Posts Tagged Extensis
Font Dropper
Posted by fontgear in Uncategorized on December 20, 2011
Our friends at Extensis & WebInk have a new product you may have hear of called FontDropper 1000 – a drag & drop web font tester.
To get started:
- Drag a bookmarklet (like the one shown here) to your browser bookmark bar
- Go to a web page & open the FontDropper 1000 bookmarklet
- Drag-and-drop fonts from the bookmarklet onto any live text on a web page. You will see the text background highlight and then you can drop the font. The font will apply to the text and you can use the Tools tab to change font style properties.
- Reapply the same font to more of the page text either repeat the drag-and-drop actions or click-drag-clone the font from the previously changed text area. Just click-hold your cursor in the text area and then drag to the new text area. The font-face will be applied.
For you visual learners, you can get a better idea of how it works here.
Webvisionary Awards Deadline Extended
Posted by fontgear in Uncategorized on April 19, 2011
Attention all designers of websites awesome & imaginative: We bring you good news!
It’s not too late to enter the 4th annual Webvisionary Awards. The original April 16th deadline has been extended – giving you through the 29th to submit your design.
Hurry on over to their website. for more info, or to view rules & submit your entry.
WebINK serves online fonts
Posted by fontgear in Software, Technical, Technology, Tip on June 3, 2010
Extensis has been quietly working on a new online font management tool – and now they’re talking about it.
WebINK, announced last month, allows web designers to choose web fonts from the WebINK font library and use them in thier own web page designs.
This is new territory for web design. In the past, there was no easy way to specify a particular font when designing for the web – other than the basic pre-installed system fonts found on most computers.
With the development of HTML5 and the new @font-face tag, many web browsers now support using fonts that are stored on a web server, just like you would use pictures, video, etc.
Of course you have to have super-nerd technical skills to make it happen without going insane with the frustration of it all. And that’s where WebINK comes in.
WebINK handles all the technical mess that’s part of using web fonts and let’s you stay focused on what you’re good at – web design.
Of course Extensis has done an incredible job with the site design and has made it very easy to use.
You should check it out for yourself.
Organize your fonts
Organized font files creates efficient workflow and eliminates many font problems.
A few months back Extensis published the 6th edition of their Best Practices Guide for managing fonts on the Mac. I usually like to read through it each time they release a new edition because it’s loaded with helpful info when it comes to working with font files, and this edition is no exception.
Basically it’s a very practical step-by-step guide that explains how to set up your font files for a good workflow environment. The topics include:
Step 1: Organize Your Font Files
Step 2: Manage Your System Font and Application Font Folders
Step 3: Cleanup your Font Library
Step 4: Add your fonts to your font manager
Step 5: Clean Duplicate Fonts
There’s also helpful explanation of font locations, font hierarchy, font formats, file issues, unicode and font cache issues.
One of the tools used to organize fonts that is mentioned in the guide is FontDoctor for Macintosh.
FontDoctor automates most of the steps required to create a good font workflow.