Find out what font online. Finding a font by image: incredibly simple ways from services to applications
Here we have collected the most convenient services and applications for identifying fonts. Save this article to your bookmarks and you can easily find out the name of any font!
Designers are often faced with the need to find out what font a particular text is written in. Going through the entire existing collection of fonts in search of a match is far from the most convenient way. In addition, the required font may simply not be available. Of course, you can ask for help on thematic forums, where other designers can suggest the name of the font. You'll just have to wait weeks for an answer. What if there is no time to wait? What to do then?
It's actually simple. Use these resources and you can find out the name of the font in just a couple of minutes, or maybe even faster!
Online services
WhatTheFont
WhatTheFont is objectively the best service for identifying fonts from pictures. Simply upload a picture with an example of a font, indicate whether the service recognized the letters correctly, and click on the big green button. You are given several fonts that are most similar in style, among which you can find a 100% match. If you still cannot determine the font, you will be asked to ask a question on a specialized forum on the same site. The service is also convenient because the found font can be purchased immediately.
For those who are constantly looking for fonts and in any conditions, there is a mobile application for iPhone and Android. You can simply take a photo of the font and immediately find out its name. Very comfortably!
IdentiFont
On this service you can search for a font if you don’t have an image of it, but you remember what it looks like and can indicate its characteristics by answering a series of questions. I can’t say that this is the most convenient way, but if there is no other option, it’s quite possible to find what you need! The creators of the service offer different options for searching fonts: by name (partial), by font families, by symbols, and even by the designers who developed them.
Whatfontis
What Font is - an online service for identifying fonts from pictures. Similar to WhatTheFont in many ways, but worth bookmarking just in case.
Browser apps and extensions
In addition to the above online services, there are their analogues in the form of browser extensions. Their advantage is that you don’t need to open a new tab every time to find out in what font this or that inscription on the site is made. You just need to activate the extension.
FontFaceNinja
The undisputed leader at the moment. FontFaceNinja makes it possible not only to find out the name of any font on the site (not pictures), but also to try writing it here on the site, and also (attention) download the font you like! Of course, the authors warn that the fonts are downloaded for informational purposes only.
In addition to the beauty and convenience of this extension, there is another nice thing. FontFaceNinja has a magic button (mask) that hides all advertising from the page, allowing you to enjoy the fonts exclusively. You can download the extension completely free of charge. Works with Chrome and Safari.
Whatfont tool
An extension for Chrome and Safari that will help you find out the names of fonts in the browser. Shows fairly detailed background information on the font of interest, including font family, size, and line height.
Fount
An excellent plugin for identifying fonts on websites. For everything to work, you need to bookmark the site and click on it. The cursor will take the shape of a cross and when you click on the font, a window will appear with its name, size in pixels, weight and style. To turn it off, press again. Works with Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and IE8+ browsers.
Upgrading your personal font recognition skills
Everyone wants to be a cool designer who knows not only all existing fonts by name and family, but can also list the developers and tell the stories of their creation. Of course, such skills are an undeniable talent. But it’s quite possible to improve your knowledge a little. Here are some games and tools to help you with this.
Font Trainer
Online game test: set the parameters and guess where the font is. You can install both Latin and Cyrillic alphabet.
The Font Game HD
This application will literally help you learn the names and styles of fonts with ease. There are different game modes, interesting tasks and statistics of your achievements. Of the minuses, it is worth noting that the application is paid and only in the AppStore.
A simple and beautiful test, which we wrote about separately in the blog. Can you identify the 10 most popular fonts? Challenge yourself. The results may be unexpected!
Write to us if you know of any other convenient services or applications for identifying fonts. We welcome your comments! And share the link to this article with your friends. Let their life become a little easier too :)
Every designer faces the problem of choosing the right font. Sometimes you need to find a font from a picture, or identify a font from a sample. This is especially true for web developers when selecting fonts for a future website. In this case, special services come to the rescue, which will be discussed in detail in this article.
So, let's conduct an experiment. To do this, I wrote a test in Photoshop using the selected font and will determine in various services which font I used. Thus, I will determine which service is the best.
You can go through the services with me, and use my picture for testing. It is possible that you will come to different conclusions.
Here is the inscription:
The first service with which we will determine the font is
- WhatFontIs, address - http://www.whatfontis.com/
Click on the “Browse” button to select a picture with text. Next, you have to select one item and go ahead:
- What The Font, address http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/
xdf
Here you also need to upload a picture with text to the service or insert a direct link to the image. The diagram shows what the picture should be like for the service to work correctly. Letters and symbols must be clear, do not merge, the font size is at least 100 pixels and the text must be aligned horizontally.
