CODEWITHSUNDEEP
iphoneiosios4
tg2007
tg2007

Reputation: 833

How to check if a font is available in version of iOS?

I'm currently working on an app that uses the "ChalkboardSE-Regular" font and my deployment target is 4.0+. This font was not available in 4.1 but it is supported in 4.3. What would be the best way to go about checking if the font exists and if it does not, use another supported font on the <4.1 versions of iOS. [UIFont familyName] returns a list of these fonts "Chalkboard SE"

Thanks in advance!

T

Upvotes: 60

Views: 66848

Answers (15)

Tal Sahar
Tal Sahar

Reputation: 954

To check if UIFont is registered:

let fontName = "Helvetica"
UIFont.familyNames.flatMap(UIFont.fontNames).contains(fontName)

Upvotes: 0

Alessandro Pirovano
Alessandro Pirovano

Reputation: 2551

If you use Swift you can print all fonts (see below). You can also check if the font exists.

for family in UIFont.familyNames {
    print("\(family)")

    for name in UIFont.fontNames(forFamilyName: family) {
        print("   \(name)")
    }
}

Upvotes: 60

Nic Wanavit
Nic Wanavit

Reputation: 2713

I figured that using swiftui preview, you can make a app that shows what each font looks like using the preview simulator.

struct TitleViewModifier_Previews:
    PreviewProvider {
    
    static var previews: some View {

        List{
            ForEach(UIFont.familyNames.sorted(),id: \.self){ family in
                ForEach(UIFont.fontNames(forFamilyName: family), id: \.self){ eachFont in
                    Text(eachFont)
                        .font(.custom(eachFont, size: 22))
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Here is what my preview looks like Press the play button to make the list interactive and scrollable

enter image description here

Upvotes: 2

Mercurial
Mercurial

Reputation: 2165

Swift 4.x

UIFont.familyNames().sort( { $0 < $1 } ).forEach({ print("\($0)"); UIFont.fontNamesForFamilyName("\($0)").sort( { $0 < $1 } ).forEach({ print("     \($0)") }) })

Swift 5.x

UIFont.familyNames.sorted( by: { $0 < $1 } ).forEach({ print("\($0)"); UIFont.fontNames(forFamilyName: "\($0)").sorted(by: { $0 < $1 } ).forEach({ print("     \($0)") }) })

Upvotes: 0

Beau Nouvelle
Beau Nouvelle

Reputation: 7252

Swift 5.x

Forget those for-loops, this is the easiest way to see fonts supported by iOS.

Just run any of the following in a playground.

Family Names Only

Input

dump(UIFont.familyNames)

Output

▿ 75 elements
  - "Copperplate"
  - "Heiti SC"
  - "Kohinoor Telugu"
  ...

Font Names Only

Input

dump(UIFont.familyNames.compactMap { UIFont.fontNames(forFamilyName: $0) })

Output

▿ 248 elements
  - "Copperplate-Light"
  - "Copperplate"
  - "Copperplate-Bold"
  ...

Font Names for Specified Family Name

Input

dump(UIFont.fontNames(forFamilyName: "Helvetica Neue"))

Output

▿ 14 elements
  - "HelveticaNeue-Italic"
  - "HelveticaNeue-Bold"
  - "HelveticaNeue-UltraLight"
  - "HelveticaNeue-CondensedBlack"
  ...

Upvotes: 18

Wasim
Wasim

Reputation: 1140

print("Font families: %@", UIFont.familyNames)

Upvotes: 0

Sauvik Dolui
Sauvik Dolui

Reputation: 5660

Well, rather than writing a single line of code, you can just open http://iosfonts.com and check availability based on your iOS version support. You can also know how would it look like.

http://iosfonts.com Preview Feature

Upvotes: 2

Obadah Shatnawi
Obadah Shatnawi

Reputation: 79

For objective-c

for (NSString *family in UIFont.familyNames) {
    NSLog(@"family %@",family);
    for (NSString *name in [UIFont fontNamesForFamilyName:family]) {
        NSLog(@"      name = %@",name);
    }
}

Upvotes: 0

eMdOS
eMdOS

Reputation: 1713

Swift version:

