---
title: "Fonts — Vanilla JS"
description: "The fonts people can write text in, adding your own, and text in any language."
integration: "Vanilla JS"
source: "https://www.cloudpdf.com/docs/viewer/vanilla/features/fonts"
---

# Fonts

Text people write in the viewer, in a text box, a callout, a form field or a redaction label, shows
while they type in the very font the PDF will carry, letter for letter, so what they see is what
they save. Characters a font doesn't have come from fallback fonts, so text in any language shows,
right to left where it reads that way.

## Choosing a font

The style panel's font picker offers every font text can be written in, in three groups:

| Group            | The fonts                                             |
| :--------------- | :---------------------------------------------------- |
| In this document | The PDF's own fonts that new text can be written in   |
| Server fonts     | Your server's fonts                                   |
| Standard         | Helvetica, Times and Courier, which every PDF app has |

Most PDFs carry only the characters their text uses, so their fonts can't be used for new text, and
the picker doesn't offer them. A box that already has such a font keeps it: the picker shows it as
the box's font, greyed, with why it can't be chosen for another box.

## Your server's fonts

The server writes the text, so its fonts are the ones offered, under Server fonts: configure them
on the server, as [Fonts](https://www.cloudpdf.com/docs/server/configuration/fonts) shows, and choose which of them it may
send to browsers. A font it keeps to itself is still offered, and shows in the closest font while
people type; the saved text is in it.

A `fonts` setting in the viewer is ignored on the cloud, with a warning in the console.

## Text in any language

Hebrew and Arabic work with no setup: the engine fills them in from Noto Sans Hebrew and Noto Naskh
Arabic.

For another script, such as Chinese, give your server a fallback font; see
[Fonts](https://www.cloudpdf.com/docs/server/configuration/fonts).

Latin always shows: a font without it, such as Noto Sans Hebrew, keeps its Latin in Helvetica, in
the same weight. A character no font has shows as a box, both while typing and in the PDF, so no
text is lost without a trace.

## Typed signatures

A signature typed in the signature maker is written in a handwriting font. Pick the fonts it offers
with `plugins.signature.fonts`; see [Signatures](forms-and-signatures#signatures).