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

Question

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

Answer 1

[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:
http://daringfireball.net/misc/2007/07/iphone-osx-fonts
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:.

Answer 2

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)")
}
}

Answer 3

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"
...

Answer 4

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...)

Answer 5

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!

Answer 6

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
}

Answer 7

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

Answer 8

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.

Answer 9

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)
}

Answer 10

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 }

Answer 11

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

Answer 12

For objective-c
for (NSString *family in UIFont.familyNames) {
NSLog(#"family %#",family);
for (NSString *name in [UIFont fontNamesForFamilyName:family]) {
NSLog(#" name = %#",name);
}
}

Answer 13

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

Answer 14

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)") }) })

Answer 15

To check if UIFont is registered:
let fontName = "Helvetica"
UIFont.familyNames.flatMap(UIFont.fontNames).contains(fontName)