The Font Identifier: 7 Top Picks That Will Speed Up Your Workflow
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7 of the Best Font Identifiers & Matchers (from Images & Websites)
Do you ever come across a font you love but don’t know the name of it? Or maybe you want to find a specific font used on a website but don’t know where to start.
Font identifiers and matchers can help! And if you haven’t used one in a while, you may be surprised. They’ve come a long way since the old days of questionnaire style identification, in which you’d have to answer questions about what style of serif your font had and how round the letter o’s were. They have a much higher match rate now!
But, just like there are so many different fonts, there are also so many different font identifiers. It’s hard to know which one is the best. That’s why we’ve done the work for you! We’ve narrowed the list down to 7 of the best font identifiers and matchers for identifying fonts from both images and websites.
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The Best Font Identifiers
Choosing the best font identifier truly depends on where the font you need to identify is located. (That’s why we have a list of 7 instead of just one!) What’s more, if you don’t have luck with one identifier, it’s a good idea to try it with one or two others, as they keep catalogs of different fonts.
Here’s when to use each of the different font identifier tools:
- What Font Is and Font Matcherator tend to be the most accurate and keep massive font catalogs. Start there if you’re trying to identify a font from an image.
- If those don’t work, try WhatTheFont or Adobe Photoshop’s Match Font feature.
- If the font is on a website, use an online website-to-font tool like Fontanello, Typewolf Type Sample, or Fonts Ninja.
Font Identifiers for Identifying Fonts in Images
WhatTheFont
WhatTheFont is an excellent choice for identifying fonts from images. They compare your font to their database of over 133,000 fonts.
All you need to do is upload an image of the font, and it’ll show you a list of similar fonts along with links to buy them. WhatTheFont also has a mobile app and an online community where you can post pictures of fonts for which you need help finding a match.
To Use WhatTheFont:
Upload an image of the font you want to identify. The software will automatically detect the type, but you can adjust the crop box around the text if necessary.
WhatTheFont will show you a list of similar fonts.
In our test, WhatTheFont came up with an exact match!
Font Matcherator
Font Matcherator claims to be the most robust and accurate font identifier tool, and it’s easy to see why — they keep a database of over 900,000 free and commercial fonts to compare your image to for I.D. Just upload an image of a sample of letters or simply drag and drop it into the Matcherator search box.
To Use Font Matcherator:
Upload an image file of the font you want to identify. The software will detect individual glyphs, but you will need to draw a manual crop box around the word or words you want it to identify.
Matcherator will then show you a list of similar fonts with links to purchase them. As you can see from our test example, even though it got confused by some of the letters, it still suggested the exact font family as our sample, Goudy Text Pro.
What Font Is
What Font Is is the last of the image-based font identifier tools on our list, boasting a collection of fonts of around 820,000 and a 90% success rate at matching fonts. Like the others, it works when you upload an image to the website’s search box. The site will, in turn, give you 60 or more variations in fonts to choose from, from all different font foundries.
To Use What Font Is:
Upload an image of the font you want to identify. Like the other online font identifiers, What Font Is will detect the type in your image. Draw the crop image box around your type.
What Font Is is different from other image-based font identifier tools because it has a built-in optimization feature. Images with high contrast and a white background color tend to work better, so, as you can see in our example test, we were given the option to optimize it to meet those criteria.
This is an excellent feature, but note that the other two font identifiers on our list didn’t need it to I.D. our font.
The next step was to identify 3-5 distinct letters. This somewhat tedious letter matching also wasn’t necessary with any of the other font matches.
While the user experience is a much more involved process than the other two image-based sites, this process is probably why it has such a high match rate. And, it comes as no surprise that What Font Is also identified the correct font from our image.
Photoshop’s Match Font Feature
Adobe Photoshop has had this font detection feature since 2015, but many users still aren’t aware of it. This method is a great choice when you’re already working in Photoshop and don’t necessarily need the exact font for your current project but want something similar. This identification technique isn’t as accurate with less common typefaces.
To Use Photoshop’s Match Font Feature:
Open the file that contains the font you want to identify. For the Match Font feature to work, you will first need to ensure that the reference image of the font you are providing Photoshop is clear and not distorted. So use Photoshop’s Perspective Crop tool to make any necessary adjustments and ensure the text is free of distortion.
Next, go to Type > Match Font to open the Match Font feature. This will open a crop box over your image. Adjust the crop marks around the text you want to match.
Choose from the list of available fonts. As you can see from our test example, the exact match was not found, but it gave us a couple of similar typefaces.
Font Identifiers for Identifying Fonts on Websites
Fonts Ninja
Fonts Ninja is a free Chrome, Safari, and Firefox Extension that will identify the fonts on any website. After you install the extension, you simply navigate to any site, click on the Font Ninja icon, and it will give you a list of all the fonts used on the site. If you hover over a bit of text, it will identify the font, style, spacing, and color code.
Typewolf Type Sample
Type Sample is similar to Fonts Ninja in that it will identify the fonts used on any website. It’s extremely easy to use — just drag the Type Sample button to your bookmarks toolbar. Then, whenever you want to know about the font on a website, just click on it. You’ll even be able to type your own text in that font to test it out.
Fontanello
And finally, the last of our website font identifiers, Fontanello is a browser extension that works with Chrome and Firefox and will display any text’s typographic styles if you right-click on it. Fontanello will show you the font name, the style, the size & spacing, and the color code.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I identify a font from an image?
The best way to identify a font from an image is to use a font identifier like WhatThe Font or Font Matcherator. Simply upload an image of the text that contains a sample of letters from the font you want to I.D., and it’ll show you a list of similar fonts.
How can I identify a font on a website?
There are a few different ways to find out what fonts are used on a website. You can use an online tool like Fontanello, Typewolf Type Sample, or Fonts Ninja as described above. These tools will show you the font, style, size, and even give you a link to purchase typefaces that are used on any website.
You can also use your browser’s developer tools. In Google Chrome, for example, you can right-click on any element on a web page and select “Inspect.” This will open the developer tools, where you can view the source code for that element. This code will list the fonts used on that website.
How do font identifiers work?
Font identifiers work by comparing the font you need to identify to a database of known fonts. If the font you’re trying to find isn’t in their database, then the identifier won’t be able to find a match.
In addition, some fonts are very similar to others, so it can be challenging to find an exact match. However, you can usually find a font that’s close enough.
What if I can't find a match for my font?
If you can’t find a match for your font, you should first try one of the other font identifiers. You can also try posting in a community forum like WhatTheFont to see if anyone there can help you identify the font.
If the forum members can’t help you, you can try asking on Quora. The Q & A site has a category dedicated to typeface identification with plenty of community members ready to help.
Or, if you’re a Reddit user, try asking in the subreddit r/IdentifyThisFont. Many design community members are there at all hours, so you’ll likely get a lot of help.
And finally, if you’re trying to identify a well-known font, like that of a brand, famous movie, or logo — sometimes your best bet is to simply search for, “what is xx brand font” in your favorite search engine.
But, as you can see from our tests above, you’re most likely going to find a match by using one (or more) of the online font identifiers, so your best bet is to start there.
Final Thoughts on Font Identifiers
There you have it! These are seven of the best font identifiers and matchers out there. With these tools, you should be able to identify almost any font from an image or website. Font identifiers are an incredible resource for designers, so be sure to bookmark this page for future reference so you can refer to it every time you need to I.D. a font!
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