After selecting a picture with text, click “Continue”. It’s nice that the service partially identifies the characters itself and you will have to enter only the doubtful ones manually.
I added the letter f, corrected the S to i, and added a period to the empty space. “Continue” again.
And this service did an excellent job, correctly guessing the font. The only drawback of the site What The Fontthis is a smaller number of fonts compared toWhatFontIs.
Service rating- 5 points. - These were services that determine the font from the picture. However, there are sites where font search works based on individual distinctive elements.
Identifontaddress http://www.identifont.com/index.html
If you know exactly what a font looks like, if you have sample letters, then you can do a little test on the appearance of the font and find its name.
Examples of questions you will answer:- does the font have serifs,
- name: just enter the name of the font or part of it,
- similar fonts – enter the name of similar fonts to the one you are looking for,
- font designer If the designer or manufacturer of the font is known, then you can include it in the search.
Note: the service is in English, but even without knowledge of the language it is easy to understand, since the questions are supported by pictures with symbols.
I was unable to find the font I needed using this service. Passed the test.
- Font Finder Firefox Add-On— an add-on for Firefox that determines what font is used on the site. Just highlight a word on your site and the add-on will detect the font and CSS style.
Link to addon https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/font-finder/ - Bowfin Print Works— http://www.bowfinprintworks.com/SerifGuide/serifsearch.php
A service that is based on your idea of what a font looks like, you need to conduct a detailed analysis of the letters and their elements.
This service also failed to determine the font.
I hope that now finding the right font and finding out its name will not be a problem for you.
At work, I needed to find out the style of writing letters, since I work as an engraver, I found a tool to search for a font by picture. It’s good that now there are many ways, I’ll look at three popular methods:
Search for a font by image with whatfontis
I’ll look at the best service for finding a font using a picture, whatfontis, and in the last paragraph I’ll provide six more. We follow the link and see the download menu. 
- Upload an image with a font from your computer.
- Upload by url.
- Open additional settings.
- We note if there is a shadow in the picture.
- If the font line does not run clearly horizontally, then it needs to be aligned; check the box.
- If you need to edit a file, the service has a built-in manager.
- Continue.
The online service will split the file letter by letter, it is possible that it may not be laid out correctly, then you can combine the elements by simply dragging, hold down the left mouse button and drag.
In my case, it was laid out normally, but the service could not recognize the characters themselves, as we see empty windows. You can leave them blank, but it is better to fill them in to make the recognition process easier.
Remember we marked the editor item, to enter it, scroll to the bottom and find the line to launch the online editor. For correct operation you need the latest version of flash player.
I won’t review it; we’ll send the edited file back for analysis and check it. Having filled out all the fields with letters, click the big red continue button and look at the result. It worked once and recognized the Cyrillic spelling.
I found 15 results, the screenshot shows the first two lines, the fonts are very similar to my original one, with an example of writing and a name. That's all, next I'll look at the browser extension.
Tip, to search for Cyrillic texts, upload images with letters that match Russian ones, for example the letters A, H, P, etc.
What font extension: Cyrillic is not a problem
The extension scanner looks at the prescribed fonts in the site code; even Cyrillic can be processed. Unfortunately, it cannot recognize graphic elements, but everything else is very fast. Follow the link and install the extension in the browser.
Suitable for almost all types of google chrome browsers, works fine on Yandex and firefox, tested.
To activate, click the icon in the active ones and wait for it to load. Once the tool is ready to use it will change color. Now, to determine the font, we point at the required element on the page. 
- The icon has become active. To enable the process, click and do the same to disable it.
- Element with font.
- Decoding style, family and spelling.
It’s really cool, I couldn’t help but show it, although the topic of the article is based on the picture, but additional information needs to be given.
Application for mobile devices
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it for Android, the WhatTheFont app came to the rescue, just enter the name in iTunes. The application allows you to download images for free from the device itself and using a video camera. More convenient than with services, you can take a photo of a piece of text you like and recognize the font from the picture. To work, you need an Internet connection and, accordingly, the WhatTheFont application.
I tried it with a friend, it works and does a better job than any online tool. Let's move on to a selection of alternatives.
Alternative online services
In addition to the first point, I will give 6 more sites, most in English, one in Russian. Online methods are arranged in descending order of effectiveness.
Myfonts analogue of whatfontis
Located at the address, similar to whatfontis, it can also search by image, but the results are not always accurate. Each time it produces different results, but after the fifth time it can hit the target. The principles are aimed at searching for certain features, curls, serifs, thickness and others.
You can find it here, the only Russian Fontmassive portal, free of charge. There are no recognition systems for the Russian language (ridiculous), there is only the voice of the people, the answer is given by people. You need to register and submit an application to be advised. Convenient and practical, so that no one can answer the question better than a person.
