Font Previews

Slabysz · 12-27-2005

How do you deal with the near endless choice of fonts? When I'm in Photoshop I have to rely on memory or do a bunch of trial and errors to find the appropriate font. Is there a way to see a quick preview of the font without actually selecting the font?

**Man1c M0g** · 12-27-2005

With the text selected with the text tool, go to the font selection box and click on a box. THEN you can just use the cursor keys to scroll through your fonts and see what they look like when applied to your text. Dead easy!

bedlam123 · 12-27-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slabysz

How do you deal with the near endless choice of fonts? When I'm in Photoshop I have to rely on memory or do a bunch of trial and errors to find the appropriate font. Is there a way to see a quick preview of the font without actually selecting the font?

You can also make use of a font manager. The one that I use is Font Manager. It offers views of multiple fonts in various sizes. It has been a real time saver for me. I frequently have it open at the same time as my Photoshop. Font manager is not the only one out there, there are many, and quite a few are freeware.

malboroman · 12-27-2005

You can also do it 'the old way'. Make a book (bunch of papers) with all your fonts in it, using all the characters there are off course... Different sizes, different styles.

A lot of professional design companies have those to let the client choose a font they like. It might be a bit too much work if it's just for yourself, but you wil always have it, even if you don't have the font installed anymore after a format.

aestus · 12-27-2005

I like 'The Font Thing'. It's free and works great.

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~scef/tft.html

Graphinks · 12-28-2005

I use the "catalog" idea. yes its a ton of paper but it not that bad. I update it every few months or so by deleteing those that just don't seem to be useful and adding new.

VanillaOrchids · 12-28-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by aestus

I like 'The Font Thing'. It's free and works great.

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~scef/tft.html

Quick question ... Can you use a font that you view in The Font Thing without having to install it?

aestus · 12-28-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by VanillaOrchids

Quick question ... Can you use a font that you view in The Font Thing without having to install it?

I'm not sure. I have mine set up to display all the fonts in my fonts folder, so I have to install them to display them.

VanillaOrchids · 12-28-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by aestus

I'm not sure. I have mine set up to display all the fonts in my fonts folder, so I have to install them to display them.

Alright, thank you for the reply! If anyone knows I would appreciate it if you posted.

See, I use a program called X-Fonter. It allows me to preview fonts but it also allows me to use the font that I am previewing in Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, etc. I love that feature because I would hate to have to install every font that I want to use because having too many fonts installed in your font folder could slow down your computers performance.

But I have been curious as to how The Font Thing works but I didn't want to install it if I couldn't actually use fonts that I preview through it.

Mr.Zozo · 02-04-2006

THank ! i don; know why not??

jcjb2002 · 04-17-2006

We created a font "book" for clients to chose from... I am going to try the font manager idea for my own usage. It was a long task creating the "book" but it is complete with the standard fonts we use for design. Clients prefer a hard-copy as it is simple to compare several.

scrowler · 04-17-2006

yeah, i'd say clients would prefer a hard copy view at which fonts were available. but if you are working digitally with a remote client, then you could set up a similar thing, like a webpage list of all the fonts you could use, for them to have a look at.

qatz9 · 04-20-2006

...the Free & Easy Font Viewer. Not the greatest viewer, but gives you a quick look.

http://www.styopkin.com/details_free...ts_viewer.html
( for Windows)

2Unstoppable · 06-08-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Man1c M0g

With the text selected with the text tool, go to the font selection box and click on a box. THEN you can just use the cursor keys to scroll through your fonts and see what they look like when applied to your text. Dead easy!

I never knew that was possible. Thanks for the tip.

stiney51 · 06-08-2006

A lot of the font manager programs have an export option to create the book for you. I made a book a number of years back manually by activating all the "A" fonts and manually typing them into Quark. Took forever!!!

I started using FontReserve and it worked pretty darn well activating and deactivating fonts for several programs on the fly based on what fonts were installed on the document you were opening.

I've actually stepped back and am just using the built-in Mac Font Book, but it's slow and not great. Probably will look into Reserve again when I get my new work machine in a few months.