Typophile

Printing Font Spec Sheets

kflynn

Does anyone know of a software/shareware program that will print font spec sheets, especially with key commands for Mac O/S?

In the old days of System 9 for Mac users, I had a type utility called "TypeBook 4.0" that allowed me to create sample pages (specimen sheets) for all of my type fonts. There were several options in TypeBook to do this, and the one that was the best was printing out (for example, a picture font) with the associated keyboard commands to get each character. This was great to have if you used picture fonts a lot, or special characters.

Unfortunately, TypeBook, at least as far as I can tell, did not make the transition to O/S X for Apple Macintosh computers.

I have tried demo versions recently of:
1. Veenix software's "Font Tools"
2. Extensis software's "Suitcase-Fusion"

Veenix did not work with O/S x.4 and Suitcase Fusion, besides seemingly taking over your desktop, does not print a "keyboard command" style specimen sheet.

Thanks.

Stephen Coles

This seems to be a huge hole in OS X. Maybe a question for the upcoming panel?

In the meantime, you can access an on-screen glyph palette for picture fonts in Adobe CS or system-wide (through the Input Menu).

cjg

You may be able to script this using Applescript & Font Book, but it could be difficult. I don't know of any extant utilities that will print a specimen guide for you.

patternmaker

Thorsten Lemke's FontBook prints both spec sheets and key codes. It's $10 shareware.

mwebert

I love FontBook on my Macs, but does anyone have any good recommendations regarding analogous software for WinXP/Vista?

--Michael.

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// love what you do or do something else. //
Michael Ebert -- graphic designer, jazz saxophonist, horror movie devotee
http://homepage.mac.com/mwebert
mwebert@mac.com
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