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Alexandre Trottier
[Font Explorer]

[More]  ⦿

Apple Font Tools

Free Apple Font Tools for OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) and OS X 10.3 (Panther). Applications in The Font Tool Suite: ftxanalyzer, ftxdiff, ftxdumperfuser, ftxenhancer, ftxinstalledfonts, ftxruler, ftxvalidator. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Apple Font tools to unpack, change, and create TrueType fonts

Downloadable tools and utilities, including TrueEdit (a truetype table editor), AAT Font Tool, Dehinter, DumpCMAP, DumpCMAPPost, FuseCMAP, DumpFOND, FuseFOND, DumpMetrics, DumpPOST, fbitEnabler, Fuser, DumperFuser (TTF -> text -> TTF), AAT Font Tool (UNICODE features), RoyalT (outline editor), Sbit Editor, TrueEdit (table editor), Fissioner (bitmap generator), Font Proofer, FontRuler, FontSummarizer, TypeWriter (TTF font dumper), Font Validator, GXW Waterfall, Merger, Mutator, and Slider. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Bohemian Coding
[Pieter Omvlee]

Bohemian Coding was founded early 2008 in the Netherlands and is being run by Pieter Omvlee. It develops a number of shareware applications for Mac OS X. These include Fontcase (elegant font management) and DrawIt. DrawIt is a vector editing application with support for bitmap-like image filters. Vector editing as well as the filters are completely non-destructive which means that a vector layer can still be edited even after a stack of filters has been applied. I guess DrawIt can be used as a first step in font design (exported formats include jpg, tiff and png), but it is not a font editor. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Carpetbag

James W. Walker's shareware Mac utility: "Carpetbag is a shareware ($5) control panel that makes fonts, sounds, FKEYs, and keyboard layouts available to your programs without altering the System file. " [Google] [More]  ⦿

Chuck Weger

Help and FAQ about fonts in Mac OSX, by Chuck Weger. Chuck is President of Elara Systems, a Fairfax, Virginia consulting firm that specializes in publishing technologies. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Craig Swanson
[Font Manager Shoot Out]

[More]  ⦿

Creative Bits Software

Shareware program Type-1 Tools 2.0 by Keith Cowgill: "Type-1 Tools was the first-available-anywhere program designed to convert Macintosh Type-1 PostScript Typefaces to the IBM platform. It also--downloads fonts one-at-a-time or in batches, prints ASCII files on PostScript printers, sends PostScript .PS files to the printer, and helps you control your PostScript printer." [Google] [More]  ⦿

Dave Girard
[The Mac OS X font managers review]

[More]  ⦿

Dave Girard
[The Mac OS X font managers review]

[More]  ⦿

dfontifier

Mark Douma's donationware utility (2004) for Mac OS X: dfontifier is an application that can convert Mac OS X-style Datafork TrueType fonts (.dfonts) into ordinary Mac OS 9-style TrueType fonts and vice versa. Review by Benjamin Levisay. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Diablotin

Free Mac OS X utility (a preference pane, really) by Stéphane Sudre. Review by Font Geek, who gives it 5 out of 5. He writes: "After I installed this little Preference Pane, I noticed that it had, among other things, a place where you can turn off (and then back on) fonts in the Fonts folder in the three Library folders -- including the one in the System. Diablotin allows a user immediate access to the fonts in the Library's Fonts folder (Macintosh HD/Library/Fonts) and the User's Fonts folder (Macintosh HD/Users//Library/Fonts). You have to authenticate only once to turn fonts off and on in the System's Fonts folder (Macintosh HD/System/Library/Fonts)." [Google] [More]  ⦿

DTL FontMaster
[Frank E. Blokland]

A set of utilities by the Dutch Type Library for Mac and PC that allows one to professionally produce and correct fonts. Developed in coordination with URW Hamburg. Includes BezierMaster, ContourMaster, InterpolateMaster, KernMaster, IkarusMaster, TraceMaster and DataMaster. The DTL FontMaster team:

  • Frank E. Blokland: leader.
  • Dr. Jürgen Willrodt: URW software man.
  • Axel Stoltenberg: URW software man.
  • Peter Rosenfeld: coordinator of the programming team at URW in Hamburg.
  • Gu Jun: Ikarus expert.
  • Hartmut Schwartz: one of the developers of Ikarus M.

