You can sort the fonts within by style (regular, bold, italic, bold italic), file format (TrueType, OpenType, Type 1), and family (Decorative, Mono-spaced, Sans Serif, Serif, Script, Symbol). Once you’ve located the folder you want, Printer’s Apprentice will list all of the fonts installed there. Printer’s Apprentice provides a list of all the fonts installed in one folder and lets you see sample paragraphs, as well as individual glyphs. If your work requires you to sort and select fonts–whether they’re in your WindowsFonts folder, in other hard-drive locations, or on a CD–you need a program like Printer’s Apprentice ($29). But you won’t want to mess with the WindowsFonts folder, since accidentally moving or deleting Windows system fonts can have serious consequences and storing your fonts in scattered folders can be confusing. Windows 7 itself installs more than 200 fonts as the default array of choices. Thousands are free for the downloading, and more are available if you’re willing to pay. Plus FontExplorer is super efficient at activating and deactivating fonts, so you’ll never lose your client’s favorite font again.Fonts are undeniably fun–and abundant. 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.
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