Font previewer
I’m searching for an application that can display uninstalled fonts I drop on it. I just got this Mac Pro box, and the app I used before (XFontInfo) is not universal binary. Anyway it would be nice to have an app that could take whole folders of fonts and display them, that could XFontInfo not do. I don’t want to install Linotype’s Fontexplorer as it gets in my way with its caching and auto-this and auto-that. Mac OS X’s fontbook preview window is way to small to be usable.
There is a host of font viewers on versiontracker, but I have yet to find one that simply works. Are there any applications that you have tried and can recommend?
7.May.2007 4.12pm
uninstalled
7.May.2007 4.21pm
uninstalled fonts please
15.May.2007 9.34am
This is an interesting idea. Most font management/preview tools use ATS for font previews. To preview uninstalled fonts, the application developer would need to have libraries that could handle the rasterization. One option would be to use FreeType, although I don’t know if it works with traditional Mac suitcases. The downside is that the compatibility of the preview engine would not be exactly the same as the OS. It might offer some advantages in terms of generating specimens though.
16.May.2007 3.17am
If the tool is just for Mac OS/X then it is possible to temporarily activate the font, and then deactivate it when the display is closed. We have made a tool to preview uninstalled fonts on our collection cd’s.
16.May.2007 8.18am
Malcolm that is too slow. The fact that no-one has done something like MacFont http://www.geocities.com/mixage/ for OS X yet is puzzling. XFontInfo only went halfway, but shows that it is possible. I am mega puzzled. I miss MacFont.
16.May.2007 10.39am
Clause - speed is relative, but on our g3 & g4 macs it’s more or less instantaneous. Not sure there is any other way to do it unless it incorporates its own rasteriser as canderson suggests.