I'm a true typography geek and spend a lot of time researching and experimenting with all sorts of different font types and styles.

In this sense, I also tried to create my own fonts, and I must say that anyone with a little experience can do it.
The following highlights a few of the most well-known (and free) tools for creating fonts yourself.

Fontstruct

Fontstruct is a web app that is a great tool for creating fonts, especially if you're new to it. To create fonts, users need to register, but the GUI is so simple and easy to use that you'll be using it in no time.

Fontstruct welcomes users with an MS Paint-like environment where they can use "bricks", which are essentially templates that help create the design of your choice. There are dozens of bricks to choose from, each of which can provide creators with their own unique twist to add to a font.

A few additional basic tools include the eraser, line/rectangle tool, and hand tool, allowing you to create fonts accurately and professionally.
Each letter/character, no matter what language you choose, has a corresponding "slot" to help you keep track of which characters you've already drawn and those you may have forgotten.

Fontsrtuct contains character models for more than 20 different languages.

While creating your masterpiece, Fontsrtuct provides the opportunity to print and test the result in real time, which is undoubtedly a convenient feature for both novice designers and professionals.

Once your font is ready, you can download it (in TrueType format) and/or share it publicly via the gallery. Here, users can post, vote, and download fonts, creating communities of typography lovers everywhere.

If you prefer desktop applications for creating fonts, let's take a look at FontForge: a great free program that lets you create your own fonts. It is more intricate compared to Fontstruct, and contains a large number of settings and tools.

Users are greeted with a raster image of signs and symbols that can be molded and reshaped to suit the desired design. FontForge is compatible with many different font formats, including TrueType and Opentype.

I would also recommend reading this excellent tutorial from the creators of FontForge, which will help you create fonts. There are versions of the program for Windows, Mac, and Linux, but Windows users must also install Cygwin, which is a free Linux environment for Windows required to run FontForge.

FontForge is definitely worth a try, but before you do, work with Fontstruct to get used to the typographic environment and bring some of your ideas to life.

Infrequently, but regularly, people have a question - how to change font name. Not the file with the font (there is no trick here), but the font itself. The name that will be shown in the word processor font dialog after installing this one.

I encountered this problem in the following way. It was necessary to convert a set of documents from the Compass CAD system into PDF format on a home computer. For this purpose there was KOMPAS-3D Viewer. But the problem was that the author of the documents typed them in Arial Narrow font, which was not available on the computer; Instead, the viewer substitutes the Arial font, which is why all the inscriptions in the document are scattered at random.

Of course, we all know how to solve the problem with a missing font, and even with the Compass editor. But I have a bad habit of not violating copyrights unless absolutely necessary, so I began to look for a legal and relatively honest solution. The computer had the free font Liberation Sans Narrow (TrueType), which is very similar to Arial Narrow, and most importantly, has the same metrics. It was only necessary to convince the system (we are talking about Windows Vista) that the exact same font is called Arial Narrow, that’s all.

First, we get the required fonts (LiberationSansNarrow.ttf, LiberationSansNarrow-Bold.ttf, LiberationSansNarrow-Italic.ttf, LiberationSansNarrow-BoldItalic.ttf) from C:\Windows\Fonts to a random folder. In fact, along the named path there is a special file, not a folder, and you should only do something with its contents through Windows Explorer: you copied the files with the mouse, corrected them, and put them back with the mouse.

The easiest way to do anything with a font is to download and install , a GUI font editor. If you are not too lazy to download the installer, then you don’t have to read further - everything is elementary. But I decided that it was difficult for me to download the distribution kit of the graphic product (weighs just over 16 MB) - the Internet is not fast; and moved on to other options (it’s not a fact that I acted wisely, but you can’t erase a word from a song).

A utility for working with fonts from the command line is from the project FontTools . There is an .exe installer in the Internet archives, but I couldn’t run the program obtained from it, so I downloaded the tar.gz archive from the official website (weighs only 340 KB). To build the utility from this archive you will need:

1. Python- programming language. I had it configured as part of the Cygwin environment, in the console of which I did everything further, so I didn’t need to download it. Presumably, Cygwin is not required for assembly, but is convenient in any case.
2. - it is unknown why it is required for assembly. The archive weighs about 4.3 MB. You may be able to install it without difficulty using the standard Cygwin installer.

