How to identify a font from an image or screenshot

You see a poster, a logo or a screenshot and think: "What is that font?" Identifying a font from a picture is possible, and a few simple habits make the result much better. This guide explains how to do it and what to do when the font cannot be found.

Start with a good picture

The quality of your image matters more than anything else. Follow these tips:

• Crop tightly around the text. Remove the background, other text and decorations where you can.
• Use a high resolution. A small, blurry image hides the details that tell fonts apart.
• Keep the text straight. If the text is tilted or on a curve, rotate the image so the baseline is horizontal.
• Use dark text on a light background if you can. Increase the contrast in a photo editor when the text is faint.
• Choose clear letters. A sample with a mix of letters, and including letters with distinctive shapes such as "g", "a", "R" and "Q", works better than a single word of similar letters.

Use an automatic font finder

Font-finding tools compare the shapes in your image with a collection of fonts and suggest the closest matches. Our font finder from image does this in your browser against the fonts in our directory, without uploading your picture. Because it matches against our own collection, it is best for finding free fonts that look like the sample, and not for finding the exact commercial font in an advertisement.

Look at the letters yourself

If automatic tools do not give a clear answer, you can narrow it down by looking at the features:

• Serif or sans serif? Do the letters have small feet at the ends of strokes?
• Contrast. Is there a big difference between thick and thin strokes?
• The shape of the lowercase "a" and "g". A single-storey "a" (like a circle with a stick) or a double-storey "a" are strong clues. The same goes for "g".
• The terminals. Are the ends of strokes cut straight, angled or rounded?
• Width. Is the font condensed, normal or extended?

Once you have described the font, search our font directory and filter by category, such as sans serif, script or display, to find similar designs.

Ask a community

Online communities of typography fans, such as font identification forums, can often name a font in minutes. Post your cropped image and mention where you found it. Be patient and polite, and thank those who help.

When there is no exact match

Sometimes the lettering in a logo or poster is custom drawn, or the font is a rare commercial one. In that case you will not find an exact match, and you do not need to. Choose a free font that has the same mood and structure. A close match, with the right license, is often a better choice than an exact copy of a font you cannot legally use.

Respect the license

Identifying a font does not give you the right to use it. If you find a commercial font, buy a license from the foundry, or pick a licensed alternative. Our guide to commercial font use can help you avoid mistakes.

Try it out

When you have a few candidates, type your own text into each one on its font page, and save a picture of your text with the font image generator to compare them.