You’re reading a PDF and you think: I wonder what font they are using?
If you own the software, you can find out which fonts are in a PDF using Adobe Acrobat. If you don’t, here are some free ways on Windows and Mac OS X.
Windows: Adobe Reader
You can find the fonts in a PDF using the free Adobe Reader that nearly everyone has installed.
With the PDF loaded, go to the File menu and then Properties. There’ll be a Fonts tab. Click that.
You can then see all the fonts that have been used in this PDF.
Mac OS X
Unfortunately, the ever-useful Preview built in to Mac OS X does not have the ability to show a document’s fonts (too bad).
I don’t recommend installing Acrobat Reader just for this, so here is a way to do it using the Terminal. Don’t be scared, it’s easy.
First, open a Terminal window. If you don’t know how to do that, go to Applications > Utilities and launch Terminal.
Then execute the following command:
strings /path/to/your/filename.pdf | grep FontName
Where /path/to/your/filename.pdf is, of course, the path to your PDF. If you don’t know how to enter that, the easiest way to do it is type “strings ” and then drag the PDF from the Finder into your Terminal window. It will automatically format it correctly.
Hit Enter and you’ll then get a list of all the fonts in the PDF.
These were the easiest (free) ways I’ve found to list the fonts in a PDF. If you have others, please share in the comments.
(Photo by Seth Sawyers)
