Any way to show actual FONT STYLES in some quick view method or font display window

[pm-r]

As the subject says:
Any way to show actual FONT STYLES in some quick view method or font display window for free or low price???

What I am looking for is something like we had way back in System 8 and 9 and applications like AppleWorks that showed all the available fonts in a drop down menu that also was able to display the style of each font in a WYSIWYG format.

Specifically, I would like to have such a display available in Preview to do some annotation text markup on JPEGs but it's current option of showing fonts in the font window and using its small gray dot dragged down to display the style of each selected font is just too slow and awkward.

Does anyone know of anything or even a utility that could provide such an option.

I thought Apple's font handling and font style display had supposedly improved, but I cannot find many signs of such "improvements" and I am hoping some members may have a suggestion or two that they could offer.



Thanks in advance,
Patrick
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[Raz0rEdge]

How about Font Book?

 

[ferrarr]

Occasionally I try to find a font manager/viewer, but nothing that I ever stick with. Your question reminded me of that, and I was able to find this, but I haven't used it or even tried it yet.

FontBase — a Free, Beautiful, and Fast Font Manager

Which specific OS are you trying this with?

 

[MightyGem]

Another for FontBook. Should be on your Mac.

 

[pm-r]

How about Font Book?

Font Book's method is slow, awkward and klutzy nor does it allow direct comparisons of various fonts and doesn't come close to doing what I want to do.

I also found I was using the wrong words and phrases when searching and I should have been searching on "Mac font manager", but thanks to ferrarr's suggestion, it got me onto the right track.

The free FontBase he mentioned looked promising, but I needed an older version For use with Mavericks 10.9 and they have not replied to my e-mail request to see if such was even available.

In my resulting searches, I came across the free Front Picker.app And reviews suggest is even a better application to use, and there was a compatible Mac OS version available, which, believe it or not, I found I had already installed it back in 2008 and it works just fine for what I need and was looking for.

Too bad that Apple's Font Book doesn't include such a basic feature and display all pne's various fonts all at once.

Here's a screenshot of what it can do and thanks ferrarr for your suggestion as it got me onto the correct search path, and PS: it had some good reviews and I have already sent in a small donation.

BTW: There were some other interesting font comparing things happening out there, even web-based ones like flipping typical: preview text & compare your fonts easily

Have a look...!!!






- Patrick
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[Randy B. Singer]

Does anyone know of anything or even a utility that could provide such an option.

Go to System Preferences --> Keyboard --> check Show Keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar

That will give you a universal menu that will allow you to see all fonts.

I LOVE this program:

PrintMyFonts (free)
PrintMyFonts | Download

It shows you what all of your fonts look like printed!

 

[pm-r]

Thanks Randy,

My Mavericks Keyboard viewer doesn't seem to have that option, but the PrintMyFonts.app Looks great and it has joined my FontDoc.app with its font list display and its example I posted above. But I don't need to actually print out any lists of my fonts, My screen display is more than good enough for me and my use.

PrintMyFonts has a nice advantage of searching files and folders and displaying their font(s). I didn't realize I had over 3000+ such extra fonts that PrintMyFonts found using its "show" option. Many duplicated for some odd reason.

Font Book.app doesn't come anywhere close for such easy font display or comparison.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Thanks Patrick!

I've tried your app and I've had a fun time looking at all of the fonts that I have!

I have so many...I'm wondering if loading them all is causing any sort of performance hit?