Font Forum

I work with foreign fonts and have them in a separate folder so they don't get overwritten when new programs install their fonts.

One of the most useful aspects of BitStream Font Manager is that it searches your drive for all fonts, then displays all duplicate fonts in groups.

Then you can uninstall the unaccented fonts in the Windows directory with the accented fonts in the foreign fonts directory with a simply check box beside each one.

This addition would make Main Logic the leading type manager and is essential for someone working with multiple copies of simliar fonts in various locations on the hard drive.

Here's a tip from Dave Crosby:

A BIG problem with large collections is duplicates.

A terrible loss is to accidentally replace a good font with a bad one that was given the same name.
Columns is helpful in locating dupes and preventing this problem. Press the Columns button and rearrange them as you wish.

For this job I prefer File Name and Size at the head of the Columns List. You may find dupes you didn’t even know you had because someone altered the file or Family Name on one of them.

I think it would be a nice feature to include in MainType. Since there are many fonts with same glypes (or identical) but with different font names, there are times when you installed multiple of the same fonts without realizing that you have installed the same fonts.

It would be useful if MainType can search and compare the font glypes and determine if two or more fonts are the same or not, then a report is generate to tell that what are the fonts that are similar, have extended character tables, identical, etc and highlights them...

jch02140 wrote:I think it would be a nice feature to include in MainType. Since there are many fonts with same glypes (or identical) but with different font names, there are times when you installed multiple of the same fonts without realizing that you have installed the same fonts.

It would be useful if MainType can search and compare the font glyphs and determine if two or more fonts are the same or not, then a report is generate to tell that what are the fonts that are similar, have extended character tables, identical, etc and highlights them...

I agree!

Arial Black.ttf and ArialBlack.ttf ARE NEARLY the same font, but from different sources. Why keep both?
Which one should we dump?

Then someone comes along and steals the font and renames it "Hero.ttf" but that is SOMETIMES the only difference.
It may be months or years before we notice it is just another dupe.

Even worse, someone makes some junky font and names it Arial Black.ttf and we make the mistake of putting it in the same folder as our GOOD font and "Poof Gone!"

There are many applications out there that can do this, but it would be great to be able to solve this problem within MainType.

Dave Crosby wrote:There are many applications out there that can do this, but it would be great to be able to solve this problem within MainType.

Although I know of some applications that will compare text files (e.g. ExamDiff) or do a binary comparison, I am not aware of any widely available programs that will compare individual glyphs.

What Font Is This? must have some kind of algorithm for doing this.

They have a pre-existing database of the fonts datas in Myfonts.com and use them to compare individual glypes in the images uploaded... But sometime this isn't perfect either... The images must not be too colorful (ideally two colors are the best, one for background and one for the text), the text itself must not have too much effects either... though some of them can be identified by chance...

PLEASE, High Logic, could you take notice of all the above submissions since 2007 who are requesting this basic inclusion of identifying duplicate fonts. It's so essential when installing a new font to be given the ability to retain the better quality choice of a duplicate font. Something like Adobe's old 'Font Manager.' It gave tick box options when installing fonts. Many of us have 5000- 10,000 fonts and we could delete a third of them if we had this option.

MainType 4 introduced "Font comparison" in the font information panel where you can simply drag multiple fonts (upto 5) onto it. There you can compare font properties like create and modification dates, number of glyphs and characters etc... To compare the fonts visually you could create a group of the fonts you want to compare and enter a custom preview text in the toolbar above the font list. We have no plans for multiple previews in the sample and glyph window at this time.

León