FontView is distributed on a shareware basis. In return for registering your copy of FontView, you get the latest version of with the printing functions enabled. The unregistered versions (those without a "r" at the end of version number) may be freely distributed on bulletin boards, Internet shareware/ftp sites, and by user groups as long as the program and its documentation are not altered. Please contact me for any other distribution arrangements.
There are a number of ways to pay for FontView:
- Via U.S. Mail -
Send your address and $9 ($10 USD for international orders) in cash or check to:
Simon Brown
211 Banks Street
San Francisco, CA 94110-5624
U.S.A.
- Via Kagi -
To pay using credit card, First Virtual, or site licensing, use the Register program that came with FontView. After opening the Register application, enter your name, address, quantity, and payment information. The fee when registering through Kagi is $10. After you have filled out all of the required fields, the information should then be e-mailed, faxed, or mailed for processing to:
E-MAIL: sales@kagi.com
Kagi
1442-A Walnut Street, #392-S3
Berkeley, CA 94709-1405
U.S.A.
FAX: +1 510 652-6589
- Via CompuServe -
Not enough options? You can also use the CompuServe shareware database (GO SWREG) to make the registration payment. FontView's ID is #5078. The registration amount will be billed to your CompuServe account.
Your new, registered version will be sent to you by email, or by regular mail if requested. Whether you register online or by mail, allow 5-6 weeks for orders to be processed.
WHAT IS FONTVIEW?
FontView is an application that displays a window with the full character set for any selected font. Each character (or glyph) in the main window may be examined more closely by double-clicking a character. This will supply the character's keystroke, an enlarged view of a given character, and information on the current type face and font are all easily available.
FontView does not allow you to edit font resources. If you do need to edit font resources, ResEdit, Resorcerer, Fontographer, or some other similar product can be used. Also note that there is a similar Windows product sharing the same name, but written by a different author.
FEATURES NEW TO THIS VERSION
FontView 1.5.8 is mainly a bug fix release from version 1.5.7, but those using System 8 will also notice a number of small user interface improvements. All users benefit from the more detailed reports provided by the Type Information and the new FOND Information dialogs. FontView 1.58a fixed a bug relating to the Preferences dialog and provides additional information about TrueType fonts. FontView 1.58b adds a HTML Entity field to the Char Info dialog.
MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
This version of FontView requires:
- a 68020 or better (Mac II, Quadra, PowerPC, etc.)
- System 7 or better, System 8 preferred
- 256K of free RAM. Less RAM can be used, but some features may be disabled.
INSTALLING FONTVIEW
FontView is a standard MacOS application, and as such, can be kept anywhere that is convenient to you and your system. If your Apple menu isn't already packed with items you may want to store your copy of FontView there to make accessing the program more convenient.
To install FontView in the Apple Menu
open your System Folder
drag the FontView application file into the Apple Menu Items folder inside your System Folder
Once FontView is installed, using it is a simple matter. Hopefully you will find FontView useful and self-explanatory to use. But if you would like to know more about FontView's features and operations, read on.
THE FONTVIEW WINDOW
Opening FontView
After starting FontView for the very first time, either by double-clicking on its icon or selecting it from the Apple menu, you should see a display showing the character set of one of the typefaces installed in your system, with a text edit area at the bottom. Below is what the main window may look like when displaying the Palatino 18 font.
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Font Display Area
The entire font for the selected typeface is displayed in this area of the window, with the exception of the control characters or other non-printing character (although even these can be displayed ﾐ see the Preferences Dialog section below). By clicking on a character with the mouse, its cell will then be highlighted and ﾒtypedﾓ into the text edit area. Double-clicking on any character in this window will display the Character Information Dialog.
Text Edit Area
At the bottom of the FontView window is the text editing area. Any characters typed, clicked, or double-clicked are displayed here. You can use this area to select characters that you want to cut and paste into another program. To make cut-and-pasting a single character easier, a shortcut is available: a shift-double-click on a character in FontView's window selects and copies the character into the clipboard.
MENUS
The picture below is the menu bar for FontView. In the "FontView" menu you will find the standard "Font", "Size" and "Style" menu items. These menu items are used to select the font that the characters in front-most window will be displayed in, as well as the results returned from many of FontView's dialogs. For those with small screens, the Size menu item has an added significance: if the FontView window becomes too large to fit on your screen, you will need to select a smaller point size.
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Open Suitcase
This menu item is located in the "File" menu. Instead of installing a font in your System file or the Fonts Folder, FontView allows you to view fonts in a font suitcase. Simply select the desired font suitcase with the Open Suitcase Dialog and a window will be opened displaying the first font found in the suitcase file. Use the Font menu to select any of the other fonts that you might want to view. Opening a suitcase file that doesn't contain any fonts will cause an error message to be displayed.
Print Window
Located in the "File" menu, use this menu item to print type samples. Only registered versions of FontView have this function enabled. See the directions at the top of this file on how to register your copy of FontView. A new version will then be sent you that has the printing function enabled.
About FontView
Found in the Apple menu, this menu item will display the about box for FontView, which also has a button to select a help screen, and a button for getting information on how to register FontView. For more help, you may also want to turn on Balloon Help by selecting "Show Balloons" in the "Help" menu
CHARACTER INFORMATION DIALOG
This dialog is used to inspect a single character in a font. Double-clicking on any character in the main window will bring up this dialog.
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This dialog will initially give you a view of the character at 96 points or in the main window's point size, depending on how your preferences are set. The Char Information Dialog also displays the ASCII number of the currently displayed character, in both decimal and hexadecimal (base 16), the width of the character, and the keystroke needed to type the character from the keyboard. In the top right of the dialog the character is also displayed as it looks in the system font (usually 12 point Chicago) and the "application" font (usually 12pt Geneva). You can use the scroll bars underneath the displayed character to change the current character or the font size used in the display. Any valid keystroke sequence will also change the displayed character.