Identifont.com finds fonts from surveys
Once on the page, to determine the desired family and style, the tool asks you about the features of the font, what letters are, how they are positioned, and so on. If in doubt, there is a “not sure” button, the method is longer, but can bring you as close as possible to a positive effect. You can also analyze it in Cyrillic, but the spelling is the same. 
The ability to search on typophile is again determined by a person, but now to start a search, you are required to provide a picture, create a separate topic, and wait for a response from experts. It differs from Fontmassive in the presence of advanced specialists, but again in English, Google translator to help.
Bowfinprintworks feature: it immediately provides questions to fill out in the form of checkboxes and examples. There are ten fields to fill in, the font is determined by the writing of only some letters. It produces an adequate search, which is not a bad effect, but it needs to be analyzed; not everyone will look at the letters and symbols. 
It's a pity that a program for finding styles does not exist. It would be convenient to have desktop software on your computer.
I’ll finish the review and say: searching for a font from a picture is painstaking work, automated methods do not always give a positive result, you’ll have to work with your hands. And finally, a video.
Now I will teach you bad things.
Let's say there is a picture
and you need to find the font in which the inscription is made, or choose one that is similar in style and character.
Search by images
We go to search engines and try to find the source of the image using image search.
https://www.google.ru/imghp?hl=ru
We upload the original image through the form or drop it onto the search page by dragging and dropping.
Sometimes Yandex works better than Google.
https://yandex.ru/images/
The benefits of search engines are as follows.
If we find the source of, for example, a logo, we can find the author and, possibly, his portfolio, and in it an indication of the fonts used. Or simply on the page somewhere next to the image the name of the font will be written.
Who knows, this is the case. The chances are small, but not so small as to ignore them. Especially in a hopeless situation.
“What kind of font” on MyFonts.som
We go to Mayfonts to the section where a specially trained robot works.
http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/
We give the robot a picture, and he gives us the fonts. Well, or nothing.
But don’t rush to send him a picture without checking and finalizing it. Please note that:
– The robot does not understand the Cyrillic alphabet. Before uploading, remove from the image all characters that are not in the Latin alphabet. Cyrillic characters that match Latin ones can be left.
– The robot has poor eyesight. Sometimes he confuses letters with unusual shapes. Therefore, sometimes it is better to feed him one letter at a time. It’s worth finding the most characteristic one and starting with it.
After downloading, correct the recognized characters by entering the correct characters in the cells under the pictures.
If a letter or mark (for example, an exclamation mark) has split into two cells, drag one picture onto the other and put the letter back together.
Click Continue.
The robot will try to find the original font and suggest suitable tags for further independent search.
Search by keywords on MyFonts.som
In the search field, enter a word or phrase in English that defines the drawing tool, the nature of the font or its classification.
Our image was made as if with a brush pen. Words like “calligraphic”, “handwritten”, etc. are also suitable here. Here you can use the tags suggested by the robot.
You can search for terms individually or combine them and combine them in one query.
If you definitely need support for Russian or another language, then specify the appropriate settings in the advanced search fields, cutting off garbage in the results.
Click the Search button and look through the results, simultaneously noting suitable replacement options for yourself.
Mayfonts has many options to replace the original font.
Yes, Mayfonts has paid fonts. But it’s stupid to buy a whole typeface if you need to make a short inscription of several characters for testing in your project.
We find the desired option and increase the viewing area of the example to the maximum. In some cases, you can also zoom in the browser.
Let's screen it.
Raster
In Photoshop we turn the screen into smart object. In the smart object we overlay it Gradient Map from the desired color to white.
In the layout, set the layer blending mode for the smart object, for example, Multiply.
For most cases with a white background, this is sufficient.
If this is not enough, you can remove the white color from the screen. Color Range..., poke the eyedropper into a white background
get a selection by color, invert the selection,
smooth it out a couple of times by a pixel or two so that the contour border is not so jagged,
and hide everything white under a mask
In the main document, you can already do whatever you want with the smart object, almost like with a vector shape.
When you make a Smart Object smaller, the jaggies in the outline will become less noticeable. Therefore, it is better to screen with a reserve, and then reduce it to the desired size.
Vector
If you need a vector, then we do the tracing in Illustrator.
Open a screenshot from a PNG file:
On the panel Image Trace put Mode: Black and White, tick Preview And carefully twist Threshold and settings in Advanced:
Having received an acceptable result, we make inscriptions Expand
and we get a vector for all occasions:
Free fonts
It is possible that the font you are looking for is not a commercial story and was made for fun or not for sale. Then there is no point in looking for it in official stores.
For free fonts, go to VKontakte, in the group “
