Using `info-circle` from fontawesome5 without loading fontawesome5 package

Question

pdflatex

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
{\fontencoding{U}\fontfamily{fontawesomefree0}\selectfont\symbol{187}}\par% fa5free0.enc line 189: /circle
{\fontencoding{U}\fontfamily{fontawesomefree1}\selectfont\symbol{242}}\par% fa5free1.enc line 244: /info-circle
\end{document}

prints the circle, but the info-circle is not printed:

Missing character: There is no � in font fa5free1regular!

I do not want to load the whole fontawesome5 package (which loads

fontawesome5.sty
expl3.sty
l3backend-pdftex.def
l3keys2e.sty
xparse.sty
fontawesome5-generic-helper.sty
fontawesome5-mapping.def

), so how do I get that info-circle?

Answer 1

The info-circle (or circle-info as it is also called) is a solid shape (see https://fontawesome.com/icons/circle-info?f=classic&s=solid), so you need \bfseries.

You can also make your own variant by superimposing a white bold i on a solid circle.

Both approaches:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\begin{document}
{\fontencoding{U}\fontfamily{fontawesomefree0}\selectfont\bfseries\symbol{187}}\vskip-13.5pt\hskip3.5pt\textcolor{white}{\footnotesize\textbf{i}}\par
{\fontencoding{U}\fontfamily{fontawesomefree1}\selectfont\bfseries\symbol{242}}\par% fa5free1.enc line 244: /info-circle
\end{document}