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by welcomebrand 3157 days ago
I just tried a couple of photos of websites from my monitor and it's really nowhere near close to identifying. One of them was roboto from the play store which I'd have hoped would be an easy one.

Does it struggle with photos of screens in particular?
2 comments
seahcb 3157 days ago
No, it does fine with screens. The problem you're encountering is that we don't have any Google Fonts in the MyFonts library currently. The app can only return fonts that we have on MyFonts.
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pc86 3157 days ago
Why not just say "we recognize this font but don't have the license/permission to tell you what it is?"
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on_and_off 3157 days ago
AFAIK Roboto has a very permissive licence, is this really a permission problem ?
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pault 3157 days ago
MyFonts is my go-to source for fonts when I'm doing design work, and I understand why WTF is limited to MyFonts' database, but I do think it kind of cripples it and it would be really cool if it could identify external fonts by name but suggest a similar font in the catalog. Thanks for the great service you provide!
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ghostly_s 3157 days ago
> The app can only return fonts that we have on MyFonts.

Oh, so it's actually a useless tool then. Thanks for the clarification.

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fractallyte 3157 days ago
Hey, that's not nice.

MyFonts is one of the best font sites I know of, with a huge selection of fonts and top designers. There are regular offers on new fonts, and informative interviews (great for discovering typefaces).

I find WTF very useful. Sure, it's not perfect, and I continue to hope for better accuracy and results. I'm glad to hear they're working on it.

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CharlesW 3157 days ago
> Hey, that's not nice.

"Useless" is a bit strong, but the comment emphasizes the tool's most important limitation.

I might've said "Since WhatTheFont doesn't include fonts typically used on web sites, this tool is radically more effective when identifying fonts used in printed materials."

I'd like to understand if the team considers this to be a problem that they plan to solve, or if WhatTheFont will only identify fonts that they can monetize. (No judgement either way.)

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artificial 3157 days ago
Are you using another device to capture the screen contents or directly dumping the screen to a file?
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