PDF file with a presentation by Frank E. Blokland entitled FM Automation at your Fingertips. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Extensis Suitcase 10

Commercial font manager for Mac OSX. Positive review by MacWorld. Review by Ben Long. There is also a Suitcase Server for sharing fonts. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Extensis Suitcase 8

Mac OS font manager, 100USD. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Extensis Suitcase 9.0

Suitcase 9 for Mac and Windows. A commercial product that permits font organization, the creation of font "books", and font previewing. "Suitcase for Windows is being used by a wide range of customers today. Corporate customers are using Suitcase to manage the fonts they have set up as corporate standards. Windows based designers are using Suitcase to manage their massive font libraries and preview fonts before they use them. Prepress customers use Suitcase to activate just the fonts they need for a particular job." [Google] [More]  ⦿

Floor van Steeg
[Typeface App]

[More]  ⦿

Fondu

George Williams has a number of free UNIX utilities related to Mac font files:

  • fondu: Fondu will read a series of mac files, check their resource forks and extract all font related items into seperate files. The input files may be either macbinary files (.bin), binhex files (.hqx), bare mac resource forks or data fork resource files (.dfont, used by Mac OS/X). Fondu will look through the resource fork for the following resources: POST (Postscript fonts), SFNT (TT, OT fonts), NFNT/FONT (bitmap fonts), and FOND (family information).
  • ufond: takes UNIX font files and wraps them up into a mac resource and creates a family for them which in turn get wrapped up in a macbinary or binhex file. Ufond will read a series of .bdf, .ttf, .otf and .pfb files from the command line.
  • dfont2res: convert a font from the new macintosh dfont format to the old resource fork format.
  • tobin: Will wrap up a series of files into a macbinary wrapper.
  • frombin: Will unwrap a macbinary file.
  • showfond: dump some information about the macintosh font resources (FOND, NFNT, sfnt) found in the file.
[Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Agent

Commercial font manager for MacOS X by Insider Software Inc. Free demo. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Book

Apple's font manager. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Buddy 1.0

Shareware Mac font manager. 50USD. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Doctor

Mac and Windows commercial software for font problem diagnosis, repair, and organization. It can be used to convert between type 1, OpenType and truetype. Morrison SoftDesign is located in Charlotte, NC. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Explorer
[Alexandre Trottier]

Font Explorer is a program by Alexandre Trottier (Easy Soft) for the Mac, that makes it easier and faster to find specific characters in a font. Alternate download. Yet another download. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Finagler
[Mark Douma]

Mark Douma's free utility (2004) for Mac OS X which used to be called Font Cache Cleaner. It can in some cases help clean up font cache inconsistencies. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Fix

Joseph Maurer (Apple) wrote an INIT to work around problems trying to use QuickDraw GX fonts in non-GX applications. Free Mac software. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Gander Pro

Mac software to create a page by page catalog of all fonts in a database. Recommended. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Geek

Benjamin Levisay reviews the latest font software for Mac OS X. His tutorial on font management in Mac OS X. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Inspector
[Steve Hartwell]

Free software by Steve Hartwell, MultiScript Solutions, who writes: The Font Inspector is a MacOS X application designed to show the content of TrueType and OpenType font files, one at a time or several at once. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Management in Mac OS X

Article by Peter Fraterdeus from 2001. Continued here. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Manager Shoot Out
[Craig Swanson]

Craig Swanson (CreativeTechs) compares the main font managers for MacOSX in 2006, Apple Font Book, Extensis Suitcase Fusion, Insider Software FontAgent Pro, and Linotype FontExplorer X. He concludes that Extensis is still the main and most stable choice, but his heart is with Linotype FontExplorer X. More info at Font Geek. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Nuke

A free tool for removing font cache files on Mac OS X. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Picker
[Richard Garside]

This simple free tool shows all the fonts installed on the computer. Mac and Windows. By Richard Garside. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Pilot

Mac font utility by Josh Hague of Koingo Software. 12USD. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Reserve 3.0

Diamond Soft's font managing software at 110 US dollars. All font formats, originally Mac only, but now also for Windows and Mac OS X. This software can be used to create a page by page catalog of all fonts in a database. Recommended. HypoTypo reports: "I haven't used it in awhile, but I had the same problems... In fact, when I loaded it up with 50,000 fonts, it was not only real slow, but crashed or locked-up every time I tried to do a search... And it was very unstable a lot of the rest of the time... I don't know if there is a newer version that fixes some of those problems... FWIW, I continue to use 'Font Navigator' (Font Reserve's predecessor) as my main font program (nice features and easy to use)... And as a good second program, I use Typograf, it has some very nice 'Print' options..." Ron rick's positive review as a Mac OS X tool. David Creamer review Font Reserve 3.1.1 for Mac OS 9 and X. In June 2003, FontReserve was bought by Extensis (makers of Suitcase). [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Sleuth
[Terry Findlay]

Mac font browser with viewing and grouping capabilities. By Terry Findlay (To The Point Software). Free 20-day trial. Commercial version 12USD. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Font Utility Made in Japan

Links to made-in-Japan font utilities: FontPeeper 1.4, FontShop 1.2, SmallCaps 1.34, FontList 1.2, Hetaji 7. Mac only. [Google] [More]  ⦿

