Tools To Identify Fonts

A Blog Post Written For Designers: Tools To Identify Fonts!

If you’re interested in fonts and web design, you occasionally find a great font but need to know its name or where to get it. That’s pretty frustrating! So, I am here to help you with tools and apps that can identify fonts you find anywhere! This post is mainly aimed at fellow designers – but I hope to help you even if it is a hobby. After all, if I am contracted to build you a website, we will have to work together as a coherent unit. So, here is a list of tools to identify fonts.

I will start off with my own personal favourite tool for identifying fonts. And that is Fonts Ninja.

Fonts Ninja

Fonts Ninja is a browser extension available on Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. The plugin can identify fonts for any text you mouse over on a web page. The extension relies on a database of over 3,000 fonts to make a positive identification; it really is quite handy.

In addition to the font’s name, the Fonts Ninja extension also tells you the font size, font weight, line height, and character spacing, along with the HTML colour codes used on the site.

The browser plugin provides a pop-up window to preview the font in your own copy with different font sizes and colours. You can also bookmark the font for later.

The extension also makes it easy to play with other fonts and includes purchase links for AdobeFonts, Fontspring, and MyFonts. And for £25.53, you can also try fonts in your design software and send purchase links to clients to include the font files in approved designs.

Find Website Used Fonts

The Find Website Used Fonts tool is a Chrome extension that scans a web page you view and lets you know all the fonts it finds on the webpage.

Each font can be previewed, and you can switch between regular and bold styles. The tool also allows you to input your own preview text.

The extension offers links to free versions of each font from FontSpace.

What Font Is

Next on our list of font-identifying tools is What Font Is. This website and chrome extension allows you to identify fonts in an image. And you can even upload your own image or provide an image URL to view the font on the image.

The tool highlights each instance of text within an image, allowing you to crop the text you want to identify. It’s even possible to optimise the cropped image to make it more straightforward.

After the tool has scanned the image, it generates 60 free and premium fonts that are identical or similar to the font you want. The extension has a significant catalogue of over 850,000 fonts. And the tool includes links and prices where you can buy the font.

This is a free tool; however, you can pay by the year or every three years to remove ads, use the advanced font search function, acquire accurate results, and use filters in the search results.

WhatTheFont

WhatTheFont is a web-based font identification tool similar to What Font Is. It also allows you to identify fonts in mages. However, the plugin requires you to upload an image and will not accept image URLs.

After uploading the image, you can crop and flip it to find the font you’re after. The tool then presents a list of fonts that look similar to the one you want in the image. It offers purchase links directly from the MyFonts library.

Font in Logo

The plugin “Font in Logo” is a simple tool that helps you identify the fonts used by specific brands in their logos. Here, all you need to do is enter the name of a brand and see if the brand is in the Font in Logo database.

If the logo is in their database, the tool shows you the font’s name and provides a link to where you can acquire the font.

The tool’s database is a work in progress, so you may be unable to find logos for smaller or lesser-known brands.

Font Matcherator

The “Font Matcherator” is a highly accurate, robust font identifier tool. For starters, this site keeps a database of over 900,000 free and commercial fonts that allow you to compare your image to ID the font. Then, all you need to do is upload an image of sample letters or drag & drop it into the Matcherator’s search box.

Once the image is loaded, you’ll need to draw a crop box around the word or words you want it to identify. The tool then shows you a list of similar fonts with links to where you can purchase them.

Serif Font Identification Guide

The Serif Font Identification Guide helps you find the name of serif fonts; the tool works by how a letter looks. As a result, this tool isn’t always as effective as the other tools on this list. Users recommend leaving a few letters blank to obtain the best results if you use the tool.

This tool doesn’t provide links to purchase and download the fonts. However, it does provide the font names, designers, and release date for each font.

TypewolfTypeSimple

TypewolfTypeSimple is a tool like Fonts Ninja that can identify fonts on a website. The tool’s easy to use. You drag the “Type Sample” button to your bookmarks toolbar. Then, when you’d like to identify a font on a site, click on it.

Identifont

Indentifont is a simple website that makes it easy to search for fonts in different ways. For instance, you can search by appearance, name, similarity, symbol, and designer name. While the tool isn’t as intuitive as the other tools in our list, it does work quite well, regardless.

Summing Up

Each tool can identify fonts; however, each is slightly different. So, you have various tools to try or use. If one of these tools doesn’t work well, try another one! Font identifier tools are a great way to ID and find that beautiful font you found in an image or on another site. And most of these tools let you know where to find the font or similar fonts. You can even try the fonts with your own text! So, have fun with these font identification tools and create stunning designs with the unusual fonts you find all across the web!.