I recently had my brother and his wife in town for a visit. We had a great time just hangin out and getting caught up. At one point in our conversation his wife asked “now what exactly do you do?” I love that question (and I get it a lot) because it gives me a chance to talk about some of the ways we’ve been able to help people with the frustrations and difficulties of dealing with fonts. I know that may sound strange, but I guess I’m wired that way.
My thinking is that when people are happy with their fonts (or at least not having problems with them) they can get back to what they’re good at – art, design, production, whatever they bought their Mac for in the first place.
Inevitably in a conversation about what what we do, I mention the software and what it does.
Here’s the run down…
As the name suggests, FontDoctor will diagnose and fix font problems – things like missing bitmaps fonts, missing PostScript fonts, damaged fonts, fonts that just don’t work on your system, etc. It can also organize your font files into a new clean font library by family, foundry, name, etc.
FontXChange converts fonts between different font formats. You can switch between OpenType, PostScript Type 1, TrueType, etc. This is great because as older formats become obsolete (PostScript Type 1, TrueType) you can still use your fonts by converting them to the newer OpenType format. Also, it will convert between different computers – Mac to Windows and vice-versa.
FontGenius looks at images that contain typography, like photographs, online pics, etc., and will identify the most likely font family. It also provides download links to fonts that are identified. Very cool.
FontVista finds all your fonts, installed or not, and creates a catalog of font samples. The catalog can be saved as a PDF that you can share with your clients and/or printer, or you can print it out to create a reference book.
The FontGear Blog 