Gimp image editor for mac. There are thousands of paid-for and free fonts available these days. But sometimes, when you just can't find exactly what you're looking for, creating a your own typeface could be the way to go – imagine that in your design portfolio!
Glyphs 2.4.4 (1075) The font editor for everyone. Glyphs’ smart and simple approach helps you draw new fonts, modify existing fonts, and sculpt your letterforms hassle-free.
Making your own fonts can be some of the most inspiring work you ever do but finding the font editor that's right for you can be more than a little bit tricky. Here are five of the most popular font editors, complete with pros and cons.
01. Fontlab Studio
At $649, FontLab Studio opens up the whole gamut of type design, from designing a single font to crafting a whole typeface library.
Pros:
- Imports and exports fonts with support for up to 65,535 glyphs in a wide range of font formats
- Offers an extended toolset
- Can be used for a wide range of tasks, from outline editing to TrueType manual instructing
- Scriptable
- Runs on Mac as well as Windows
Cons:
- Steep learning curve
- Updates come rarely
- Can be buggy
- Documentation is less than satisfactory
- Limited OpenType (no support for Arabic features, for example)
- No native UFO file format support
- Expensive
02. FontCreator
Boasting over 4.5 million downloads to date, FontCreator is a popular font editor among creatives. Native to Windows, FontCreator's feature set makes it suitable for professionals, with a straightforward interface making it accessible to users at any skill level.
Pros:
- Affordable
- Add up to 65,535 glyphs per font
- Create and edit TrueType and OpenType fonts
- Create and edit Web Open Font Format (WOFF) fonts
- Create and edit scalable color fonts
- Redesign existing characters
Cons:
- Windows only
03. Fontographer
Best Free Font Editor For Mac
Coming in at $399, this is a cheaper option from the makers of FontLab, ideal for smaller projects.
Pros:
Get the most out of annotating tools to highlight and mark up the text. Best editor for mac.
- Quite easy to use
- Intuitive interface
- Automated processes
- Imports and exports fonts with 32,000 glyphs in a wide range of font formats
- Runs on Mac as well as Windows
Cons:
- OpenType features are not preserved upon opening a font and code cannot be edited in the app, only imported as a feature-file
- No native UFO support
04. Glyphs
For beginners and casual users right through to seasoned type designers, and a snip at $300.
Pros:
- Easy to learn, easy to use
- Combined text and drawing views, in which layers can be automatically generated
- Basic OpenType features that can be previewed
- Scriptable and expandable
- Extremely fast updates
- Amazing support
- Comes in two versions
Cons:
- Mac only
05. Robofont
Text Editor For Mac
For those looking for a scalable tool, and prepared to spend €400 for the privilege.
Pros:
- Built in Python support and scalable
- Loads of extra functions already available from a dedicated community
- Full scripting access to objects and interface
- Perfect base on which to build additional tools
Cons:
Font Creator Mac
- Mac only
- Not the tool for quick jobs
Best film editor for mac. This article originally featured in Computer Arts issue 229.
1. Yeah alright, I can see the developer is going down the path of Adobe CS6 with its darker theme for the UI, but if this is to be attempted and become the norm for this tool, make sure the graphics and text representing the buttons on the UI are clear. And I mean much more significant contrast. I'm not sure about other users' Macs (perhaps the brightness has been set all the way to the top to make it work for them), but even with my maximum brightness, I do have to squint hard to look at these buttons to see what they are.
2. I can see the developer is trying to be original with the menu command (File, Edit etc). Yes, I give him credit for being different. But one of the things that I find fairly annoying are the number of extra clicks I need to press just to access a particular menu command. I mean, now, we have to make an extra click into what appears to be the settings button (I have seen a similarly designed button for this purpose on other apps), but initially I had no way of knowing the menu commands are actually hidden in there. When I found out, I thought 'Yay, I can use this tool again'. But then I realise, I need to click at least twice to actually get into the menu grouping I want, and eventually another click to finally use the menu command I want. My recommendation: put the menu commands across the top of the window (or what's wrong in the menu bar created by Apple's own Finder app? While it isn't the most exciting and original way of doing things, I find that it just works and simplifies the process of accessing fcommands so much.
3. Can we not have to show the initial window on startup asking if it is for commercial or free use. For a software that is described as free, this is confusing. Should I actually pay for this tool? I don't know. If I don't have to, just let us choose and the app should remember. If we want to change it to 'commercial', we should be able to go into the settings to change this. Again this just saves an extra click on launching just to get into the app.
4. Is there any chance we can get an instructions manual to learn all the amazing things this tool can do (no need to be detailed like it came from Microsoft, just a nice compact Mac-like and intruitive manual that explains everything). In particular I like to see where I can apply high-end time-saving features such as the ability to apply an automatic slanting of all characters in a font set for setting up the italics font set quickly, of the ability to enlarge all characters to create the bold font set, that kind of thing.
I probably should leave it there for now. But already I can see great potential in this app. And I certain;y do not want the developer to give up on this tool just because some people are saying things could be better. Just as an encouragement, I like to give the app the rating as shown above.
Please keep up the improvements.