Font Book is a font manager by Apple Inc. for its macOS operating system. It was first released with Mac OS X Panther in 2003.

Font Book
Stable release
11.0
Operating systemmacOS
TypeFont manager
Websitewww.apple.com/macosx/features/fontbook/ Edit this on Wikidata

Features edit

It is opened by default whenever the user clicks on a new .otf or .ttf font file. The user can view the font and install it, at which point the font will be copied to a centralised folder of user-installed fonts and be available for all apps to use.[1]

It can be used to browse all installed fonts. The user can view the list of fonts and see their alphabets, their complete repertoire of characters, and how they set a sample text of the user's choice.[1]

The program allows users to:[1][2]

  • Group fonts into collections, which can then be used in all Cocoa programs.
  • View details of fonts, such as their designer’s name.
  • Activate and deactivate individual fonts or collections.
  • Check the data integrity of font files.
  • Export font collections for use on another computer

It does not feature any editing tools, even for changing font properties. This means that the user cannot use it to rename, merge, or split up fonts or to redesign or modify fonts by (for example) changing kerning rules or exporting small capitals into a separate style.[citation needed]

History edit

In the 2003–2007 period, Apple's Font Book faced some criticism regarding an inability to validate and auto-activate fonts.[3]

These features were added to Font Book with the release of Mac OS X Leopard on 26 October 2007.[4]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c Miser, Brad (2008). Apple Mac OSX Leopard in Depth. Que Publishing. pp. 214–225. ISBN 978-0-273-72158-1.
  2. ^ Pogue, David (December 7, 2007). Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual. O'Reilly Media, Inc. pp. 558–566. ISBN 978-0-596-55456-9.
  3. ^ Levisay, Benjamin (October 24, 2004). "Review - Apple's Font Book". Archived from the original on October 9, 2007. Retrieved February 17, 2008.
  4. ^ Apple (2007). "Leopard's 300+ new features - Fonts". Archived from the original on October 16, 2007.

External links edit