIPTING=ON \
-D ENABLE_WOFF2=ON \
.. \
;
ninjaBuild Failure
...
[130/146] Building CXX object fontforge/shapers/CMakeFiles/shapers.dir/harfbuzz.cpp.o
FAILED: [code=1] fontforge/shapers/CMakeFiles/shapers.dir/harfbuzz.cpp.o
/usr/bin/c++ -DGUI_THEME=\"tango\" -I/home/runner/work/font/font/fontforge/inc -I/home/runner/work/font/font/fontforge/build/inc -O2 -g -DNDEBUG -std=gnu++17 -fPIC -fdiagnostics-color=always -MD -MT fontforge/shapers/CMakeFiles/shapers.dir/harfbuzz.cpp.o -MF fontforge/shapers/CMakeFiles/shapers.dir/harfbuzz.cpp.o.d -o fontforge/shapers/CMakeFiles/shapers.dir/harfbuzz.cpp.o -c /home/runner/work/font/font/fontforge/fontforge/shapers/harfbuzz.cpp
In file included from /home/runner/work/font/font/fontforge/fontforge/shapers/harfbuzz.cpp:23:
/home/runner/work/font/font/fontforge/fontforge/shapers/harfbuzz.hpp:27:10: fatal error: hb.h: No such file or directory
27 | #include <hb.h>
| ^~~~~~
compilation terminated.
...Full details can be seen in this Github Actions run: https://github.com/grascii/font/actions/runs/35426296006/job/105852727332
Source: fontforge/fontforge