![]() The Info window lets you find, view and copy/paste any character in any font, and limit your view to specific categories. This is handy for finding and viewing the 19 symbols for the new 4K TV standard or the 72 new emoji characters, including new smilies and people, animals and nature, and food and drink. In addition to document types commonly used by graphics professionals (pdf, eps, svg, svgv, indd, idml, icml, icmt, ai, pages, key, rtf and rtfd), version 6 can now detect fonts in these additional 19 document types: You can then choose to activate or deactivate fonts used in that document, create a new Set from those fonts, or generate a report. The “Detect Fonts in Documents” feature scans a document without opening it, displaying a list of the fonts used in that document. ![]() In version 6, the Import preference lets you define whether or not a new Set is created when importing fonts. In previous versions, FontExplorer always created a new Set from fonts you import together. The enhanced Font Tile view with rounded corners, colored letters and colored backgrounds. You can now also view detailed font information when you mouse over each tile, add rounded corners to the tiles, change their foreground and background colors and even gradually change the background color from the first to the last tile. In version 6, the Enhanced Font Tile View lets you display the first two letters of the font name in each tile. The Font Tile View introduced in FontExplorer Pro 5 displays a word or two in each font, making it easy to find a font that has a specific flavor. You can also create and use your own custom categories. Plus FontExplorer is super efficient at activating and deactivating fonts, so you’ll never lose your client’s favorite font again.The new Classification window lets you choose from a wide variety of standard categories, or click the Auto Classify Fonts button to let FontExplorer classify them for you. Like any database management system, FontExplorer is only as effective as the information you give it, but there are many different options for that information, and that makes FontExplorer infinitely useful, whether you’re a professional designer, typographer, or font-lover. For example, in the Information popup, the Summary headings are all displayed in pale gray, and are very hard to read and although the color labels are customizable, the defaults are so faint I thought they were grayed-out and unavailable to use. The biggest problem I had with FontExplorer, however, was reading some of the text. For example, you can change the color of your sample text and the background color of your highlighted text, but the buttons look the same and there’s nothing to tell you (other than trial and error) which is which. Also, the buttons are few, but I really wish FontExplorer included hover labels. There are a few annoyances with FontExpert: Use Custom setup if you don’t want to install Apple’s Bonjour. ![]() FontExplorer also won’t let you deactivate fonts that are used by your system (they are displayed with a padlock symbol next to them and a grayed-out checkbox). Unlike similar Printer’s Apprentice ($29), which uninstalls or deletes unwanted fonts, FontExplorer deactivates fonts using a check box system, which means you can deactivate an entire group at once. It took less than thirty seconds for FontExplorer to scan and import my 1,000 plus fonts from WindowsFonts. If you leave the software set to the default (not moving or copying fonts to a new unique folder) you can still manage them and may select to find either all active fonts or just the ones in WindowFonts. The default is no font organization but you may also copy fonts to a FontExplorer folder, or move them. Learning how to search using these fields takes time and effort.On initial start up, FontExplorer gives you some great options for organizing your fonts. So why would you need a font management system? For professional designers (and those of us who may have a little font-collection problem) software like FontExplorer X Pro is key to easily managing and organizing fonts both inside and outside the WindowsFonts folder.Īttaching labels, ratings, and comments to your fonts using FontExplorer is very easy. After all, in the pre-XP days, Adobe Type Manager (now obsolete) was a necessity even to install fonts now with Windows XP, Vista, and 7, you simply drag-and-drop them to the right folder (with some fiddling in XP). If you’re old enough to understand the reference when I say my font collection rivals Imelda Marcos’s shoe collection, you’re probably delighted with the current WindowsFonts folder.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |