Font Management and Font Viewer Tools

Font Managers and viewing tools help view, organize, install, store and find fonts on a computer. The tools below range from freeware to full fledged licensed software, often with a free trial.

• Typograf - Typograf allows you to view and preview TrueType and Type 1 fonts, display font properties, compare fonts, print fonts and manage fonts in both database and font groups. In addition, it contains information about typefaces and typography. Free 30 day trial.

• Font Fitting Room - A management and preview tool complete with a Unicode range character map. Its character map display allows you to view all of the supported characters of a font even before you install the font. This allows you to make better choices before installing fonts. Includes LCD Clear Type tuning.

• Font Fitting Room Deluxe - A complete font management tool with all the features of the Font Fitting Room plus these added features: Font sets management allows you to group a variety of different fonts and treat them as a collection, child-parent hierarchy structures where you can visually group fonts and manage relationships, and functions such as drag and drop and windows cut and paste shortcuts are supported.

• Font Suit 2 - This font manager allows you to group and activate fonts as needed saving your computer's resources. In addition to support for TrueType and PostScript fonts, Font Suit 2 supports all types of Windows fonts such as Raster font, vector font and OpenType. This software also allows you to drag and drop, has a WYSIWYG print preview, allows you to either print the fonts catalog or sample sheet, activate or deactivate your fonts by simply double clicking and view a font's status by displaying an icon.

• PigFontViewer - Whether you run Windows, Mac OS X or Linux, the free PigFontViewer can help with its multiplatform base. This simple viewing program allows you to preview, display and install your fonts into your fonts folder. In addition to being able to edit sample text, show fonts and add or remove fonts, this program comes with a cute pink pig!

• MainType 1.1 - This product for Windows is an entry level font manager that is easy to use for viewing and installing fonts. It offers full Unicode support, a character grid with Unicode block navigation, supports TrueType, PostScript Type 1, OpenType, Vector and Rastor fonts. With a 40 day trial and

• Fontonizer - The Fontonizer for Windows with its Windows Explorer like user interface allows for viewing and organizing of font files on various sources such as hard drives, network drives, CD ROM drives, ZIP discs, flash drives and more. In addition, you can create favorite sets of fonts such as retro, abstract, handwritten, etc. It is a viewer, manager and organizer in one easy to use package.

• MasterJuggler - The MasterJuggler font manager is designed for the Mac OS X 10.1 and above. It features the ability to store fonts anywhere, including network drives, organize fonts by creating sets, activate fonts as needed, view a font's glyph map and more. Its integrated Font Guardian examines fonts for corruption and prevents computer crashes.

• Adobe Type Manager Light - Adobe makes this PostScript Viewer and Printer utility available for free use on their website. Users of Windows 2000/XP do not need this program as PostScript support is built in to the operating system. However, if you want to use the Multiple Masters or create custom fonts on Windows 2000/XP you will need this utility. Macintosh users of all systems except Mac OS X will need this utility to view and print PostScript fonts.

• WGL Assistant - A multilingual font manager designed for Windows. View and use multilingual TrueType fonts in all Windows applications, even non-Unicode ones.

• Font Xplorer - Font Xplorer works with TrueType and OpenType fonts only. It allows for the browsing and previewing of all fonts installed on your system, even those not yet installed. It also functions as a manager helping with installation, loading and font management, it searches for duplicate fonts, and comes with a handy integrated repair wizard that solves common font problems.

• Printers Apprentice - This font manager for Windows allows you to install or remove fonts, previews and prints sample pages and font lists of both installed and not-yet-installed fonts, and supports TrueType, OpenType and PostScript Type 1 fonts.