Search for a character in all fonts

Got a request? Post it here. Please do not post bug reports here.
Post Reply
joehorn
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Sep 20, 2009 5:35 pm

Search for a character in all fonts

Post by joehorn »

I need to know which of my fonts contain a particular character. There seems to be no simple way to do that. "Search for a character in all fonts" would be a VERY useful feature in MainType! And easy to implement too, I'd think.

Example:
Input: "Prescription Take" (or Unicode 211E)
Output: list of all my fonts which contain that character.

Thanks in advance!

-Joe-
Bhikkhu Pesala
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 9873
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
Location: Seven Kings, London UK
Contact:

Re: Search for a character in all fonts

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

There is a way to quickly tell if a font has the required symbol — paste some text using the Prescription Take symbol ℞℞℞ in the preview text field.

Edit: Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to work for all character sets.

In the screen shot below, I have typed the Pāli word "Satipaṭṭhāna" and can see which fonts are missing the ṭ dot below.

Image
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
León Fridsma
Posts: 694
Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2009 10:26 am
Location: De Bilt, Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Search for a character in all fonts

Post by León Fridsma »

joehorn wrote:I need to know which of my fonts contain a particular character. There seems to be no simple way to do that. "Search for a character in all fonts" would be a VERY useful feature in MainType! And easy to implement too, I'd think.
Unfortunately this is not easy to implement. MainType currently only stores the number of characters found in a font, not which characters. If a search like this would have to be performed it would have to physically go through each font which would make it very very slow. The solution that Bhikkhu Pesala provided is currently the only way to go.

León
Bhikkhu Pesala
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 9873
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
Location: Seven Kings, London UK
Contact:

Re: Search for a character in all fonts

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

León Fridsma wrote:The solution that Bhikkhu Pesala provided is currently the only way to go.
Any reason why it doesn't work with Letterlike Symbols? Prescription Take (Px) is in that character set.
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11108
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Search for a character in all fonts

Post by Erwin Denissen »

It works just fine on my PC running Windows 7.
PrescriptionTake.png
PrescriptionTake.png (164.74 KiB) Viewed 8817 times
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
Bhikkhu Pesala
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 9873
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
Location: Seven Kings, London UK
Contact:

Re: Search for a character in all fonts

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

That's good. :) If it only affects Windows XP I guess its not a big issue. I am sure that my own fonts all contain that symbol, but they're showing up as just rectangles. I tried various character sets, all of which showed up in the Samples Pane, but most didn't work in the Preview Text field.
Preview Text.png
Preview Text.png (19.56 KiB) Viewed 8816 times
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11108
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Search for a character in all fonts

Post by Erwin Denissen »

As long as the text is not "red" it does indicate the characters are available. We are aware Windows XP has certain limits related to drawing Unicode text, but we decided to move forward, as users of more recent versions of Windows do actually benefit the new Windows APIs.
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
Post Reply