FontAgent

150 Dollar font manager by Insider Software (Carlsbad, CA), for Mac and PC. Now also FontAgent X and FontAgent Pro for Mac OS/X. Demo. A testimony: "I just purchased FontAgent in hopes of vetting and organizing my extensive (and growing) collection of fonts. Much to my dismay, I found the following: It didn't recognize my Open Type font, classifying them as "corrupt." It didn't recognize .inf and .afm file name extensions, so when it moves Type 1 fonts, it sometimes leaves constituent files behind. It doesn't always recognize the font's foundry -- many, many fonts from major foundries (Adobe!) are classified as "unknown" or " misc." I paid $50 for the software, so I'm disappointed." In August 2002, apparently, OpenType was added as a font format to FontAgent, but I do not know about the other problems. Review by Andrew Shalat. In 2006, they released FontAgent Pro 3.1 for Mac OS X. In 2009, FontAgent Pro Plus 9250 US dollars) comes also bundled with 750 opentype fonts called the Master Type Collection (250 fonts from Bitstream, and 500 from BTN: Breaking The Norm). [Google] [More]  ⦿

FontBook

Mac OSX font utility that comes with the OS. Virtually useless. [Google] [More]  ⦿

FontBook

FAT FontBook is a tiny MacOS font utility. FontBook helps you to keep track of your installed fonts, especially symbol or dingbats fonts. FontBook lets you print reference cards for your most-used fonts. Originally free, by Matthias Kahlert. Lemke Software is continuing its development here (10USD for version 3.4). Reports from my friends are positive. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Fontbook v3.2

Mac OS font manager. Shareware by Matthias Kahlert. [Google] [More]  ⦿

FontCard

Commercial font manager for Mac OS X, released in May 2005 by Unsanity. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Fontcat

Ken Stahlman's free font manager for Macs. Direct download. [Google] [More]  ⦿

FontCat 1.2

Commercial Mac font manager: "FontCat is designed to make it easier to view what fonts you have on your hard drive, or CD collections, and view them on-line or print out samples." [Google] [More]  ⦿

FontExampler

Free Mac product by Pixits for showing sample text in all available fonts. Deals with MacOS X. [Google] [More]  ⦿

FontExplorer X

Free font management software by Linotype until April 2009, when it went commercial. For Mac (X version) and Windows (older version). The manager is linked to the on-line font store at Linotype. Verdict by the typophiles: it seems the best thing out there right now, stable and fast. In second position is FontAgent Pro. Suitcase is universally loathed, and FontBook (the built in Mac OSX font manager) is at the bottom of the ladder. A Windows version is in the works. Old URL. Free version at the Linotype site. Other download link. [Google] [More]  ⦿

FontFolder Version 3.0A

"FontFolder is a shareware native OS/2 Font Manager that allows you to easily use large collections of Type 1 fonts in OS/2 without bogging down the system or generating hopelessly long font selection lists in applications." [Google] [More]  ⦿

FontList 1.2.1

Freeware and shareware version of FontList 1.2.1, a Mac font managing utility by Sascha Leib. The free version is called Simple Font 2.1. [Google] [More]  ⦿

FontNuke

FontNuke is a free utility application for Mac OS X Tiger that removes corrupt / troublesome font cache files. Written by Jake Pietrykowski. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Fonts Manager 3.9.3

Free Mac fonts manager by Ed Hopkins. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Fontshop free fonts

Fontshop free fonts: Interoffice (dingbats), Dingbests, Xcreen (pixel font), René Louis (Richard Beatty), Arsis (a condensed didone font by Elsner&Flake), Moved (Garage), Digi Antiqua (Linotype), DigiGrotesk (Linotype), Pushkin (handwriting, Paratype). Plus free versions of ATM Light 4.61 for Macintosh and ATM Light 4.1 for Windows 95/98/ME/NT4. [Google] [More]  ⦿

FontSight

From Stone Design, a Mac OS X utility that adds a visual font typeface menu to all Cocoa Apps with a Font or Format menu. 19USD. Free demo. [Google] [More]  ⦿

FontSmasher

Commercial software by Insider Software for Mac OSX: it can be used for viewing and managing fonts. [Google] [More]  ⦿

FontViewer by Creative Box

FontViewer 1.4 by Jason Williams at CreativeBox. FontViewer is a simple but elegant Classic&Mac OS X Compatible font viewer that allows you to preview all fonts in your fonts folder. They can be displayed in various sizes and styles (i.e. bold, italic, shadow, etc.) with the click of a mouse. FontViewer also features the ability to display your fonts in a slideshow, and view your fonts in almost every type of environment possible (i.e desktop, menus, icons, etc.). [Google] [More]  ⦿

