How to find a font name of a custom font in iOS

When you use a custom font in your iOS app, the font name that you use to initialize UIFont or Font isn't the file name.

// Inter-Regular is not necessarily a file name.
UIFont(name: "Inter-Regular", size: 46)

In this article, I will show you how to find a font name for your custom fonts.

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How to find a font name

There are two ways to find the font name.

1. UIFont.familyNames
2. Font Book app

UIFont.familyNames

The first method to retrieve a font name is by using UIFont.familyNames method.

The UIFont.familyNames method returns an array of font-family names available on the system.

You can put this code anywhere you want (viewDidLoad, SceneDelegate, or onAppear) since it means to run just one. Once you get the font name, you can remove this code.

// 1
for family in UIFont.familyNames.sorted() {
    print("Family: \(family)")
    
    // 2
    let names = UIFont.fontNames(forFamilyName: family)
    for fontName in names {
        print("- \(fontName)")
    }
}

1 Get an array of font families.
2 Get an array of font names for a particular font family.

Here is how I use in it a SwiftUI app. I put the code in onAppear.

struct ContentView: View {
    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            Text("Hello, world!")
                .font(.custom("Silkscreen-Regular", size: 46))
            Text("Hello, world!")
                .font(.custom("Silkscreen-Bold", size: 46))
        }
        .onAppear {
            for family in UIFont.familyNames.sorted() {
                print("Family: \(family)")
                
                let names = UIFont.fontNames(forFamilyName: family)
                for fontName in names {
                    print("- \(fontName)")
                }
            }
        }
        .padding()
    }
}

This is what I got.

...
Family: Savoye LET
- SavoyeLetPlain
Family: Silkscreen
- Silkscreen-Regular
- Silkscreen-Bold
Family: Sinhala Sangam MN
- SinhalaSangamMN
- SinhalaSangamMN-Bold
Family: Snell Roundhand
- SnellRoundhand
- SnellRoundhand-Bold
- SnellRoundhand-Black
...

As you can see, the font name I use to initialize Font doesn't need to match the font file names.

This solution works but requires some setup and clean-up, which is quite overkilled. I prefer to use Font Book app, which is far simple, in my opinion.

Font Book app

To find the name of a font using the Font Book app, you need to do the following.

1. Install custom font in your mac by double-clicking on the font file, which should open an installation dialog like this. Then click Install Font to install a font on your machine.

2. Open the Font Book app and click on your custom font family. In this case, it is Silkscreen. You will find the font name in the PostScript name.