TYPEFACE INFORMATION DIALOG
If you would like to know more about the current typeface, the Typeface Information Dialog can hopefully provide you with the needed information. For detailed information on what the values in these fields mean, see Inside Macintosh: Text, the TrueType Font Format Specification, or PostScript Language Reference, 2nd edition. Some of these fields may be left blank for certain typefaces when there is no information available from the various font resources.
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=== Family ===
Family Name: the name of the currently selected typeface family. When the style name(s) are appended to the root family name they give the full name of the typeface.
Styles: This will contain the postscript styles (if any) that were included in the style mapping table for the selected font family. These are different from the usual meaning of styles on the Mac, where a font style is derived (mathematicaly converted) into the selected style. An exception to this would be Helvetica Narrow, which is listed as one of the styles for Helvetica, but is actually a derived font. Postscript styled fonts are typically designed by the type foundry for use as is, without the need of on-the-fly modification of the weight or obliqueness.
=== Typeface ===
Typeface Name: the name of the currently select font; usually the same as the name in the Font menu.
PostScript Name: the name used by the PostScript interpreter for this typeface.
Character Reencoding: Set to "On" if one or more of the characters in this typeface require reencoding when printing to a postscript printing device. This is done with the Glyph-Name Encoding Subtable (part of the Style-Mapping Table in a font's FOND resource). This means that a character that would normally display a certain glyph ("adieresis" for example) could instead display a different glyph (named "adifferentglyph").
Extension Name: the name of the file containing the postscript code to draw the font. This file may also be downloaded to the printer when printing to a postscript device, or used by ATM (Adobe Type Manager) to draw the selected font on the screen when an appropriate bitmap is unavailable.
Extension Path: the location of the downloadable PostScript file in your System Folder.
Outline Format: will show either TrueType or Type 1 if outline data is available; note that FontView cannot distinguish between Type 1 and Type 3 postscript formats, but this can be determined by examining the POST 501 data described below. With QuickDraw GX, Type 1 and 3 files may also be converted into a psuedo TrueType font.
=== Font ===
Resource Info.: The resource type and resource ID for the current font (synthetic fonts will have no resource ID)
Depth Expansion: Usually on when screen bit depth is greather then one.
=== Size / Spacing ===
Character Spacing: either Monospaced or Proportional, depending on font
Font Siz: currently selected point size
Ascent: generally the distance from top of highest character to baseline at current font size
Descent: usually the distance from baseline to bottom of lowest descender
Leading: any extra space needed between lines of type
Max. Glyph Width: The width of the widest character in this font, according to the Font Metrics data. For a number of fonts this value may be incorrect or misleading.
FOND INFO. DIALOG
This dialog returns information extracted from the current font's FOND resource. For detailed information on what the values in these fields mean, see Inside Macintosh: Text, Inside Macintosh: More Macintosh Toolbox, and LaserWriter Reference.
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OUTLINE INFORMATION DIALOG
This dialog provides information about the outline font belonging to the current typeface. For detailed information on what the values in these fields mean, see Inside Macintosh: Text, QuickDraw GX Font Formats, the TrueType Font Format Specification, or PostScript Language Reference, 2nd edition. .
For PostScript fonts, the data is taken from the comment lines found in the POST 501 resource data of the downloadable font. Line 1 contains the format version information, ie. Type 1.0 or Type 3. Line 2 contains the creation date and version, and Line 3 contains the printer virtual memory usage comment line.
When viewing TrueType fonts FontView can provide version, date, and name record information for the font. Note that only the first 220 name records are provided.
PREFERENCES DIALOG
The clipboard format determines how characters will be saved on the clipboard. It may be convenient to have the PICT option toggled on for pasting characters into another program, where they can be stretched or otherwise resized. If you are using MacDraw or a similar object based drawing program, you will also be able to edit the pasted text with the original font, style, and size intact.
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The "Other Font Size" field is the value used for the alternate size in the font size menu. The Missing Characters checkbox toggles the display of control characters or other characters with an assigned glyph. The "Preserve Glyph Shapes" checkbox is a system setting that is left off in many applications. However, FontView allows you to toggle this setting because the appearance of some typefaces will be distorted unless the Preserve Glyph Shapes option is enabled.
The "Display Fonts in Font Menu" checkbox (which is only available in registered versions of FontView) toggles the display of fonts in the font menu. Users with many fonts and/or slower systems may wish to leave this option off, as it can cause noticable delays when opening the font menu for the first time.
OPENING FONT SUITCASES
This feature allows you to view fonts that are not currently installed in your System file. The "Open Suitcaseﾉ" menu item will let you select and open any available font suitcase and then creates a new window. When this window is open, you can select any of the typefaces available from the chosen font suitcase. If you plan on having more than one suitcase open at a time, you may need to increase the amount of memory alloted to FontView. You can do this by selecting the FontView application in the Finder, and then selecting Get Info in the file menu. A setting of 200K as the "preferred size" should be sufficient for most users.
FUTURE VERSIONS
Planned additions and changes to FontView include further support for TrueType fonts, double-byte character support for international fonts, more changes to the user interface, and additional printing abilities. Feel free to contact me if you have any ideas on needed additions or changes to FontView.
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
If you have any questions or comments, leave me a message at:
sibr@sibr.com
www.sibr.com
Simon Brown
211 Banks Street
San Francisco, CA 94110-5624
U.S.A.
All mentioned trademarks are owned by their respective companies.