UIFont.familyNames().sort( { $0 < $1 } ).forEach({ print("\($0)"); UIFont.fontNamesForFamilyName("\($0)").sort( { $0 < $1 } ).forEach({ print("     \($0)") }) })

Upvotes: 2

Jiri Trecak
Jiri Trecak

Reputation: 5122

For iOS9 / Swift 2.0, none of above won't work as the syntax changed a little. I also personally prefer to use extension (I choose to create one for UIFont, as it fits the best and modified @API answer as this was the best one):

extension UIFont {

    static func availableFonts() {

        // Get all fonts families
        for family in UIFont.familyNames() {
            NSLog("\(family)")

            // Show all fonts for any given family
            for name in UIFont.fontNamesForFamilyName(family) {
                NSLog("   \(name)")
            }
        }
    }
}

Now you can just call:

UIFont.availableFonts()

And it will tell you all the fonts in the form of 

: Bangla Sangam MN
:    BanglaSangamMN-Bold
:    BanglaSangamMN
: Zapfino
:    Zapfino

Hope it helps!

Upvotes: 4

disaster code
disaster code

Reputation: 21

This is what i did on objective c to find out if font is available or not

NSFont *font = [NSFont fontWithName:@"thefont" size:25.0];
if (font==nil) {
    // thefont is available
} else {
    // thefont is not available
}

Upvotes: 2

superarts.org
superarts.org

Reputation: 7238

Try to init with that font name, and if it's nil do something else. Swift code:

if let font = UIFont(name: name, size: size) { // ok } else { // not ok }

Upvotes: 1

Pontus
Pontus

Reputation: 776

Here is a conversion of Steves answer to Swift code (for quick copy and paste purpose):

    var fontFamilies = UIFont.familyNames()

    for (var i:Int = 0; i < fontFamilies.count; i++) {
        var fontFamily: NSString = fontFamilies[i] as NSString
        var fontNames: NSArray = UIFont.fontNamesForFamilyName(fontFamilies[i] as String) as NSArray

        NSLog ("%@: %@", fontFamily, fontNames)
    }

Upvotes: 1

Steve HHH
Steve HHH

Reputation: 13147

[UIFont familyName] is supported back to iPhone OS 2.0 (before 2.0, third-party apps were not allowed on iPhone or iPod touch) , so I would use that to check to see if a font family exists on the current device, and if it doesn't exist, use a suitable fall-back font for that version of iOS. Here's John Gruber's list of iPhone fonts from the original iPhone in 2007 (contrasted with the fonts in Mac OS X of the day). I haven't checked them all, but the iOS fonts I did check are still in iOS 5:

Here's an example of using [UIFont familyName]:

NSLog (@"Font families: %@", [UIFont familyNames]);

This will produce a list like this:

Font families: ( Thonburi, "Snell Roundhand", "Academy Engraved LET", ... et cetera.

Once you know the family name, you can use the UIFont class method fontNamesForFamilyName to get an NSArray of the names of all the fonts in the family. For example:

NSLog (@"Courier New family fonts: %@", [UIFont fontNamesForFamilyName:@"Courier New"]);

That will produce a list like this:

Courier New family fonts: ( CourierNewPSMT, "CourierNewPS-BoldMT", "CourierNewPS-BoldItalicMT", "CourierNewPS-ItalicMT" )

The following example code prints a list of each font in every family on the current device:

NSArray *fontFamilies = [UIFont familyNames];

for (int i = 0; i < [fontFamilies count]; i++)
{
    NSString *fontFamily = [fontFamilies objectAtIndex:i];
    NSArray *fontNames = [UIFont fontNamesForFamilyName:[fontFamilies objectAtIndex:i]];
    NSLog (@"%@: %@", fontFamily, fontNames);
}

For more information, check out the iOS Developer Reference document for the UIFont class methods familyNames and fontNamesForFamilyName:.

Upvotes: 114

matt
matt

Reputation: 536028

This font was not available in 4.1 but it is supported in 4.3. What would be the best way to go about checking if the font exists

Simply ask for the font in the usual way using UIFont* f = [UIFont fontWithName:... size:...];. If the font isn't available, the result (f) will be nil.

(One way to guarantee the availability of a font is to include it in the app bundle...)

Upvotes: 14

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