Import Icons

Ready to reference icons? Here’s a primer on Font Awesome icon naming and how to import from icon content packages.

Referencing Icons

We recommend referencing icons in your HTML with a dedicated element you’ll use only for icons. We find the <i> tag perfect for the job. That element will contain: 1) Font Awesome specific style prefix (e.g. fas), and 2) the icon’s name (prefixed with fa-) you want to display.

<i class="fas fa-question-circle"></i> <!-- solid style of the question circle icon -->
<i class="far fa-question-circle"></i> <!-- regular style of the question circle icon -->
<i class="fal fa-question-circle"></i> <!-- light style of the question circle icon -->

<i class="fab fa-facebook"></i> <!-- facebook brand icon-->
<i class="fab fa-facebook-f"></i> <!-- facebook "f" brand icon-->

In Font Awesome 6, Font Awesome includes 6 different styles - Solid, Regular, Light, Duotone, and Brands. Here’s a break down of each’s use and availability.

Style	Prefix	Code	Availability
Solid	`fas`	`<i class="fas fa-flag"></i>`	Free
Regular	`far`	`<i class="far fa-flag"></i>`	Pro only
Light	`fal`	`<i class="fal fa-flag"></i>`	Pro only
Duotone	`fad`	`<i class="fad fa-flag"></i>`	Pro only
Brands	`fab`	`<i class="fab fa-font-awesome"></i>`	Free

Icon content “encoded” in JavaScript packages

The first version of Font Awesome used web fonts to encode icon data into a container the browser could use. In version 5, we added support for SVG which lets us do some fun things with icon data.

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVGs) are made up of text information that can include paths. We use the path data to draw the icons.

Here’s an example from our code icon:

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 576 512" height="72px">
  <path d="M228.5 511.8l-25-7.1c-3.2-.9-5-4.2-4.1-7.4L340.1 4.4c.9-3.2 4.2-5 7.4-4.1l25 7.1c3.2.9 5 4.2 4.1 7.4L235.9 507.6c-.9 3.2-4.3 5.1-7.4 4.2zm-75.6-125.3l18.5-20.9c1.9-2.1 1.6-5.3-.5-7.1L49.9 256l121-102.5c2.1-1.8 2.4-5 .5-7.1l-18.5-20.9c-1.8-2.1-5-2.3-7.1-.4L1.7 252.3c-2.3 2-2.3 5.5 0 7.5L145.8 387c2.1 1.8 5.3 1.6 7.1-.5zm277.3.4l144.1-127.2c2.3-2 2.3-5.5 0-7.5L430.2 125.1c-2.1-1.8-5.2-1.6-7.1.4l-18.5 20.9c-1.9 2.1-1.6 5.3.5 7.1l121 102.5-121 102.5c-2.1 1.8-2.4 5-.5 7.1l18.5 20.9c1.8 2.1 5 2.3 7.1.4z"/></svg>

Since it’s just text, we can easily store this information in JavaScript files. This can be easier to deal with in some projects versus web font files and CSS.

Package names

Icon content packages are segmented by license and style:

Package name	Style	Prefix	Availability
`@fortawesome/free-solid-svg-icons`	Solid	fas	Free
`@fortawesome/free-regular-svg-icons`	Regular	far	Free
`@fortawesome/free-brands-svg-icons`	Brands	fab	Free
`@fortawesome/pro-solid-svg-icons`	Solid	fas	Pro only
`@fortawesome/pro-regular-svg-icons`	Regular	far	Pro only
`@fortawesome/pro-light-svg-icons`	Light	fal	Pro only
`@fortawesome/pro-duotone-svg-icons`	Duotone	fad	Pro only

Pro packages requires some extra configuration to allow NPM to install.

Icon names

JavaScript naming doesn’t use hyphens; it uses lower camel case. So here are some basic examples of how imports and requires work.

Icon name	Version 4 name	Lower camel case	Notes on usage
address-book	`fa-address-book`	`faAddressBook`	The “B” is captialized after the hyphen
facebook-f	`fa-facebook`	`faFacebookF`	It’s in the Brands style and this was renamed to facebook-f
circle	`fa-circle-o`	`faCircle`	Outline versions of icons are now in the Regular and Light styles
freebsd	`fa-freebsd`	`faFreebsd`	OCD-warning: we know it’s FreeBSD but consistency/guessability is the goal here

Importing these specific icons:

import { faAddressBook } from '@fortawesome/free-solid-svg-icons'
import { faFacebookF } from '@fortawesome/free-brands-svg-icons'
import { faCircle } from '@fortawesome/free-regular-svg-icons'
import { faFreebsd } from '@fortawesome/free-brands-svg-icons'

Import all icons by using the prefix:

import { library } from '@fortawesome/fontawesome-svg-core'
import { fas } from '@fortawesome/free-solid-svg-icons'
import { far } from '@fortawesome/free-regular-svg-icons'
import { fab } from '@fortawesome/free-brands-svg-icons'

<!-- Add all icons to the library so you can use it in your page -->
library.add(fas, far, fab)

To import the same icon from different styles:

import { library } from '@fortawesome/fontawesome-svg-core'
import { faCircle as fasFaCircle } from '@fortawesome/free-solid-svg-icons' // ES Module "as" syntax
import { faCircle as farFaCircle } from '@fortawesome/free-regular-svg-icons'

library.add(fasFaCircle, farFaCircle)