FontVista for Macintosh

FontVista is a 30USD font viewing, cataloguing and printing Mac utility by Morrison SoftDesign, Charlotte, NC. Free demo. FontVista supports TrueType, MultipleMaster, Postscript Type 1, and Bitmap fonts. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Fontwise

Mike Carter's free Mac drag and drop application for determining fonts in EPS and PostScript file. [Google] [More]  ⦿

FontXpress 5.08

Commercial Mac utility by Morrison SoftDesign, located in Charlotte, NC. [Google] [More]  ⦿

ForkSwitcher

An application that changes the fork of (Mac) font files so the font can be installed in all Operating Systems (OSX and OS9 or older). For example, OS9 has the font in the "resource fork", and OSX needs it in the "data fork", and in that case, the font is called a "dfont". [Google] [More]  ⦿

Frank E. Blokland
[DTL FontMaster]

[More]  ⦿

Golden State Graphics

Commercial font management tools for the Mac. Includes theTypeBook, theFONDler, theFontsBrowser, and MatchThis. [Google] [More]  ⦿

ICFont

Free font manager (about 1MB zipped) from ZIK in Zagreb, Croatia. Alternate site. Windows software. MacOS version under development. Alternate URL. [Google] [More]  ⦿

iLoveFonts

Mac shareware font viewer utility. [Google] [More]  ⦿

lcdxxx2000

Bootleg copy of Extensis Suitcase 9.01. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Mac font managers

Comments on Mac font managers posted at Typographica on July 27, 2002: "Suitcase is slow and buggy. Font Reserve is confusing and unwieldy. Font Agent X makes it too difficult to preview fonts and requires rearrangement of your font files. The bottom line is this: None of them offer speed or ease of use comparable to ATM Deluxe and none offer interfaces that can rival ATM Deluxe's vertical column layout for sets and fonts." So they join the grassroots movement to try and convince Adobe to offer ATM Deluxe for OS X: ATMforOSX.org. [Google] [More]  ⦿

MAC font utilities

MAC font utilities at hyperarchive. These include ASCII lister by MacTechnologies, FastFontMenu Japanese Version by Christopher Li at Bridge 1 Software, FontBuddy by Vincent Jalby, FontAgent 2.7.1 by Insider Software (Carlsbad, CA), FONTaSEE deluxe 3.0e by Bill Mammarella at WM Enterprises, Fonts Manager 3.9.2 by hoppy, FontDetective by G. Swann, Rasputin by G. Swann, MacFont by Bruno diGleria, ShowDozeFonts by Rob Schenk at IngrimayneType, VisualFont 1.05 by J. Quenot, Font Gander Pro, FontLister 1.0.4, FontListCreator 1.44, Font Finder 1.02, Font Image Library by Tim Bobo, FontExplorer by Alexandre Trottier. All these programs are freeware or shareware. [Google] [More]  ⦿

MacFont 3.01

MacFont displays and prints a list of your TrueType[tm], PostScript[tm] and bitmapped fonts, even non-installed ones. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Macintosh Type Resources

Mac font jump page. Useful subpages with links. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Mark Douma
[Font Finagler]

[More]  ⦿

Master Juggler

From Spring, TX, Alsoft's commercial font manager for Mac OS X. [Google] [More]  ⦿

MC Font Menu

MC Font Menu is a Macintosh utility for displaying multiple column font menus. [Google] [More]  ⦿

MenuFonts

70USD product for font management on the Mac. From Dubl-Click Software. Some people really like this utility. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Mike's Sketchpad

Font tips by Mike Doughty. Explains about font installation on Mac and PC, font conversions between Mac and PC, font browsers, font editors and font software. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Mike's Sketchpad: Font Tutorials

Mike Doughty's huge web site with information about porting fonts from one platform to another (Mac, PC) using various pieces of software. [Google] [More]  ⦿

No Georgia--Verdana without IE on the Mac?

Apparently, without IE on the newest Mac OS X version (10.3), users will have to do without Georgia or Verdana. [Google] [More]  ⦿

OKFont

Scott Stoels's free Mac OSX utility that changes the permissions on fonts or entire font folders. The equivalent of "chmod 777" in UNIX, or setting the r, w and x bits for all users, it may make more fonts accessible to some font management software. Review. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Opcion

Opcion Font Viewer is a free font viewer written in Java for viewing both installed and uninstalled TrueType fonts on Windows, Linux, Unix and Mac. [Google] [More]  ⦿