So, the procedure (for dummies, those familiar with assembling from codes may not need to be read carefully):

1. Unpack the numpy-x.x.x.zip archive into some folder and go there in the console with the command cd “D:/path/where/unpacked/numpy-x.x.x” (in the Cygwin shell you should use /forward/ slashes instead of \backslashes\).
2. Run the command python setup.py install . Next, you will receive abuse from the compiler for half an hour, but the library will most likely be installed successfully in the end.
3. Now unpack the fonttools-….tar.gz archive somewhere, and again go to the extracted folder and call python setup.py install . The installation will complete fairly quickly this time, and the ttx utility will be accessible from the command line.
4. Let's go to the directory where we copied the font files. We execute the command: ttx *.ttf, after which a file with the extension .ttx will appear in the folder for each TrueType font. The original files can now be deleted (you copied them, didn't you move them?)
5. TTX files are plain text files in XML format. Open them in any text editor and change everything you need; in my case, it was only necessary to replace “LiberationSans” and “Liberation Sans” with Arial everywhere.
6. We run the utility again to return the files to their compiled form: ttx *.ttx. A set of files appears, similar to the original one, but with a different internal name.
7. We rename the files to avoid conflicts (it doesn’t matter what, as long as you don’t have such fonts). For this purpose, you can use the Free Font Renamer program, which renames all files in a folder to the internal font names. Please note what to change content This program does not know how to file - it only reads the internal names of fonts, and therefore is not particularly needed (I downloaded it earlier because I expected more from it).

That's it, we got files that can be dropped into a pseudo-directory with the mouse Fonts. With OpenType fonts, everything is done in the same way, taking into account the replacement of .ttf with .otf in the 4th step.

P.S. I note that earlier I managed to rename OpenSymbol to StarSymbol without using any heavy downloads. To do this, the file was passed through a simple script containing a regular expression like s/O([\x00-\x1F]?)p([\x00-\x1F]?)e([\x00-\x1F]?)n/S $1t$2a$3r/g . However, I can’t guarantee that this trick always works, especially when the lengths of the names do not match.

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A font designer, like no one else, requires a high-quality selection of programs for creating, modifying, viewing and managing fonts. In this review, I tried to more or less fully consider three categories of programs that are vital in everyday work - editors, managers and font viewers, as well as various utilities. I hope that this review will also be useful to designers and layout designers who, due to their occupation, often come across fonts.

FONT EDITORS

Alphabet Synthesis Machine

A very remarkable program implemented as a Java applet. If desired, any web surfer can try his hand at creating fonts. Only the font you create will not be close to the Cyrillic or Latin alphabet. The fact is that the mechanism of this editor is built like this: the supposed author goes to the page with the downloaded Alphabet Synthesis Machine applet, draws a certain character (it is not at all necessary that it looks like any letter of the Cyrillic or Latin alphabet), and ASM, based on the parameters this sign completes the entire alphabet. Moreover, to generate the remaining characters, a gene construction algorithm is used. The resulting product, more similar to the font of a foreign civilization, can be saved on your computer in TTF format.

About 50 similar fonts are created per day. If you wish, you can delve into the archive of this project.

It would seem that this is an absolutely useless project - creating fonts that cannot be used in the daily activities of a designer or layout designer. However, it is not. The creators of ASM relied on philosophical concepts, which can be found on the project server pages. We will not touch on them, so as not to be distracted from the topic of the review.

- Golan Levin, Jonathan Feinberg, Cassidy Curtis
- http://alphabet.tmema.org/entry.html

BDF Font Editor

A simple font editor written in Tcl/tk under *nix. Allows you to create and modify fonts in BDF format.

BitCopy

Quite an interesting editor for creating, modifying and converting fonts. BitCopy makes it easy to create bitmapped fonts from scalable PCL and PostScript printers. Works with all standard font formats, including PostScript Type 1, TrueType and FastFont. In terms of editing, BitCopy allows you to: rotate characters, “apply” shadows, invert (white/black), generate bold and thin styles (relative to normal), scale, create new characters using “appliqué”, etc.

