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swdubb
Participant
April 29, 2009
Question

How can I preview uninstalled fonts (multiple)?

  • April 29, 2009
  • 1 reply
  • 8052 views

Hi there,

I'm new to these forums and apologize if I'm in the wrong place. I was wondering if there is a utility I can use to view uninstalled fonts? I have a CD with fonts that I'd like to preview. I can double click each, but it is getting tedious. By the way, I'm on a Mac running Tiger. I know I can use Preview, but it still opens each individually in cascading windows. Would utilities such as FontAgent or FontExplorer be useful for this? I would also like to print a sample of all the fonts for reference.

Thank you in advance for any assistance or direction!

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

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    Thomas Phinney
    Inspiring
    April 29, 2009

    On the one hand, a regular font management application such as the ones you mention, or my employer's own Suitcase Fusion (http://www.extensis.com/en/products/suitcasefusion2/index.jsp), will do the job really well... except that they prefer to work with fonts on your hard drive rather than on a non-writeable removeable disk. I *think* any of them can be set to work with the fonts in place, but you may need to adjust app preferences so they don't copy all those fonts to your hard drive when you bring them into the app. These also offer a lot of other features, but are retail programs that cost a bit of money. If you need the other features of font management, then they can be great. If you don't, they may be overkill. (If you don't know what font management is, see the second paragraph of my blog post on Windows font management, here: http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2007/10/win_font_mgmt.html.

    Have you completely exhausted all the OS preview options? Any chance you'll upgrade to Leopard? This article offers some useful tips for font previewing in Leopard, not sure if they work in Tiger:

    http://www.macworld.com/article/131466/2008/01/105previewfonts.html

    Otherwise, you might want to look at a dedicated inexpensive or free utility that really just does previewing of uninstalled fonts. I can't comment on the quality of these, but I gather FontCat, Font Pilot and FontThing.

    Regards,

    T

    S
    swdubbAuthor
    Participant
    April 30, 2009

    Thank you Thomas for that helpful information. I'm not really looking for font management features, so I think you are right, those might be overkill. I believe I've exhausted the OS preview options. I am most likely going to upgrade to Leopard. I read the article link, but it seems like the preview features are still based on selecting one font (installed) and then there are three different ways you can view the font. I'm not sure if it handles multiple fonts that are uninstalled. But, I'm sure Leopard will be better in general.

    I think the free utility is the way to go. I've just read so many conflicting reviews on Font Pilot, Font Agent, Font Explorer. If anyone has any advice on these, that would be great.

    Thanks,

    Sup

    T
    Thomas Phinney
    Inspiring
    April 30, 2009

    As far as I know, Font Agent and Font Explorer are both font management tools with price tags, though they may have a limited-time or free "demo" version which might be enough for your needs.


    Good luck - maybe stop by after and tell us what you settled on and how it worked for you?


    Regards,


    T

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