OSX fonts

A list of the basic Latin fonts in a standard OS X installation, anno 2004. See also here: #Gungseouche.dfont, #HeadlineA.dfont, #PCmyoungjo.dfont, #Pilgiche.dfont, AlBayan.ttf, AlBayanBold.ttf, AmericanTypewriter.dfont, Apple Chancery.dfont, Apple LiSung Light.dfont, Apple Symbols.ttf, AppleMyungjo.dfont, Arial, Arial Black, Arial Narrow, Arial Rounded Bold, ArialHB.ttf, ArialHBBold.ttf, Ayuthaya.ttf, Baghdad.ttf, Baskerville.dfont, BiauKai.dfont, BigCaslon.dfont, Brush Script, Chalkboard.ttf, CharcoalCY.dfont, Cochin.dfont, Comic Sans MS, Copperplate.dfont, Corsiva.ttf, CorsivaBold.ttf, Courier New, DecoTypeNaskh.ttf, DevanagariMT.ttf, DevanagariMTBold.ttf, Didot.dfont, EuphemiaCASBold.ttf, EuphemiaCASItalic.ttf, EuphemiaCASRegular.ttf, Fang Song.dfont, Futura.dfont, GenevaCY.dfont, Georgia, GillSans.dfont, GujaratiMT.ttf, GujaratiMTBold.ttf, Gurmukhi.ttf, HelveticaCY.dfont, HelveticaNeue.dfont, Herculanum.dfont, Hoefler Text.dfont, Kai.dfont, Krungthep.ttf, KufiStandarGK.ttf, MarkerFelt.dfont, MonacoCY.dfont, MshtakanBold.ttf, MshtakanBoldOblique.ttf, MshtakanOblique.ttf, MshtakanRegular.ttf, Nadeem.ttf, NewPeninimMT.ttf, NewPeninimMTBold.ttf, NewPeninimMTBoldInclined.ttf, NewPeninimMTInclined.ttf, NISC18030.ttf, Optima.dfont, Papyrus.dfont, PlantagenetCherokee.ttf, Raanana.ttf, RaananaBold.ttf, Sathu.ttf, Silom.ttf, Skia.dfont, Song.dfont, Thonburi.ttf, Times New Roman, TimesCY.dfont, Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Webdings, Zapfino.dfont. [Google] [More]  ⦿

OSX PostScript fonts

Places with OSX PostScript fonts at Apple: developer.apple.com/fonts/">here, here, here, here. PostScript Type 1 (Mac or Windows), OpenType, TrueType (Mac or Windows), Mac screen, and a few others are all accepted by OSX. If you want them available to all accounts on the machine, log in as an Administrator and put them in /Library/Fonts. If you only need them for your account, just put them in ~/Library/Fonts. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Peter Bilak
[Typotheque]

[MyFonts] [More]  ⦿

Pieter Omvlee
[Bohemian Coding]

[More]  ⦿

Pig Font Viewer

A simple free font viewer that allows you to preview all fonts in your fonts folder. For all operating systems. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Pixits

Creators of the free Mac OS X tool FontExampler, which displays a given text in all installed fonts. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Pop Char

A commercial character map viewer by Ergonis, for Mac and Windows. [Google] [More]  ⦿

ProtoFont

Commercial Mac product by Imaja (Albany, CA) for browsing and creating specimen sheets of your font library. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Pure Mac

Mac font utility page. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Quickfontlister

Free Mac utility for viewing/printing installed fonts at any size. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Richard Garside
[Font Picker]

[More]  ⦿

Rosie Wolf

Gone. It used to have these font utilities: 30.07Advancedfontsv, Font Creator, Font Doctor, Font Reserve v2.6, Font Wrangler v2.0j, FontAgent9, FontExpert 2004 v6.0, FontExpert2004, FontRenamer122, Font_Xplorer_Lite, Fontlab Transtype v2, Suitcase, X-Fonter, Fontographer, Safefont. [Google] [More]  ⦿

STC::fontBROWSER

Free utility by Jerome Maurey-Delaunay (STC Associates) for any system that has Flash 6. This web-based Flash 6 application shows all of the user's active fonts through any OS and browser that supports the Flash 6 (or higher) browser plug-in. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Steve Hartwell
[Font Inspector]

[More]  ⦿

Terry Findlay
[Font Sleuth]

[More]  ⦿

Terry Findlay
[The Fontz]

[More]  ⦿

The Final Font Frontier

Discussion by Matt Neuburg of Font Reserve, a Mac font management program. [Google] [More]  ⦿

The Fontz
[Terry Findlay]

Mac font browser with viewing and grouping capabilities. By Terry Findlay (To The Point Software). See also here. [Google] [More]  ⦿

The Mac OS X font managers review
[Dave Girard]

Dave Girard publishes a comparative review of Mac OS X font managers in Ars Technica. He discusses Insider FontAgent Pro 3.3.0, Linotype FontExplorer 1.1, and Extensis Suitcase Fusion 12.1.3, and dismisses Apple's Font Book right away (doesn't let you deal with fonts outside of the system's established font folders; preview only one font at a time; slow for finding new fonts; no auto-activation). For big library organization, Suitcase Fusion is the only one that does it right (FontExplorer X's centralized library is just all your fonts dropped into an alphabetical folder scheme of dubious value). For dealing with corrupt or incomplete fonts, FontExplorer X wins (the others would not handle or repair corrupt font files). For auto-activation of fonts in applications such as InDesign, or system-wide auto-activation, FontExplorer X was simply horrible. As for interface and font previewing, and searching and filtering, or extra features on the other hand, FontExplorer X wins hands down. His conclusions:

  • FontAgent Pro 3.3: It is very reliable, and it's the most stable font manager in my experience. Still, the lack of accuracy for auto-activation of PostScript and OpenType fonts and the fact that it can't activate fonts off of removable media (forcing you to copy them) means it's not perfect. Still, it is a very good app and the best option for service bureaus. If its interface were improved and its searching/filtering options were more powerful, I'd say it was an easy nine or ten but these are relatively minor criticisms for this font management workhorse.
  • FontExplorer X 1.1 (free): The interface of FontExplorer X is really great and, for what I think is the first time, it gives fonts an environment where they shine like the little works of art that they are. FontExplorer isn't stable or reliable enough with its auto-activation to unflinchingly recommend it for professional designers--yet. Since it lacks any server option, it's strictly aimed at single users and with the current crop of bugs in FontExplorer 1.1, it's not for everyone who deals with font management.
  • Suitcase Fusion 12.1.3: I had left Suitcase X for dead a couple versions ago since it was slow, plagued with stability issues and the slow-to-come updates rarely resolved any of the major issues that the program suffered from. To stay competitive, Suitcase Fusion needs to improve speed across the board. It is inexcusable for a program at version 12 to misdiagnose fonts as corrupt.
[Google] [More]  ⦿

The Mac OS X font managers review
[Dave Girard]

Dave Girard publishes a comparative review of Mac OS X font managers in Ars Technica. He discusses Insider FontAgent Pro 3.3.0, Linotype FontExplorer 1.1, and Extensis Suitcase Fusion 12.1.3, and dismisses Apple's Font Book right away (doesn't let you deal with fonts outside of the system's established font folders; preview only one font at a time; slow for finding new fonts; no auto-activation). For big library organization, Suitcase Fusion is the only one that does it right (FontExplorer X's centralized library is just all your fonts dropped into an alphabetical folder scheme of dubious value). For dealing with corrupt or incomplete fonts, FontExplorer X wins (the others would not handle or repair corrupt font files). For auto-activation of fonts in applications such as InDesign, or system-wide auto-activation, FontExplorer X was simply horrible. As for interface and font previewing, and searching and filtering, or extra features on the other hand, FontExplorer X wins hands down. His conclusions:

  • FontAgent Pro 3.3: It is very reliable, and it's the most stable font manager in my experience. Still, the lack of accuracy for auto-activation of PostScript and OpenType fonts and the fact that it can't activate fonts off of removable media (forcing you to copy them) means it's not perfect. Still, it is a very good app and the best option for service bureaus. If its interface were improved and its searching/filtering options were more powerful, I'd say it was an easy nine or ten but these are relatively minor criticisms for this font management workhorse.
  • FontExplorer X 1.1 (free): The interface of FontExplorer X is really great and, for what I think is the first time, it gives fonts an environment where they shine like the little works of art that they are. FontExplorer isn't stable or reliable enough with its auto-activation to unflinchingly recommend it for professional designers--yet. Since it lacks any server option, it's strictly aimed at single users and with the current crop of bugs in FontExplorer 1.1, it's not for everyone who deals with font management.
  • Suitcase Fusion 12.1.3: I had left Suitcase X for dead a couple versions ago since it was slow, plagued with stability issues and the slow-to-come updates rarely resolved any of the major issues that the program suffered from. To stay competitive, Suitcase Fusion needs to improve speed across the board. It is inexcusable for a program at version 12 to misdiagnose fonts as corrupt.
[Google] [More]  ⦿

Type Tamer

Font management utility from Impossible Software. Free trial. For the Mac. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Typeface App
[Floor van Steeg]

In 2016, Floor van Steeg launched the 10$ Mac typeface app for choosing an appropriate typeface. Behance link. [Google] [More]  ⦿

TypeJet 2.0

Arcaneware's font viewing utility for MacOSX, 12 USD. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Typeset

Font viewing utility for OS9 and OS X. From Vizspring Software. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Typeset 3

Commercial software for Mac OSX (dated 2006) from Waterfall Software. Typeset lets you preview, search, and organize your font collection so that you can always find the right style for a project. [Google] [More]  ⦿

TypeStyler 3.0

Mac and PC commercial software for manipulating type abd composing ads and headlines. In the 200 USD range. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Typotheque
[Peter Bilak]

Typotheque is an initiative of Peter Bilak and ui42 out of Bratislava (Slovakia), and later, The Netherlands: Typotheque is an Internet-based independent type foundry. It offers quality fonts for PC and Macintosh platforms in standard European character set and in CE (central european) character set. All fonts have full (european) character sets, are thoroughly tested and manually kerned.