Font Creator Program

Font Creator is a fairly average program. Allows you to convert blanks from raster format (.bmp) to vector, as well as create and edit fonts in TrueType format. Among the functional features we can note: reading and writing TTF fonts, raster->vector conversion, primitive tools for working with curves, combining and splitting contours, unlimited number of rollbacks/repetitions (undo/redo), kerning, PCL5 window, splitting composite glyphs into simple ones, results preview window (control text), Unicode mapping, autokerning, autometrics.

FontLab

TypeTool like a lightweight version of FontLab.

In terms of the number of functions and ease of use, I consider FontLab to be the font editor of all times. It has everything you need both to create fonts from scratch and to modify them:
- Glyph Editor - environment for creating characters;
- TrueType & Type 1 Hinting - manual and automatic hinting;
- VectorPaint Tools - excellent tools for working with vector objects;
- FontAudit Technology - a unique technology for automatically identifying and eliminating problems with the contours of created characters;
- Font Metrics and Kerning - professional font metrics and kerning editor with automatic functions;
- Transformations - various transformations applied to both individual characters and their groups;
- Font Header Editor - access to editing all font properties from the name and supported code pages to specific TrueType metrics.
The latest, fourth, version of FontLab now has full support for the OpenType format - import, creation, editing, export and conversion. Also, earlier versions introduced similar support for fonts in the Multiple Master format. The new Macro Language function is very useful, which allows you to write not only scripts in Python, but also create your own tools and even plugins, which will significantly expand the already considerable capabilities of the program. It is also worth noting the new tools for working with contours - Knife, Magic Wand, 3D Rotate, Scale and Slant, Sketch mode for creating a new contour using Ikarus-like tools. Plus, to all this splendor, a customizable user interface allows you to customize almost everything - from keyboard shortcuts to new buttons on the tool palette.

GOTE

GOTE - GNOME OpenType editor. The name is very loud, let's see what comes out of this idea. The beta version that I tested so far only works with TrueType fonts. In the next version, the creators promise support for Type1. While the set of functions is small, it is still possible to create a font from scratch. In its work, the program uses Gnome libraries - specifically, glib, gdk, gtk+, gnome, gnomeui, libglade. These libraries are included in almost all recent Unix/Linux distributions, including FreeBSD, Solaris and Irix.

- Robert Brady (Department of Electronics & Computer Science, University of Southampton)
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LaserJet Bitmapped Font Editor

Bitmapped font editor for DOS. Maximum font sizes are 110 pt (VGA), 80 pt (EGA), 88 pt (Herc&AT&T), 44 pt (CGA). There is a whole range of special effects. It is possible to import black and white images in .PCX and .TIF formats. Unfortunately, not all mouse models are supported, which may seem crazy to modern users.

Macromedia Fontographer

Despite the fact that the program has not been updated for a long time, it is still considered one of the most professional editors. In addition to the functions inherent in these programs, Fontographer allows you to import/export images in EPS format, as well as kerning pairs. Authors can generate fonts in PostScript Type 1 and TrueType formats.

Unfortunately, in Win 2000/XP OS the editor works with critical errors. But no updates or fixes are expected in the program. It's like the natural death of Fontographer...

PfaEdit

A very dynamically developing and promising UNIX-based editor for creating and editing fonts in Type 1 and TrueType formats. In terms of the number of functions and ease of use, it can be placed between FontLab and Fontographer. And among *nix platforms it is the undisputed favorite. A very big plus is the ability to correctly convert fonts into different formats for different platforms - Type 1, TrueType (PC, UNIX and Mac). I advise developers to take a closer look at this program.

Pilot Font Editor

An interesting simple font editor for PalmOS. Includes: fontedit (the Pilot Font Editor itself), GetFonts (a utility for downloading system fonts) and FontHack123 (a utility for replacing system fonts with your designs).

