Guidance with Custom Font

I downloaded a FNT and PNG file for a font. I have tried multiple different ways of trying to do this and maybe I am just not getting a basic thing.

I created a folder in source called fonts (source/fonts) and placed the files there. This is the same method I use for my images and never had any issues there. In my code, i used:
local emerald_20 = gfx.font.new("fonts/emerald_20.fnt")

then later when I want to use the font I used:
gfx.setFont(emerald_20)

The weird (to me) behavior here is with all that done, when I run the build, the images folder doesn't get added to the build and the pdxinfo file is missing. I delete the font folder, rebuild, and everything works like normal.

So, just like my images folder, I decided to use a subfolder instead of the main folder. I updated the file path to include the subfolder name and the font will not load properly and is just nil.

Am I missing a basic thing or is there a specific way these things need to be handled?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Don't use the file extension.

This applies pretty much everywhere in the SDK.

Ok, that's understandable. I removed ".fnt" from the code, but I still am experiencing the behavior of with the "fonts" folder present, my images folder and pdxinfo file are not present when built.

I remove the fonts folder, build again, and the images and pdxinfo file return to the build per normal.

looks to be haunted fnt files... The above behavior only happens when the fnt and png files I'm trying to use are present. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

You can try to load the files into tophat to confirm they're working.

https://play.date/dev/links/

I used the fonts from the PlaydateSDK examples, I put in the same folder as you, but in my case to make it work, I had to use two files:

my folder: source/assets/fonts
the files inside:
font-Cuberick-Bold-table-12-15.png
font-Cuberick-Bold.fnt

so in you main.lua you just do something like

local mainFont = gfx.font.new("assets/fonts/font-Cuberick-Bold")
gfx.setFont(mainFont)

maybe you're missing some file?

So yea, I was able to use a font from the SDK, which just further confirms it's something either with the files I'm using or the way I am handling them.

For reference I'm going to keep on, but from this post here since that is the post from which I found the font's in the first place.