UIFont fontWithName font name

Question

Say you want a specific font for UIFont. How do you know what it's called?

E.g. if you wanted to use this code:

[someUILabelObject setFont:[UIFont fontWithName:@"American Typewriter" size:18]];

From where do you copy the exact phrase "American Typewriter". Is there a header file in Xcode?

UPDATE

Also found this handy.

andreas-supersmart · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-22T08:46:08.040

244

Might be interesting for you as Quick Win within the Debugger:

(lldb) po [UIFont fontNamesForFamilyName:@"Helvetica Neue"]

(id) $1 = 0x079d8670 <__NSCFArray 0x79d8670>(
HelveticaNeue-Bold,
HelveticaNeue-CondensedBlack,
HelveticaNeue-Medium,
HelveticaNeue,
HelveticaNeue-Light,
HelveticaNeue-CondensedBold,
HelveticaNeue-LightItalic,
HelveticaNeue-UltraLightItalic,
HelveticaNeue-UltraLight,
HelveticaNeue-BoldItalic,
HelveticaNeue-Italic
)

November 2018 - Update A new swift-y reference for "Custom Fonts with Xcode" - by Chris Ching. I had to update, as this is a great value posting for the new way combined with all missing parts to use custom fonts in a project.

edited Nov 22 '18 at 08:46

answered Jul 31 '12 at 13:36

andreas-supersmart

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Very helpful, I used: NSLog( @"%@", [UIFont fontNamesForFamilyName:@"Helvetica Neue"] ); – David Douglas Oct 01 '13 at 09:31
You might be interested in the November 2018 Update Linke above! "Custom Fonts with Xcode" – andreas-supersmart Nov 22 '18 at 08:48
@andreas-supersmart, your answer supports me after 7 years :-). thanks – Dinith Minura Jul 04 '19 at 07:58

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 18 '12 at 13:32

The documentation for UIFont is pretty clear on this:

You can use the fontNamesForFamilyName: method to retrieve the specific font names for a given font family. (Note: It is a class method)

You can get the family names like this:

NSArray *familyNames = [UIFont familyNames];

score 3 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 05 '15 at 18:40

3

label.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"HelveticaNeue-Light" size:17];

edited Feb 05 '15 at 18:40

oɔɯǝɹ

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answered Jul 18 '13 at 13:51

brian.clear

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While this code sample may possibly answer the question, it would be preferable to include some essential explanation to your answer. As it stands now this answer adds little to no value for future readers. – oɔɯǝɹ Feb 05 '15 at 18:40
Disagree with previous commenter - this was what I needed. – codehearted Apr 29 '15 at 17:06

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 29 '13 at 22:26

Try

NSArray *familyNames = [UIFont familyNames];
[familyNames enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:^(id obj, NSUInteger idx, BOOL *stop){
    NSLog(@"* %@",obj);
    NSArray *fontNames = [UIFont fontNamesForFamilyName:obj];
    [fontNames enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:^(id obj, NSUInteger idx, BOOL *stop){
        NSLog(@"--- %@",obj);
    }];
}];

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered May 11 '17 at 09:20

I made a library to solve this problem:

https://github.com/Nirma/UIFontComplete

All fonts are represented as a system Font enum and the library also details a way of using it with your custom fonts in the read me.

Basically this:

let font = UIFont(name: "Arial-BoldItalicMT", size: 12.0)

Is replaced with either this:

let font = UIFont(font: .arialBoldItalicMT, size: 12.0)

Or this:

let myFont = Font.helvetica.of(size: 12.0)

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 07 '14 at 03:46

This is how you get all font names in your project. That's it ... 3 lines of code

NSArray *fontFamilies = [UIFont familyNames];

    for (int i=0; i<[fontFamilies count]; i++)
    {
        NSLog(@"Font: %@ ...", [fontFamilies objectAtIndex:i]);
    }

UIFont fontWithName font name

6 Answers6

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