Typotheque also offers its own type utilities: AccentKernMaker and FontAgent. In 2000, with Stuart Bailey, Peter Bilak co-founded art and design journal Dot Dot Dot. Along with Andrej Kratky he co-founded Fontstand.com, a font rental platform. Peter is teaching at the Type & Media postgraduate course at the Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague.

Free fonts: Remix Typotheque and RaumSüd.

Commercial fonts: Fedra Sans (2001, 30 weights), Holy Cow (2000), Champollion (2000), Eureka (2000), Eureka Phonetik (2000), Eureka Arrows (2000), Eureka Glyphs (2000), Jigsaw (Light and Stencil, 2000, by Johanna Balusikova), Fedra Mono (2002), Fedra Bitmaps (2002), Fedra Serif (2003, 48 weights, with a characteristic shy female A, toes pointing inwards), Fedra Serif Display (2006) and Fedra Arabic (2006) .

Greta (2006-2007, Greta Text and Greta Display) is a newspaper type family designed initially for the main Slovak newspaper, SME. Greta Text won an award at TDC2 2007. It is also being used by the Sunday Times (along with Sunday Times Modern by Emtype and Flama by M. Feliciano). Greta Symbol (2012) is a 10-style 1200-glyphs-per-style superfamily of symbols commonly used in newspapers, magazines and online publications. Finally, Greta Mono (by Peter Bilak and Nikola Djurek) saw the light in 2015. Codesigner with Daniel Berkovitz of Greta Sans Hebrew (2015), which won an award at TDC 2016 and was released in 2017. Greta Sans supports Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Armenian, Arabic, Hebrew, Devanagari, Thai and Hangul. Greta Sans was designed by Peter Bilak, produced together with Nikola Djurek. Irina Smirnova designed the Cyrillic version. The Latin part has been published in 2012, the Cyrillic and Greek in 2015. In 2015, Greta Sans was recognised by the Tokyo TDC. The Arabic version was designed by Kristyan Sarkis and published in 2015. Greta Sans Devanagari was published in 2017, designed by Hitesh Malaviya at ITF under the supervision of Satya Rajpurohit. The Thai version was designed by Smich Smanloh from Cadson Demak, and published in 2019. This Hangul version was designed by Sandoll designers Yejin We and Jinhee Kim, and directed by Chorong Kim.

In 2005, Collins Fedra Sans and Serif were published for use in the Collins dictionaries. A slightly modified version of Fedra Sans is used by the Czech Railways.

In 2008, Peter Bilak, Eike Dingler, Ondrej Jób, and Ashfaq Niazi created the 21-style family History at Typotheque: Based on a skeleton of Roman inscriptional capitals, History includes 21 layers inspired by the evolution of typography. These 21 independent typefaces share widths and other metric information so that they can be recombined. Thus History has the potential to generate thousands of different unique styles. History 1, e.g., is a hairline sans; History 2 is Peignotian; History 14 is a multiline face; History 15 is a stapler face, and so forth.

In 2009, Bilak published the extensive Irma (Sans, Slab) family, which includes a hairline. Typotheque's other designer is Johanna Balusikova.

Collection of over 90 articles on type design by by Stuart Bailey, Michael Bierut, Peter Bilak, Andrew Blauvelt, Erik van Blokland, Max Bruinsma, David Casacuberta, Andy Crewdson, Paul Elliman, Peter Hall, Jessica Helfand, Steven Heller, Roxane Jubert, Emily King, Robin Kinross, Rosa Llop, Ellen Lupton, Martin Majoor, Rick Poynor, Michael Rock, Stefan Sagmeister, and Dmitri Siegel.

In 2011, he created Julien, a playful geometric display typeface loosely inspired by the early 20th century avant-garde. It is based on elementary shapes and includes multiple variants of each letter. It feels like a mix of Futura, Bauhaus, and geometric modular design.

Julien (2012) is a playful geometric display typeface loosely inspired by the early 20th century avant-garde.

Karloff (2012, Typotheque: Positive, Negative, Neutral) is a didone family explained this way: Karloff explores the idea how two extremes could be combined into a coherent whole. Karloff connects the high contrast Modern type of Bodoni and Didot with the monstrous Italians. The difference between the attractive and repulsive forms lies in a single design parameter, the contrast between the thick and the thin. Neutral, the offspring, looks like a slab face. They were made by Peter Bilak, Nikola Djurek and Peter van Rosmalen.

Lumin (2013) is a family that includes slab-serif, sans serif, condensed and display typefaces, and no attept is made to make them uniform in style.