Softy

A unique editor for creating TrueType and bitmap fonts. Probably, the author - David Emmett - could have made him a real sweetie. Unfortunately, David died several years ago from a terminal illness. This editor is very popular all over the world among aspiring type designers. The editor has all the necessary functions for creating and modifying fonts. The output supports TrueType, FON, FNT, LaserJet SFP, SFL formats.

TypeDesigner

A very advanced professional editor. TypeDesigner not only has tools for creating and modifying fonts, but also a number of functions that automate routine operations. Among the program's features are: support for editing fonts in Type 1 and TrueType formats; simultaneous editing of up to eight fonts; test printing with a bunch of functions; global transformations (stretch, italicize, shift position, change boundaries, ...); autokerning; global change in stem width; context-sensitive assistance; auto hinting with adjustable parameters; kerning editor; any rotations and mirror images; any operations on a contour; import EPS, Calamus CFN fonts; 10 levels of undo/redo (Undo/Redo), etc.

FONT CONVERTERS

CrossFont

The program runs on Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP and converts TrueType and PostScript Type1 fonts between Macintosh and PC platforms. AFM, PFM, INF, PFA, .dfont formats are supported at input and output. During conversion, all metrics and hinting are preserved. I must honestly admit that I do not consider the results of this program to be sufficiently correct and satisfactory.

TransType

The program runs on Win and Mac platforms. Allows you to convert TrueType and Type 1 fonts between both platforms, as well as simply from one format to another. The Multiple Master format has not been forgotten either. From my own experience I know that all transformations occur as correctly as possible, and I recommend TransType for use by font creators.

TrueBlue

TrueBlue is a free Mac utility for converting fonts from True Type (TTF) format to PostScript Type 1 (PS). Moreover, converted fonts can be immediately installed into the system with one click. Batch mode is supported, i.e. all conversion work can be carried out both with individual files and with entire folders containing fonts. In addition to the standard conversion procedure, it is possible to change the names of fonts and entire families, write them in Binary/Ascii encoding formats, translation into latin1, latin2, latin4, latin5 is supported, as well as Cyrillic (Russian, Bulgarian, etc.).

FONT MANAGERS AND VIEWERS

!Fonts

Fonts will allow you to sort your fonts into groups, such as script, gothic, decorative, etc. After which you can connect this or that group with one click “on the fly”. To create a new group, delete or install a font, you will have to click not once, but twice. Not bad in my opinion.

ADing Font Manager

A fairly advanced font manager that allows you to: find and show both installed and uninstalled fonts on drives (including network drives). It can generate and save font samples in JPEG or GIF formats (and it is possible to create an HTML page with these font previews). Shows the character map and saves it in HTML format. Finds duplicates. Installs and uninstalls fonts. The program can perform all of the above operations with fonts located in a ZIP archive. And so on, so on.

Adobe Type Manager (ATM)

I don’t even know if it’s worth writing about this program, which is the de facto standard for everyone involved in design and printing... Adobe Type Manager (ATM) allows you to organize work with fonts in PostScript Type 1, OpenType and TrueType formats. You can activate only specific fonts or entire sets of them and disable them as soon as you no longer need them.

Current versions: 4.6 for Macintosh and 4.1 for Windows.

Advanced Font Catalog

Advanced Font Catalog (AFC) is a convenient program, with an interface similar to Windows Explorer (aka Explorer), and allows you to catalog your font deposits, no matter where they are located: hard drives, network drives, CD-ROM, optical, ZIP, Jazz discs, etc. In addition to simply viewing font samples as a test phrase, AFC allows you to add comments to each font file, directory or disk; organize a search by file name, font, style, font author or your comment; import descriptions and comments from files "index", "files.bbs", "descript.ion" and so on. AFC has a multilingual interface. Any of the eight languages ​​can be selected after installation. Available languages: English (default), Russian, Danish, Hungarian, Portuguese, Slovenian, Spanish and Turkish.

AL Font Installer

The program serves as an add-on for Windows Fonts. Allows you to view, install and remove fonts of any Windows-compatible formats from any sources and media. She's not exactly my type, but she's worthy of close attention.

