name: whatfontis description: > Identify fonts from images using the WhatFontIs API (990K+ font catalog). Use when the user wants to identify a font from a screenshot, image file, or image URL. Covers base64 upload and URL-based requests via curl.
WhatFontIs API
Identify fonts from images using the WhatFontIs.com REST API. Searches a catalog of 990K+ fonts (commercial and free). Returns up to 20 ranked matches with font name, type (free/commercial), and source.
API docs: https://ggp.whatfontis.com/API-identify-fonts-from-image.html
Auth
WHATFONTISKEY is already set in the environment. Just use $WHATFONTISKEY in curl commands. Free tier: 200 requests/day.
Identify font from a local image file
Encode the image as base64 and send it with IMAGEBASE64=1:
IMG_B64=$(base64 -i /path/to/image.png)
curl -s -X POST "https://www.whatfontis.com/api2/" \
-H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
--data-urlencode "API_KEY=$WHATFONTISKEY" \
--data-urlencode "IMAGEBASE64=1" \
--data-urlencode "urlimagebase64=$IMG_B64" \
--data-urlencode "limit=10" | python3 -m json.tool
Identify font from an image URL
Pass the URL directly with IMAGEBASE64=0:
curl -s -X POST "https://www.whatfontis.com/api2/" \
-H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
--data-urlencode "API_KEY=$WHATFONTISKEY" \
--data-urlencode "IMAGEBASE64=0" \
--data-urlencode "urlimage=https://example.com/screenshot.png" \
--data-urlencode "limit=10" | python3 -m json.tool
Parameters
| Parameter | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
API_KEY (required) |
str | Your API key from env var WHATFONTISKEY |
IMAGEBASE64 |
int | 0 = use urlimage, 1 = use urlimagebase64 |
urlimage |
str | Public URL to an image (when IMAGEBASE64=0) |
urlimagebase64 |
str | Base64-encoded image data (when IMAGEBASE64=1) |
NOTTEXTBOXSDETECTION |
int | 0 = auto-detect text box, 1 = search whole image |
FREEFONTS |
int | 0 = all fonts, 1 = only free fonts |
limit |
int | Number of results, 1-20 (default: 2) |
Response shape
[
{
"title": "Red Rock Regular",
"url": "https://www.whatfontis.com/NMY_Red-Rock-Regular.font",
"image": "https://d1ly52g9wjvbd2.cloudfront.net/img16/...",
"type": "Commercial",
"site": "Myfonts.com"
}
]
- title: font name
- url: font page on WhatFontIs (shareable link)
- type:
CommercialorFree - site: where the font is available
Tips
- For images with small or overlapping text, try
NOTTEXTBOXSDETECTION=1to scan the whole image. - Use
FREEFONTS=1to filter results to only free fonts. - Discord CDN URLs expire after ~24h. For Discord images, download the file first and use base64 upload.
- Present results as a table with font name, type, and source for easy scanning.