Lava (2013) is a magazine typeface originally designed for Works That Work magazine. It was extended to a multilingual workhose typeface family. It as extended in 2021 to Lava 2.0, at which time they added a variable version of Lava that does this size-specific tracking optimization automatically---Typotheque calls it optical spacing. By 2021, Lava covered Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Telugu and Kannada. Typotheque collaborated with type designers Parimal Parmar, who drew the Devanagari; and Ramakrishna Saiteja, who drew Kannada and Telugu companions for Lava Latin, designed by Peter Bilak.

For Musée des Confluences in Lyon, France, Typotheuqe designed the custom sans typeface Confluence (2014).

For Buccellati Jewellery and Watches in Milan, Typotheque made the classy sans typeface Buccellati in 2013.

In 2016, Peter Bilak, Nikola Djurek and Hrvoje Zivcic published the Uni Grotesk typeface family at Typotheque. It is based on Grafotechna's 1951 typeface Universal Grotesk, which in turn is based on 1934 design by Vladimir Balthasar. Noteworthy also is the prismatic style Uni Grotesk Display.

In 2016, Peter Bilak designed the wayfinding sans typeface family November for Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and Hebrew. Its rounded version is October. November, co-designed by Peter Bilak, Irina Smirnova and Kristyan Sarkis, won two awards at Granshan 2017. November Stencil was published in 2018.

The Q Project was conceived in 2016 by Peter Bilak, and published in June 2020. Nikola Djurek produced the Q Shape 01, loosely based on the Edward Catich's basic brush strokes from his book The Origin of the Serif: Brush Writing and Roman Letters. Bilak explains: The Q Project is a game-like [modular] type system that enables users to create a nearly infinite number of variations. Inspired by toys like Lego or Meccano, Q invites you to explore its vast creative space and discover not only new solutions, but also new problems. Q consists of ix uppercase Base fonts and 35 attachments that can be added as individual layers (Q Base and Serifs). It also comes with a variable font with a motion axis (Q Mechanic), as well as three levels of basic shapes that can be combined into new forms (Q Shapes).

In 2021-2022, Typotheque custom-designed the humanist sans typeface NRK Sans for the Norwegian broadcaster, NRK.

History won an award at ProtoType in 2016.

Behance link. Typedia link. [Google] [MyFonts] [More]  ⦿

Using and Managing Fonts in Mac OS X

PDF file by Apple on fonts and Unicode in Mac OS X. Mac OS X accepts these formats (without having to install ATM Lite):

  • Mac PostScript Type 1. Two files are needed per font, one for screen and one for print.
  • Multiple Master.
  • Mac TrueType.
  • Windows TrueType: yes, the run=of-the-mill TTF files work! [Note: the difference between Mac and Windows TrueType is very minimal, a few bits at worst.]
  • OpenType: these have .otf extensions. These work only if the application understands them.
  • System fonts (dfonts): specially packaged truetype fonts (usually with the .dfont extension) introduced by Mac OS X.
[Google] [More]  ⦿

Using and Managing Fonts in Mac OS X

Apple's pages on font management in Mac OS X. PDF for OS X 10.2. PDF for OS X 10.4. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Using fonts in Mac OS X

Apple's guide for using and managing fonts in Mac OS X. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Utilities Fonts

Font utilities for OS/2. Included are CHARACTER MAP/2 v1.09, Chartbl, Character Mapper, Clipchar v1.0, FontFolder - OS/2 Font Manager v3.0a, Fontview, Getfont (extract fonts from a Postscript document), pmfoed002a (Display Font Editor v0.02), Showfont v1.1. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Veenix Font Tools

Veenix Font Tools is a collection of modular, space-saving font tools that allow you to quickly view, sample, print, compare, activate, install and organize your fonts. Free demo. Mac OS X font manager. [Google] [More]  ⦿

VisualFont 1.05

Intended for Macintosh, VisualFont allows you to scan folders of fonts in order to choose them. By Jean-Baptiste Quenot. 10USD shareware. [Google] [More]  ⦿

VoJou Software

Makers of the free Mac OS X font manager "X Font Manager" and free Mac OS X utility "X Font Info". [Google] [More]  ⦿

Websitetips.com (or: SK Designs)

Great links page to many things, including pixel fonts, educational fonts, font editors and font managers. Run by Shirley Kaiser. [Google] [More]  ⦿

X Font Manager

Mac OS X font manager. 12USD shareware, by Vincent Jalby of Vincent Software. [Google] [More]  ⦿

You control: Fonts

From You Software: Commercial Mac OS X software. You Control: Fonts allows you to create a custom font menu that not only displays the fonts in their own typeface, but also groups your fonts by family, so your font menus are more streamlined making it easier to find your fonts. Mixed reviews over at Macworld. [Google] [More]  ⦿