The check() method of the FontFaceSet returns true if you can render some text using the given font specification without attempting to use any fonts in this FontFaceSet that are not yet fully loaded. This means you can use the font specification without causing a font swap.

font

a font specification using the syntax for the CSS font property, for example "italic bold 16px Roboto"

text

limit the font faces to those whose Unicode range contains at least one of the characters in text. This does not check for individual glyph coverage.

A Boolean value that is true if rendering text with the given font specification will not attempt to use any fonts in this FontFaceSet that are not yet fully loaded.

This means that all fonts in this FontFaceSet that are matched by the given font specification have a status property set to "loaded".

Otherwise, this function returns false.

In the following example, we create a new FontFace and add it to the FontFaceSet:

const font = new FontFace(
  "molot",
  "url(https://interactive-examples.mdn.mozilla.net/media/fonts/molot.woff2)",
  {
    style: "normal",
    weight: "400",
    stretch: "condensed",
  },
);

document.fonts.add(font);

The font is not yet loaded, so check("12px molot") returns false, indicating that if we try to use the given font specification, we will trigger a font load:

console.log(document.fonts.check("12px molot"));
// false: the matching font is in the set, but is not yet loaded

If we specify only a system font in the argument to check(), it returns true, because we can use the system font without loading any fonts from the set:

console.log(document.fonts.check("12px Courier"));
// true: the matching font is a system font

If we specify a font that is not in the FontFaceSet and is not a system font, check() returns true, because in this situation we will not rely on any fonts from the set:

console.log(document.fonts.check("12px i-dont-exist"));
// true: the matching font is a nonexistent font

If we specify both a system font and a font in the set that is not yet loaded, then check() returns false:

console.log(document.fonts.check("12px molot, Courier"));
// false: `molot` is in the set but not yet loaded

If we specify a font from the set that is still loading, check() returns false:

function check() {
  font.load();
  console.log(document.fonts.check("12px molot"));
  // false: font is still loading
  console.log(font.status);
  // "loading"
}

check();

If we specify a font from the set that has loaded, check() returns true:

async function check() {
  await font.load();
  console.log(document.fonts.check("12px molot"));
  // true: font has finished loading
  console.log(font.status);
  // "loaded"
}

check();