fonts

The notes feature in Apple's Mail program can be useful for jotting down quick reminders and other items without having to send yourself e-mails. Though convenient, the feature may not work properly at times, if at all.

We were recently contacted by MacFixIt reader Richard who found that the notes feature stopped working when he migrated to his new MacBook Pro system. Usually when program features like this stop working, the first recommendation is to try refreshing some settings and delete the program's preferences files, but Richard had already done this when he contacted us. Additionally, sometimes there … Read more

Windows comes with so many fonts you'd need a warehouse for them all if they were old-fashioned metal typesets. Digital fonts are virtual, but they do consume disk space and memory. They can slow down your boot-up if you've got a lot of them, which is quite possible if you've installed any software. Lots of programs add their own font sets, and Windows loads them all every time you start your PC. FontFrenzy from Sound Doctrine is a free utility that can boost your system's performance by removing and backing up all non-Windows fonts. Most programs … Read more

Free Font Renamer is freeware that renames font files, just like the name says, only automatically. Why would you want or need to do that? Because what it does is rename the font file with the full name of the font, so instead of MLON_I.TTF, you get Milion Italic.ttf. The name tells you which font it is right off the bat. If you've ever tried to find a certain font file outside of the system's font properties and controls, you will appreciate immediately how this tool can help. It's optimized for Vista and Windows XP; … Read more

For those who make typefaces, there haven't been many changes since the invention of the printing press: hot lead, electronic typesetting, desktop publishing.

But now, more than 15 years after its invention, the World Wide Web is finally becoming the next frontier.

The steadily gaining influence of the medium and a new technology for distributing fonts to browsers has led one of the biggest names in typography to embrace the Web in earnest. On Tuesday, Monotype Imaging will open a catalog of nearly 8,000 of its fonts, with more to come, for use on Web pages.

Monotype Imaging's Web font service drew 15,000 users in beta testing with a smaller set of 2,200 fonts, but now it's launching for mainstream use.

When it comes to typography on the Web, "that world has been stunted," Monotype Imaging Chief Executive Doug Shaw said in an interview. "We look at it as a very important evolution in adapting typefaces to this new world."

Well, not new exactly, but new to the font industry. To date, most Web designers have relied on a strained combination of:

• A few "Web-safe" fonts such as Verdana and Arial that can be expected to be installed on most computers. • Text rendered in graphics formats such as JPEG. • Adobe Systems' Flash Player plug-in that offers polish but that's somewhat isolated from the rest of a Web page.

The arrival of Web fonts is an important milestone in the development of electronic media. The future of reading is text on screens--whether a book on a Kindle, a magazine on an iPad, or a news app on a mobile phone. Bringing that era to browsers is essential to making the Web as polished as other electronic media and as the print publications it's often supplanting.

Making the case for Web fonts Monotype Imaging is betting that businesses will see Web fonts as worth the new expense to their Web budgets. There are several potential reasons. … Read more

Adobe's Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format (BDF) is an ASCII-based file format that stores bitmap screen fonts and presents them as text files that can be read by both humans and machines. It's used a lot in Unix, but not so much in Windows. However, as Windows applications spread their capabilities, a growing number of users need to view BDF files in Windows. That's what Chortkeh BDF Font Viewer is for. It's a free, standalone, portable tool that can process BDF font files in Windows and display them in a familiar view. It's part of the … Read more

If you've ever had to insert multiple Unicode characters while typing, you know what a pain it is to have to go back and forth inserting characters into your text. Character Map (Java) is a simple--but helpful--program that lets you select the Unicode characters you want to insert and copy them to your clipboard for quick pasting.

We have to admit, we were a bit stumped by the program at first glance. Character Map (Java) runs as an executable file, so no installation is needed; however, it comes in a ZIP file filled with more than 20 different files. … Read more

Many of us don't give much thought to fonts, aside from selecting our favorite from the drop-down menu of whatever we happen to be working on. For other people, however--graphic designers, Web designers, and general font nerds--fonts are serious business. NexusFont is a simple font manager that can help people keep their fonts organized and easy to browse.

The program's interface is plain and intuitive, with a handful of menus and buttons for easy navigation. The program automatically accesses and displays all fonts that are installed on your computer, and you can easily import new fonts as well. … Read more

Some fonts are better suited for certain projects than others, but it's not always easy to preview and compare fonts to make the best decision. FontViewOK is a lightweight font viewer that lets you do exactly that. It's nothing fancy, but it's a great way to easily see what fonts look like in a variety of styles.

The program's interface is plain, consisting mostly of just a list of fonts. You can enter custom text with which to preview the fonts, and can also see what the fonts look like bolded, italicized, struck-through, and underlined, as … Read more

Text editors are by their very nature simple programs; they're made to handle text--often code--that does not require formatting or embellishment. Paddy takes the simplicity of the text editor format and adds a few useful features, many of which specifically have coders in mind.

The program's interface is plain and looks like most other programs of this type: a large, empty text field, and a handful of menus across the top. This isn't Notepad, though; there are some pretty interesting features in those menus. In addition to changing fonts, users can change the color of both the … Read more