The web is a sea of ideas to create content and surely you have seen an image with a typography that you need to have yes or yes. Knowing the font of an image is easy if you know the right tools.
If you are a designer, you could ask one of your colleagues who is an expert in typography to tell you what type of font you liked. He will surely be very busy and may take a while to respond. But if what you need is immediate results, there are better options with useful tools to identify types of sources.
How to detect what type of source an image has online in a simple way
On the web you can find several application options that are useful for detecting what type of letter or font is used within an online image. These applications can also work on web pages and some of them can be easily loaded on your mobile.
When it comes to font finders there are several super useful apps available that will help you identify the font of an image as well as the typography.
They are between them:
- MyFonts
- What Font Is
- WhatFont Tool
- WhatTheFont
- Adobe Typekit
Some of these applications are available only for PC and others for Android and iOS mobile devices, so we will talk about each one and explain how to use it from the cell phone and from the PC.
from my PC
Take an image from your PC that has a specific source, it could be a billboard. An essential requirement for it to work is that the image must have a good resolution and the letters must be quite clear.
- In case the image is on the Web, use the Google search engine and take a screenshot with the Windows + Shift + S key combination.
- Select the area of the image that has the source and it will automatically be saved to the clipboard.
- Go to an application where you can modify the image and save it to JPEG Paint is a tool that is perfect for this task. If you don’t have it yet, you can download the classic version to edit your images.
- Press the Ctrl + V keys and the image will be pasted into the application. Finally save the image in JPEG format.
A very important point to consider is that the font should not have several background colors so that it can be identified more easily.
Identifying the font with MyFonts
You enter the first link of My Fonts, in the area where the sources are identified and there you must upload the image.
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Select the image from the file explorer or alternatively drag it from the folder where it is, to the browser.
- When the image is loaded, click on the blue arrow button. It takes a while while trying to identify the letter.
- The final result shows different possible source alternatives. The first search results are exact or as close as possible to the source you are looking for.
The only drawback is that in order to download the font you have to pay. The advantage is that the search result tells you the name of the source to search for it on Google if you do not have the possibility to pay for it. You probably won’t get the same free font, but a very similar one.
Identifying the font with What Font Is
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Select the image and perform a search to identify the source. But unlike the other, it does a more exact search identifying letter by letter.
- Choose the one that suits you best, they even have free fonts available for download.
- When you have identified the font you want, download it by clicking Download.
Identifying the font with the WhatFont Tool
- You only have to download and run this application, then the icon will appear automatically on the right side of the address bar of your browser.
- When you have an image of which you want to know the source, you will only have to select the application icon and move the cursor to the image.
Then the name of the font will appear and if you select by clicking, a box will appear with more detailed information such as the font family, size, color, code, font example and size of the line it handles.
using my cell phone
One of the applications that works best on mobile devices is WhatTheFont. A free application that is quite easy to use and that you can get in the Play Store. It allows to identify the type of letter and download it to the mobile.
To use it, just follow these steps:
- From the application, take a picture in the most frontal way you can.
- Wait for the app to detect the letters. Otherwise, you have the manual option to select them and you must do it one frame at a time.
- For better ease, try that the letters are 100 pixels and the fragment has at least 20 horizontal letters and without sticking too much.
- Select OK and Next until the app finds the font. If not, it will offer you a similar list of options.
The application does not allow you to download the type of font, so if you want it you must download it from the search engine.
Another application that you can use is Adobe Typekit, this through Adobe’s artificial intelligence, Sensei, searches for fonts similar to those scanned.
To use it you must:
- Download the Adobe Capture app
- Within the app take a photo of the image containing the font.
- The application, with the intelligence of Adobe Sensei, will search for a font that is similar to the one in the photo. And ready.
Install a font on Windows
Now the final step is to install the font on Windows. From the compressed file you downloaded, identify the one with the .TTF extension.
Copy the file and paste it to the partition where the Windows fonts are, find the folder C:WindowsFonts.
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Now it can be used in different Windows applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint. You can even use them in Adobe applications like Photoshop and Illustrator.
Open an app and write any text. Look for the name of the font you just downloaded and you will see that the installation was successful.
Identify the font and typeface of a web page
You can tell what kind of font a web page has with a Google Chrome extension called FontFace Ninja. Find the extension in your browser and select the Google Chrome link. Add the extension to the browser.
When it is installed it automatically displays the font on the page. It even identifies the color and size of the font. But if you want to do an even more specific search. You can select only the text that you are interested in identifying within the page.
What fonts are used in social networks?
Within the branding of any brand, typography plays an important role. And although it may not seem like it, each social network has a type of typography that can help the algorithm position the brand in a better way.
Choosing a typeface in the midst of so many seems to be a difficult task; however, it is good to know that quite popular brands use a simple font such as Arial, Myriad or Trebuchet.
The fonts are divided into 2:
- With Serif: It is used in paragraphs that have a degree of formality and a large amount of text. They have curved terminals that adorn the typography.
- Sans Serif: Used in short and unformal texts. They do not have curved terminals and it is the typeface most used in social networks.
The types of letters that are frequently used in any social network are:
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Helvetica and Futura: A neutral, versatile font that is easy to read.
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Franklin Gothic Demi: High-rise typeface, linear and quite easy to read.
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Klavica: A typeface family that was released in 2014 and is used on Facebook.