AMP Font Viewer

This program allows you to view installed and not installed fonts (bold, italic, bold italic, underline, color), and also organize them into categories according to certain conditions. In addition, the program allows you to remove and install specific fonts or entire sets, print examples of each font from a custom list, connect fonts “temporarily,” etc.

Anchek FontPeeper

Anchek FontPeeper is a small professional utility for viewing your fonts in PostScript Type 1, TrueType, OpenType (Win 2000/XP only) font formats, including character sets (mapping), restrictions, styles, code pages and more.

Extensis Suitcase

Extensis Suitcase is one of the best font managers that exists in personal and online versions. The online version allows you to use the same set of fonts for your workgroup. You can view fonts in four ways at the same time: one font in different sizes; all characters of the alphabet; an array of text typed in the selected font and a set of characters in custom text. It is possible to print samples with very flexible settings. Connecting and disconnecting font sets is almost identical to Adobe's ATM.

Fontastic

A very simple font viewer. All it can do is show a test phrase of any size up to 500 points in the following styles: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough.

Font Buddy 2

Recently, quite a lot of simple and functional font viewers have appeared. FontBuddy 2 is one of them. The program's capabilities allow you to view and print installed fonts and simply collections located on other disks and media. It works quite correctly with ATM and Suitcase, has support for double-byte fonts (for example, Japanese) and a duplicate search function. Some operations are performed using the Drag and Drop method. The interface is in three languages, however, Russian is not among them. Requires MacOS 9 and higher.

FontExampler

It’s impossible to come up with a simpler program than FontExampler. Based on the suggested text sample, the application generates a list with examples of all installed fonts. Works only under MacOS X 10.0.

FontExpert 2000

In my opinion, the best Russian program in the “middleweight” category. Last year it was already included in one of the reviews, where it received only flattering reviews and for good reason - the program is developing very dynamically, acquiring more and more capabilities with each new version.

I will take the liberty to say that at such a pace of development, we can expect its transition to the category of heavyweights, where Suitcase, Font Reserve and others feel at ease. FontExpert views, prints and manages TrueType, OpenType, Postscript Adobe Type 1 and bitmap (.fon) fonts. Detects problems. The built-in “expert Kirillov” offers solutions to every problem (conflicts in file names, typefaces, character sets, bad file, bad font substitution, etc.).

Among the possibilities:
- installed Windows fonts - select a character set, download, uninstall, filter by character set;
- fonts on disk - select a character set, copy, cut, paste, install, filter fonts by character set;
- font search - powerful search with saving results for later work;
- font properties - detailed information about the font, version, metrics, Panose parameters, etc.;
- symbol table - comparison of fonts, scaling, colors, selection of Unicode section;
- text samples - select from a list of samples, enter your own text, load text from a file, select colors from the ribbon palette;
- preview and print - 5 types of reports for printing; Windows shell addition - the Open, Print and Install by FontExpert commands for .ttf files are added to the Windows Explorer context menu (a property page with detailed information about the font file is also added for .ttf files).

The program allows you to filter fonts, for example, to select from a complete list only fonts that contain Cyrillic or only symbolic fonts, or those that have the Greek alphabet, etc. You can easily “scroll” through the character sets available in a font, for example, viewing the same font with different sets: “Cyrillic”, “Western European”, “Greek”, etc.

Font Explorer

Average manager in terms of bells and whistles. Among the possibilities we can note: a tree-like hierarchical representation of a set of fonts; sorting by name, font family and other criteria; fairly complete information about the characteristics of fonts; preview of all font characters; automatic generation of previews of all fonts with recording to a file; printing with flexible settings; installing/uninstalling fonts directly from the program and more.

FontLib 98

A very good font manager. Allows the user to view, print and install fonts from any source (network drive, CD-ROM, etc.), complete sets and connect them en masse. The program has other features that you won’t have to search for long - the interface is simple and friendly.

Font List

A very simple font viewer. All it can do is view and print samples of the fonts installed on your system.

FontLook

A very simple and incredibly easy to use font viewer. Allows you to view and print both installed fonts and collections located on network drives, CD-ROMs, etc. Has very flexible settings for printing samples.

