Font viewing utility?

Post by **Mike Jackson** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 11:42 pm

Hi All,
A couple of days ago, I had a job that required I match a specific script. The font turned out to be Shelly Allegro or something similar, and luckily enough for me I went almost straight to it. The job is a memory now, but I ran into a problem trying to find the font.

I have around 500 fonts installed on my PC, which is fine. But, I have about 3000 fonts scattered in a couple of folders that are not installed. In Windows, I can double click on any TT font and it will show me the basic font characters, however many fonts on my system are numbered with something bl_____.ttf and it is impossible to know the name of the font until I click on each one individually. Additionally, Type 1 (Adobe) Fonts don't display when double clicked, so I probably need ATM to view them.

I can go the Install Font, go to the directory and I can see the actual file names, but I don't get to see what they look like until they are installed.

I have a similar problem on my Mac. I have lots and lots of fonts stored into alphabetical order (at least for my Adobe fonts) and by foundry names on the rest. I can click on the suitcase on any font and see a 24-72 point display, but it is slow and tedious.

I searched on Google for a freeware font viewer and found one that will view both installed and uninstalled fonts. I downloaded it to my hard drive, but got cold feet before I double clicked on the .exe file to install it. I don't fully trust some freeware...for fear of trojans or virus infections.

So, I am looking for a trusted font viewer for both my PC and my Mac. It needs to be able to view and display fonts whether they are installed or not. I wouldn't mind being able to let it print out a one line showing of all of all the fonts in a particular directory.

If anyone has the solution(s), please let me know! I have an old version of ATM, but I haven't upgraded it to work on this Win2000 machine. I don't think it displays uninstalled fonts.

Mike Jackson

alf toy · Post by **alf toy** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 10:33 pm

Currently I'm using Bitstream Font Navigator included with most later versions of Corel. It will catalog all fonts on your system installed or uninstalled and will let you preview them.

I've also used Extensis Font Suitcase which has both Win and Mac versions but it is $99, allows you to activate or deactivate groups of fonts.

Another product from Extensis is Font Reserve, $99 as well.

http://www.extensis.com/en/home.jsp

Post by **Mike Jackson** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 11:25 pm

Hi Alf,
I had hoped you would come to the rescue. I am sure I have Bitstream Font Navigator, but I never installed it. Sounds like it will work fine for my needs and won't cost me any additional funds. I'd rather load that program than take a chance on freeware or shareware.

Best regards,
Mike Jackson

David Harding · Post by **David Harding** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 12:05 am

Bitstream Font Navigator is a nice utility. You can also organize fonts into various font groups. A font can be shared by several groups.

As I have time, I sort my fonts into various families, such as Period Typestyles, Art Deco, Formal, Serif, Western, Scripts, etc. When I'm after a certain flavor of type for a design, I can sort through my subcategories until I find just the right one.

Raymond Chapman · Post by **Raymond Chapman** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 7:39 am

David....or another thing you could do would be to just hand letter whatever you wanted. Oh....that's right....you don't know how to hand letter. Sorry.

David Harding · Post by **David Harding** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:59 pm

Raymond,

I've progressed to hand mousing.

Post by **Mike Jackson** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 11:27 pm

Hi again,
I dug around and found my Corel 11 disks, but I didn't see the Bitstream Font Navigator utility in the list. I found my Corel 9 disks and located it there, then loaded just that feature. When I started the program, it went through the two hard drives on this computer and found all fonts in all directories, both TTF and Type 1.

I was able to see all the fonts on the hard drives, plus a list of all the installed fonts. It lets you see a showing of the letters in a display window. You can change the letters or words shown, too. After I played around with the program, I selected all the A fonts and had it print a manual of fonts with about 20 on a page, depending on how many weights were included in the font. If I right mouse click on a single font, then click on Properties, I could see the path or location of the font on my hard drives, and it allowed me to delete the font from the list and from my hard drive.

So, this program did all I was wanting it to do from my Windows machine. If was fairly forgiving on fonts that were corrupted or with missing parts. I'd certainly give it thumbs up, especially considering I didn't have to go spend more money.

There may be a similar utility already on my Mac, but I am unaware of the name. Corel 11 works with both Mac and PC, but I believe it will only work on System 10 or higher, and I am still on 9.2 or something close. But then, the utility wasn't in my Corel 11 disks.

If anyone knows of the Mac based utility that will let me view both installed and uninstalled fonts, please let me know.

Mike Jackson

alf toy · Post by **alf toy** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 7:36 pm

Mike,

My Mac friend mentioned that Appleworks in System 9 has font viewing capability, mind you thats probably for installed fonts. Also he suggests going to versiontracker.com and searching under Mac OS8/9 for font utilities or viewers.

Alf

Font viewing utility?

Font viewing utility?

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