Upgrade to Version 6 on the Desktop
We’ve worked hard to make upgrading to Version 6 on the desktop as smooth and easy as possible.
We’ll cover the basics of how to upgrade to Font Awesome 6 and how to troubleshoot common challenges.
Add the V6 Font Files
Upgrading on the desktop is the same as adding a new font, so you can follow the usual set-up steps.
- Close any desktop programs that may be using Font Awesome 5 fonts.
- Add the Font Awesome 6 OTF font files to your system font manager.
- Activate the fonts.
Viola! Now you will see “Font Awesome 6” as one of the options in your font selection menus.
If you’re having trouble getting the new fonts to load, they might be cached in your application. Here are a couple of articles that might help:
- Troubleshoot font issues in Adobe applications on Mac OS X (from Adobe)
- How to Clear Your Application Font Cache (from FontShop)
Update Existing Files to Use Font Awesome 6
Adding V6 font files doesn’t affect any of the existing V5 icons already in your designs. To update the icons in your designs, select any text area set to use the Font Awesome 5 font faces then select the Font Awesome 6 family font face you would like those icons to use. You can change the style from the font-weight menu: you’ll see Solid, Regular, Light, and Thin options for the Classic and Sharp font-faces and Solid for Duotone and Sharp Duotone.
Some programs allow you to multi-select text areas to swap them all out between different font faces easily if you want to upgrade a particular file or design to go from Font Awesome 5 to Font Awesome 6.
For Figma, if you select a text item using a Font Awesome 5 font face (Free, Pro, or Brands), you can use the “Select All with the Same Font” action under the Edit menu.
For Sketch, you’ll need a plugin like Fontily.
For Illustrator, you can use the “Find Font” action under the Type menu.
Updating Duotone Icons
We’ve made some improvements to using Duotone icons on the desktop for Version 6.
What’s Changed?
You can still add duotone icons into your designs using ligatures, but we’ve changed how you access duotone layers using ligatures. In Version 5 you would access the primary layer using the -primary suffix and the secondary layer using the -secondary suffix. In Version 6 you now access the primary layer using a single hash (#) suffix and the secondary layer using a double has (##) suffix.
| Layer | v5 Shortcut | v5 Example | v6 Shortcut | v6 Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary layer | [icon-name]-primary | crow-primary | [icon-name]# | crow# |
| Secondary layer | [icon-name]-secondary | crow-secondary | [icon-name]## | crow## |
Upgrading Duotone Icons as Ligatures
If you have existing files that reference Version 5 Duotone icons using the v5 ligature shortcuts, those will need to be manually updated to the new v6 syntax. Here are the manual steps to take for each reference:
- Select the text boxes that contain the v5 Duotone icon’s layers
- Set the Font/Typeface to Font Awesome 6
- Type the v6 shortcut for the current Duotone icon and layer
You can find more information about how to use duotone ligatures in our Ligatures desktop doc.
Upgrading Duotone Icons as Glyphs
While upgrading your duotone glyphs is pretty straightforward it’s a bit fiddly. You’ll treat it like changing any other type of font. The fiddly part about duotone icons is that they have multiple layers. Here’s what you need to do.
- Select each existing glyph layer.
- Switch the selected font to Font Awesome Version 6.
Your glyph layers will update and now you’re rocking the latest and greatest Font Awesome! For more information on aligning or using your glyphs please refer to our guide for using duotone glyphs.
Upgrading Duotone Icons as SVGs
In order to upgrade your duotone SVGs to Version 6, you need to swap out the placed V5 SVG with the new one from Version 6:
- Grab the SVG you want to swap from the Version 6 desktop download files.
- Drop the desired SVG into your vector friendly program and adjust it to match the size and placement of your previous V5 icon.
- Update your layers to give them the desired look.
You can find more information about how to use duotone SVGs in our SVG desktop doc.
You’re all set!
Your Desktop projects and applications will now render Version 6 icons! Are you running into trouble? Check out our troubleshooting guide for answers to common questions about using Font Awesome on the Web.
You might want to go check out the big pile of new icons we’ve added in Version 6, including the new Thin Style, Sharp Family, and Sharp Duotone Family.