FontMatcher

This is a wonderful free utility that helps you find the right font using a scanned sample in a few minutes. It's a pity that it only works with TrueType fonts and hangs when ATM is enabled. I advise you to carefully consider the settings. The speed of processing and accuracy of determination will depend on this.

FontPage

A simple program with a friendly and intuitive interface. With it you can view fonts, including styles (bold, italic, underline, 3D, color); print samples of individual fonts and the full set. Supported formats: TrueType, Type1, OpenType and bitmap fonts.

Font Preview

The simplest program to view the fonts installed on your machine. It is possible to sort by several parameters.

Font Reserve

Font Reserve is one of the most powerful font managers for the Mac platform. However, according to the developers, work is now underway to port it to Windows. Perhaps by the time you read these lines, a version for Win 2000/XP will already appear. Font Reserve is practically in no way inferior to such monsters as ATM Deluxe or Suitcase, but moreover, it uses a new technology based on the use of databases. Plus, an original interface in the “X” style and features such as showing kerning pairs and so on, so on, so on…

FontReview

FontReview is a compact font viewer for Windows 95/98/NT4/2000. I should note that during installation it replaces the standard Windows viewer and, after removing FontReview, you risk being left without the standard FontView. Doesn't work with Cyrillic. After this, I don’t really want to consider the huge number of its advantages...

Font Service

Font Service is a rather interesting font manager, but with a somewhat, I would say, “wooden” interface. You know how it happens, everything seems to be fine and everything is in place, but no, you constantly hit sharp corners. So it is in this case - at first you have to make a lot of extra clicks until you figure out how to use this or that function. And the program’s functions are quite decent: connecting and disconnecting fonts on the fly, previewing them, printing them, searching by font name or file name, comparing samples in subwindows, etc.

Font Show 2000

A small program for viewing TrueType fonts and printing samples. You have the opportunity to view not only the test phrase, but also the full set of characters.

FontShowcase

FontShowcase aims to view and print both installed and uninstalled fonts. The printing functions are quite flexible - you can choose to print a sample of one font, or all of them, or just a selected group. New to viewing font samples on the screen is a slide show. What has become familiar in graphical viewers seems somewhat alien in the case of fonts. It is possible that this is just a matter of habit... Additionally, you can note the search function by font name and writing comments on any of the samples.

Font Thing

Well-known program for managing TrueType fonts for Win95/98,NT. The manager allows you to: view installed and not installed fonts in the form of a test phrase and each character separately, detailed information about the font, print samples, make notes on these samples, install and remove fonts, “temporarily” connect any number of fonts, search and filter by some parameters, compare several samples, etc.

FontWorld

A simple font viewer. I decided to mention it only because this application runs on BeOS, which in itself is great. I like this OS and I know what difficulties BESHKI supporters experience due to the shortage of programs.

Font Xplorer

A fairly well-known font manager from Moon Software dates back to 1996 and is built on the platform of the also fairly well-known Multimedia Xplorer program. The program is aimed at professionals in the field of design and desktop publishing. It seems that many working in the above-mentioned areas have already tried this program, and perhaps still use it. Font Xplorer allows you to view both installed and not installed TrueType fonts, compare multiple samples, print according to professionally designed templates, find and remove duplicates, rename, view full information about fonts and their authors, copy characters as a vector image, " repair" problematic fonts, completely customize the toolbar for yourself, etc.

Hamster Font Manager

HFM is an interesting font manager for Unix systems. Currently includes support modules: X-Window, Ghostscript, TeX. The PostScript module operates with PS fonts. Unfortunately, HFM is not friendly with other formats. Distributed under GPL (GNU Public License).

- Institut für Informatik - Universitat Stuttgart
- http://www.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/ifi/se/service/hamster/index_e.html

ListFont

A simple free viewer of installed fonts. But it can show all the characters in all available code pages, which is important for those who use a writing system that is not based on the Latin alphabet.

