Hey, gang:
I'm not sure if this should be here, or in the Lounge, but I wnated feedback from my peeps on this, as opposed to every Tom, Dick and Harry that's ever looked at a book.
You may recall (or mayn't) that some time back I decided to stop messing around with fonts, and to get serious about them. I already have Bringhurst, of course, and in pursuit of further enlightenment, I bought Spiekermann and Ginger, Stop Stealing Sheep.
Some of my journey was prompted by the fact that although I had Typograf, I was not able to easily print out (PDF, rather) a list of fonts, to give to a client. I emailed the developer, who did indeed email me back, but he didn't have a solution and didn't seem that interested in finding one. His answer was "well, you should be able..." Oh, well.
So, I acquired Suitcase Fusion 6 (PC), which was highly recommended, yadda.
But now we come to the next part of the story.
GLYPHS.
Now, as we make-a de books, we have a lot of "fonts" that are really just wingdings, fleurons, etc. I also am a (sucker) buyer of fonts that themselves aren't that great, but have TDF (To Die For) glyph sets. Right?
Now, some fonts that I snag have reliable foundries--or their creators make what I call "glyph maps" or "glyph guides." These are PDF pages that show the glyphs, and their character map. Right? If you get a glyph-heavy font, this is invaluable.
BUT, sadly...other font-makers aren't that cool. You get a font, and the glyphs, and tough s**t if you can't find what you want. I have a font like that now. It contains nearly 1,000 custom glyphs. Yes, a boatload are letter variants, but several hundred are foofs. (Foofs=Hitchspeak for fleurons, dingbats, etc.) I'm trying to sort through the Glyphs for this idiotic font. Yes, Suitcase Fusion has a Glyphs view. It's just not a fabulous view.
I'm wondering--and yes, I'm wondering if I've gone mad, slid down a rabbit hole and ended up in Fontland--do I need a product like...crap, now I can't remember the name. PopChar. It's a program that seems to be completely oriented around glyphs.
I don't care so much about the $30 to buy yet another piece of software. What I do care about is having YET another piece of software, around fonts. I mean..I already have and have somewhat abandoned Typograf, because of the print-to-PDF issue. Now I have the Suitcase Fusion software, which by and large does most of what I want. BUT, the glyphs thing...urgh. I'd ignore it, but obviously, we use this crap all the time.
Any suggestions from the font mavens amongst you? Any suggestions for less brain-damaging font management? (FWIW: just like I have scads of books, which of course, is completely understandable due to my business, I have SCADS of fonts. In my immediate Font Library, I have 408 fonts; another 628 in the System Fonts, and 1,400+ "others." That are just hanging around for that special use. Obviously, I'm in the process of creating some subdirs, folders, etc, to segregate/group fonts by use or type, but that's not done yet simply because I'm still cogitating upon the best way to organize those. )
Thoughts? Anybody?
Hitch
I'm not sure if this should be here, or in the Lounge, but I wnated feedback from my peeps on this, as opposed to every Tom, Dick and Harry that's ever looked at a book.
You may recall (or mayn't) that some time back I decided to stop messing around with fonts, and to get serious about them. I already have Bringhurst, of course, and in pursuit of further enlightenment, I bought Spiekermann and Ginger, Stop Stealing Sheep.
Spoiler:
Some of my journey was prompted by the fact that although I had Typograf, I was not able to easily print out (PDF, rather) a list of fonts, to give to a client. I emailed the developer, who did indeed email me back, but he didn't have a solution and didn't seem that interested in finding one. His answer was "well, you should be able..." Oh, well.
So, I acquired Suitcase Fusion 6 (PC), which was highly recommended, yadda.
But now we come to the next part of the story.
GLYPHS.
Now, as we make-a de books, we have a lot of "fonts" that are really just wingdings, fleurons, etc. I also am a (sucker) buyer of fonts that themselves aren't that great, but have TDF (To Die For) glyph sets. Right?
Now, some fonts that I snag have reliable foundries--or their creators make what I call "glyph maps" or "glyph guides." These are PDF pages that show the glyphs, and their character map. Right? If you get a glyph-heavy font, this is invaluable.
BUT, sadly...other font-makers aren't that cool. You get a font, and the glyphs, and tough s**t if you can't find what you want. I have a font like that now. It contains nearly 1,000 custom glyphs. Yes, a boatload are letter variants, but several hundred are foofs. (Foofs=Hitchspeak for fleurons, dingbats, etc.) I'm trying to sort through the Glyphs for this idiotic font. Yes, Suitcase Fusion has a Glyphs view. It's just not a fabulous view.
I'm wondering--and yes, I'm wondering if I've gone mad, slid down a rabbit hole and ended up in Fontland--do I need a product like...crap, now I can't remember the name. PopChar. It's a program that seems to be completely oriented around glyphs.
I don't care so much about the $30 to buy yet another piece of software. What I do care about is having YET another piece of software, around fonts. I mean..I already have and have somewhat abandoned Typograf, because of the print-to-PDF issue. Now I have the Suitcase Fusion software, which by and large does most of what I want. BUT, the glyphs thing...urgh. I'd ignore it, but obviously, we use this crap all the time.
Any suggestions from the font mavens amongst you? Any suggestions for less brain-damaging font management? (FWIW: just like I have scads of books, which of course, is completely understandable due to my business, I have SCADS of fonts. In my immediate Font Library, I have 408 fonts; another 628 in the System Fonts, and 1,400+ "others." That are just hanging around for that special use. Obviously, I'm in the process of creating some subdirs, folders, etc, to segregate/group fonts by use or type, but that's not done yet simply because I'm still cogitating upon the best way to organize those. )
Thoughts? Anybody?
Hitch
