Font Forum

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How about making it possible to compare two fonts side by side?

What do you have in mind, two Font Information Panels or some more sophisticated comparison?

I only need to open two (more would perhaps be nice) files at the same time and use Windows to present them Parallel, Horizontal, or tiled.

MT already allows adjusting panes for whatever portion of the font file I happen to be interested in at the time.

Usually, I need to examine various incarnations of a collected typeface to see if any of them are worth keeping, and which ones to delete. Sometimes the glyphs have been messed up, other times new glyphs have been added. Often it has just been re-named, and the original is the best choice.

As is, with MT I have to do a lot of switching back and forth. My 69 year old memory is perfect, but it is real short.

How about keeping the Groups tab as is with two exceptions:
1. Re-Name it to File/Compare
2. Have it open in a new window along side Active or Browse.
We decide which panes we want open.

This would take care of my compare needs AND free up the Groups Tab for your new function for it of using shortcuts.

Is a new Projects Tab a good idea, or is it redundant with Groups?

Search for Duplicates is another desirable option.

Dave, here is what I have in mind.



Note: with this pane, a full character grid comparison isn't possible.

I would really like to get some feedback (suggestions, enhancements etc.) from you and other users of MainType. In the end this feature must be useful to the majority, without getting too complicated.

I was thinking more along the lines of a quick visual comparison of two or more selected fonts in the samples pane.
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FWIW, I like Bhikkhu's idea for a visual comparison of two fonts.

OK, but now that if we're talking about comparing two fonts, the question comes up...why only two? With this in mind, you could just CTRL or SHIFT select fonts, that would be visually compared - or shown in the preview window.

I would like to be able to create a list of fonts files than have two or more files with the same CRC value and grouped by the CRC value. Then be able to do a visual comparison of the fonts by the CRC grouping. You should be able to select the folder or folders that contain the fonts you want to compare.

I also like Bhikkhu's idea for a visual comparison of two fonts or more. Here is my ideal of how to display them.

First create a list of fonts to compare. Use a windows explorer like dig. box for the dir tree and list of files in a folder. Then select the files from that folder and add to a list (also be able to remove from list). Then go to another folder if need be and do the same thing. Once the list is completed display the fonts in another window with the file name in one pane and a visual display of the font charcters in another pane. Also with the option of changing the point size of the fonts.

Font name charcter visual display
Font1 Name | ....a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t v w x y z .....
Font2 Name | ....a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t v w x y z .....
Font3 Name | ....a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t v w x y z .....
Font4 Name | ....a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t v w x y z .....
.
.
.

Have the up and down scroll bar of the two panes tied together and have the left and right scroll bars of the two panes seperate. Make both panes push and pull adjustable.

You could use this same window for the CRC compare that I mention at the top of this message.

Photo Joe

The explorer like tree is already there, and as I was reminded recently, you can click the blue folder tree icon to include all subfolders, so as long as you don't scatter your fonts all over the hard drive, that should suffice.

All that is needed is to add the ability to view multiple samples in the samples toolbar.

Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:The explorer like tree is already there, and as I was reminded recently, you can click the blue folder tree icon to include all subfolders, so as long as you don't scatter your fonts all over the hard drive, that should suffice.

All that is needed is to add the ability to view multiple samples in the samples toolbar.

I think we are almost talking about the same thing.

What I had in mind was to have something like a character map, but with all the charcters on the same horizonal line for each font which would of course have to be scrollable. It could also have some quick jump buttons by unicode subrange and a "Go to Unicode" box.

Photo Joe