MasterJuggler Pro

An interesting font manager that allows you to connect fonts dynamically, without leaving the program you are working in at the time. Most operations can be performed using the Drag and Drop method. This is one of the few managers that allows you to work with fonts located on network drives. What else can MJP do? It can check and correct fonts for the most common errors (broken file, duplicate names or IDs, misaligned metrics, etc.), and is compatible with all DTP and design applications, QuickDraw GX and any computer running Mac OS 7.0 and higher.

Printer"s Apprentice

Many people have tried this program. Printer""s Apprentice is a professional font manager for Windows 95/98/NT4/2000/XP. Easily works with fonts in TrueType and Adobe Type 1 formats. Has tools for viewing, printing and installing fonts from a wide variety of media. I highly recommend that those readers who do not yet have their favorite font manager take a closer look.

TTFMan

The simplest font manager that allows you to view all installed and not installed fonts. In addition, it is possible to install and remove fonts, as well as print samples with a predefined test phrase and a custom one.

TTf Manager

TTf Manager allows you to manage TrueType fonts in Windows 95/98/NT4/2000/XP. Using the program, you can: install and remove fonts, sort them by category, find and solve problems with fonts automatically, search for and remove duplicates, organize a search by font name, highlight installed fonts and differences in versions, use a special window to display font information (file name, font name, code pages, PANOSE, etc.), view the character set, print samples (with a huge number of options), rename fonts, etc.

Typograf

A fairly well-known font manager, known, unfortunately, for its rather unstable work. The program allows you to view, print and manage TrueType and Type 1 fonts.
The sorting has very flexible settings, and the information about fonts is simply excellent. Typograf allows you to find and remove duplicates, group fonts according to specified parameters, connect and disconnect them interactively. The manager allows you to work with several types of fonts: TrueType (preview, installation, “temporary” download), PostScript Type (preview, installation, “temporary” download) - if ATM is available, raster (.fon) fonts. For all these font types, all available information is shown: full name, family name, author information, version, copyright, size, date of creation and modification, classification by PANOSE system, IBM Font Classes, internal metric structure, etc.

Unicode Viewer

The program allows you to view all font characters, regardless of the code page. Actually, that’s almost where it all ends. Very simple and stupid...

WGL Assistant

I can rightfully call WGL Assistant one of the most used and useful programs. It solves many problems when using multilingual TrueType fonts (Unicode fonts/WGL4 fonts) in all Windows applications, including programs that do not support the Unicode standard. WGL Assistant, in the process of installing fonts, creates their virtual counterpart with a certain suffix. For the Cyrillic alphabet this will be the prefix "Cyr". This font will work quite correctly with almost any application. As a font manager, WGL Assistant can view and install highly flexible fonts across different code pages.

Win32 Font Lister

A simple and rather mediocre program for viewing both installed and not yet installed fonts. Has a standard set of functions. I included it in the review for two reasons: firstly, it is one of the few programs that allows you to make printouts of font samples in several columns and place headers and footers on them; and secondly, it allows you to save font samples in BMP and JPEG formats.

X-Fonter

X-Fonter is a simple and, I would say, friendly font viewer and manager with advanced features. It allows you to find and view (on any drive, including network drives) any installed or uninstalled fonts. Accordingly, it is possible to install and remove certain fonts. Search and filter font files by name, code page and style; display it all in adjustable size, style and color. When I mentioned advanced functions, I meant such a “bauble” as creating inscriptions in 3D form (there is a built-in raster editor) and recording the result in JPEG format. All program settings can be saved and used in the future.

UTILITIES

CacheTT

CacheTT is a console application for modifying fonts in TrueType and TrueType Open formats. Modifications involve creating and/or changing the VDMX, hdmx and LTSH tables.

Digital signatures

It's no secret that fonts are one of the most insecure products. They do not have special keys or codes for installation, and there is no trial period, for example, a 30-day period of use. Microsoft plans to change this situation in the future. For this purpose, the Digital signatures program has already been developed. It allows authors to certify their fonts and insert a special digital signature into them. It will also be possible to determine the period of use of such a font. Future operating systems, for example, some Windows 2005, will be able to check such a signature and, in the positive case, allow the use of such a font, but otherwise, not even install it on the system. All this, however, applies to fonts in TrueType and OpenType formats. Considering that almost all manufacturers see the future in the OpenType format, we can hope that soon fonts will become a fairly secure product.

