MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Fonty-goodness, glyphs, and other strangers.

Hitch · 03-05-2016, 02:03 PM

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.

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

03-05-2016, 02:03 PM	#1
Hitch Bookmaker & Cat Slave Posts: 11,503 Karma: 158448243 Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Phoenix, AZ Device: K2, iPad, KFire, PPW, Voyage, NookColor. 2 Droid, Oasis, Boox Note2	Fonty-goodness, glyphs, and other strangers. 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. Spoiler: Irony: I purchased SSS in print, due to the "every-page-has-a-sidebar-layout" issue. The irony? That a book that is about typography, which is, after all, nothing more than the art of using type to make content appropriately readable---is unreadable by me unless read in the brightest light of day. No amount of indoor lighting, reading lamps, etc., make this book readable to me, once dusk falls. The font is simply TOO FRAKKING SMALL. The main narrative is small, the sidebars, captions, etc, even smaller. Hell, some of this crap is at...6pts, maybe 4? What in the name of all the hells were they thinking? What, only 20 year olds with perfect eyes wanted to read this gods-damned book? Thus, my progress through SSS has been decidedly slow. 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