About extract PDF font list
This produces a font inventory: one row per font object in the document, with the base font name, the subtype, the encoding, whether a font program is embedded and whether that program is a subset. It exists as an export tool rather than a diagnostic one because the common need is a list — a spreadsheet of every typeface across a batch of documents for a licensing review, a record of what a brand's published PDFs actually use, a checklist to hand a print bureau. Where the font inspector walks you through interpreting one document, this hands you the data for many. On the obvious question: it does not give you downloadable font files, and that is a deliberate decision resting on two solid reasons rather than a missing feature.
How to extract PDF font list
- 01
Load the PDF
Font resources are collected from every page resource dictionary, deduplicated across pages.
- 02
Read the inventory
Each font appears once with its name, subtype, encoding, embedding and subset status.
- 03
Export the list
Take it as CSV or JSON. Run it across a document set and you have a typeface inventory.
What this tool does
- One row per font with base font name, subset prefix separated out where present
- Subtype recorded: Type1, TrueType, Type3, Type0, and the CIDFontType0 or CIDFontType2 descendant of a composite font
- Embedded, subset or referenced status per font, stated plainly
- Encoding and the presence of a ToUnicode map, which determines whether text copies correctly
- Font descriptor flags where present: fixed pitch, serif, symbolic, italic angle, weight
- Standard fourteen fonts identified separately from real embedded faces
- Deduplicated across pages, with a count of how many pages each font appears on
- CSV and JSON export for inventories across a document set
Limitations worth knowing
Every PDF tool has constraints. Stating them plainly is more useful than discovering them halfway through your work.
- This does not extract installable font files, and will not. Two reasons, both real: an embedded font is normally a subset containing only the glyphs the document used, so it is incomplete and of little practical use installed; and font licences generally permit embedding for viewing and printing while prohibiting redistribution as an installable file, so extracting one to install is a licensing problem regardless of technical feasibility.
- It reports the names a producer wrote. A file can name a font it never embedded, and the name alone does not prove which foundry release was used.
- It cannot identify a font from its appearance. If the font is not named in the file, nothing here can tell you what it was.
- Type3 fonts define glyphs as content streams, so embedding status is not a meaningful attribute for them.
- Font weight and style as reported come from the descriptor, which producers fill in with varying care.
How your file is handled
This tool runs entirely inside this browser tab. When you choose a file, your browser reads it from your own disk and hands the bytes to JavaScript running on this page — no network request carries your document anywhere. You can confirm that yourself: open your browser’s developer tools, switch to the Network panel, and run the tool. You will see no upload.
Nothing is stored after the fact. Closing or reloading this tab discards the file, the result and everything derived from them, because none of it ever left your machine. Read how local processing works.
Questions about extract PDF font list
Can I download the fonts from a PDF here?
No. Embedded fonts are usually subsets — only the glyphs the document actually used are present — so an extracted file would be missing most of its characters and would be near-useless installed. Beyond that, font licensing normally allows embedding a face in a document for viewing and printing but not redistributing it as an installable font file, so extraction for installation is a licensing issue independently of whether it could be done. This tool gives you the names and properties instead, which is what identifies a font you may then license properly.
How is this different from the font inspector?
Purpose. The inspector is diagnostic: it walks you through why one document renders differently elsewhere, with the embedding question front and centre. This is an export: a clean per-font inventory in CSV or JSON, meant to be run across many documents and put in a spreadsheet.
What is the six-letter prefix on the font names?
A subset tag. When a producer embeds only the glyphs used, it prefixes the name with six uppercase letters and a plus sign — ABCDEF+FontName — so that two different subsets of the same face in one file are not mistaken for each other. Its presence is a reliable indicator that the embedded program is partial.
Can I use this to check font licence compliance across our PDFs?
It gives you the inventory the check needs — every typeface named in every document, with whether it is embedded. What it cannot do is tell you what your licences permit; that is a question about your agreements, and this is the list you answer it against.
A font is listed but the document seems not to use it. Why?
Resource dictionaries are often inherited or copied wholesale, so a page can list a font it never draws with — commonly after pages are deleted or content is edited. The page count per font in this report is the quickest way to spot a font that is declared everywhere but used nowhere.
Tools that pair with this one
- PDF Font InspectorFind out which fonts travel with your PDF and which depend on the reader having them.
- PDF InspectorA complete technical report on any PDF, produced without uploading it.
- PDF Size AnalyzerA byte-level breakdown of where your PDF weight actually is.
- Extract Text from PDFLift the text layer out of a PDF and keep it in reading order.
- PDF/A CheckerCheck the archival indicators in a PDF — clearly labelled as indicators, not certification.
- Extract PDF MetadataExport both metadata layers a PDF carries — the info dictionary and the XMP packet.