FastFont

This program optimizes a TrueType file for faster reading. During this optimization process, the most frequently used tables are moved to the beginning of the file.

Flint

32-bit Windows application for testing TrueType fonts. While working, checks hinting instructions and other technological parameters.

Font properties extension

A very useful utility. After installation, right-clicking on a font file and selecting "Properties" allows you to view extended information about the font. Namely: file name and font name, version, code pages, hinting, license text, description, links to the author and foundry, implementation permissions, number of kerning pairs, etc.

Microsoft Visual OpenType Layout Tool "VOLT"

VOLT (Visual OpenType Layout Tool) provides a convenient graphical user interface for adding OpenType tables to TrueType fonts. The program also allows you to import/export glyph names, lookups, glyph groups, etc. Supports Arabic (Naskh and Nastaliq script styles), Bengali, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Greek, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Latin, Sinhala, Syriac, Telugu and Thaana scripts. For free.

Microsoft Visual TrueType

A great application from Microsoft for professional instruction of TrueType and OpenType fonts. Works under Windows (Win 95, 98, NT and 2000) and Macintosh (PPC).

SBIT32

A 32-bit console application that inserts bitmap information (""sbits"" (for ""scaler bitmaps")) into existing TrueType fonts. To use SBIT32, you first need to create a file that contains bitmap information (.BDF) and a metrics file (.MET). SBIT32 reads this input and includes it in a TrueType file. By the way, SBIT32 can also be used to remove such data from a font file.

TrueType Friendly Namer

A simple utility for changing font names, which can also be done in batch mode.

TrueType Open Assembler

These two DOS utilities, TrueType Open Assembler (TTOAsm) and TrueType Open Disassembler (TTODasm), work in tandem to create, modify, and validate TrueType Open (TTO) tables.

TTInfo

A cool utility for viewing the structure of TrueType font files. All tables are shown in hexadecimal format. You can view such resources as: name (Name table), head (Font header), hhea (Horizontal header), OS/2 (OS/2 and Windows metrics), maxp (Maximum profile), post (PostScript information), gasp ( Grid-fitting and scan-conversion), PCLT (PCL 5 Table), prep (Control value program), fpgm (Font program).

TTFdump

TTFDump is a console utility for viewing the contents of TrueType fonts. TTFDump parses and modifies the content of tables and subtables to make the font more readable. Available in 16 and 32 bit versions.

This concludes our consideration of programs for working with fonts. I would like to note that this review does not pretend to be complete. Every month new programs are added, existing ones die a natural death - the authors abandon them, and for a full life of a program it requires development, the release of new versions, support for new font technologies. However, I hope that the review will be useful to everyone who is in one way or another connected with the use of fonts - designers, layout designers, etc.

The designer will always be on the hunt for new fonts, because... a new font that will color the site design and every visitor will see something innovative. Every day there are more fonts, which indicates its need.

In this article, we would like to introduce you to the 5 best free font editors that will help you create your own innovative and creative fonts for your websites.

1.Glyphr

Glyphr is a free html5 based font editor. Font design has a high barrier to entry. Professional font design programs are very complex and quite expensive. Glyphr is accessible, organized, and made for font design lovers, and it's free. You can create complex shapes, copy and paste, flip or block them, drag and resize your content.

2.

Birdfont is a free font editor that allows you to create vector graphics and export TTF, EOT and SVG fonts. It provides many features such as curve, contextual ligature replacement, kerning lines, object rotation, background change and much more.

3. Font Struck

FontStruct allows you to quickly and easily create fonts built from geometric shapes that are arranged in a grid, such as tiles or bricks.

4. Bit Font Maker 2

BitFontMaker2 is a fast and lightweight Bitmap font editor for the web. You can edit and create a pixel font in your web browser.

5.Fontastic

Fontastic is a great tool that allows us to select elements from a variety of icon sets. The selected elements are combined into one font with a click of the mouse, where this approach helps to minimize the font size as we select only the icons we need. It's also possible to interfere with the naming process and import our own SVG icons.