Mac OS X Power Hound, Second Edition

Font Book

Font Book, found in your Applications folder, is a basic font management application. With it, you can group fonts, activate and deactivate fonts, and view samples from your installed fonts. If you make your living working with hundreds or thousands of fonts for client projects, Font Book probably isn’t the best fit for your needs. Instead, try Suitcase from Extensis (www.extensis.com) or MasterJuggler from Alsoft (www.alsoft.com). On the other hand, if your font management needs are relatively basic, Font Book is probably more than you’ll ever need. Here are a few hints to help you get the most out of Font Book.

Get Detailed Font Information

When you launch Font Book, you’ll see a three-column display with Collection on the left, Font in the middle, and a font preview area on the right. Just below the font preview area is a small dot. Double-click the dot, and a panel will slide up to reveal additional information about the selected font, such as font type, which foundry it’s from, when it was copyrighted, and more (Figure 11-14). This data might be useful if you’re trying to find other fonts in the same family or from the same foundry, for example.

Reveal All Font Faces at Once

In Font Book, a font’s faces (such as regular, bold, and italic) are normally hidden by a flippy triangle next to the font’s name. Click the triangle, and you’ll see all the faces of that font. But if you’re trying to check a number of font faces at once, this procedure might not be your best option. ...