Fonts that can use swashes

[Guest]

I'm so aggravated with this right now. I need to work in fonts that I can apply swashes to through the open type box, however, every one I try has that option greyed out, in fact most fonts have most stylistic options greyed out. Is there any way I can save some time and get or see a list of fonts that swashes can be used with. This is so frustrating and time consuming having to go through font after font and come up with nothing.

[Monika Gause]

The font needs to support it.

You need to get a font that has those features.

[Guest]

Yes well that's what I'm trying to get! Is there a way to find out which ones have that feature? It's a time waster to have to go through every script font!

[Bobby Henderson]

There's nothing out there such as a "master list" of sorts tracking OpenType fonts with swash alternative characters. You'll have to look up those details typeface by typeface unfortunately. With commercial fonts I'll often go to the MyFonts web site and look up specific details about a certain typeface, like its table of glyphs. Things like swashes, small capitals, ligatures and more will show up there. The Font Squirrel web site offers something similar with quite a few open source typefaces.

I wish Adobe Fonts (aka Typekit) offered glyph table views of fonts on its web site (or even within Illustrator and InDesign). Laura Worthington has a number of outstanding script typefaces available to sync with Illustrator. It would be nice not to have to hop between MyFonts and Adobe Fonts web pages when font browsing.

[Monika Gause]

You can take all non-OTF fonts off the list.

But other than that: What BobbyH5280 says.

[Jeff Witchel, ACI · Accepted solution]

Any Font that has a Slanted O next to it in the Font menu is OpenType. (See screenshot below.) But not all OpenType fonts have the same Glyphs. So if you're looking for Swashes for instance, some OpenType faces may have that option others won't.

If you're in CC 2018–19 you're in luck. Find any OpenType typeface that has the Swashes glyphs you're looking for and set a line of text with the characters you wish to use, select the text and apply Swashes in the OpenType panel.

Then, with the text still selected, do the following: In the Character panel, go to the Font Family menu. As your cursor moves over a Font Family Name, if that font has the Swashes it will show you the Swashes in your text.

For more, see the following New and enhanced features | Latest release of Illustrator CC and look for Font Browsing.

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

Also in the Filters section of the Font menu (first button on the left at the top of the Font menu), you can limit what faces you're seeing to just Script if you'd like. In this way, you'll have less fonts to scroll through. Generally, you'll find Swashes in some Italic and Script typefaces.

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

Your Cloud fonts (Adobe fonts, formerly Typekit) are also OpenType