iView | Tutorial: Font Management

Tutorials

Learn the basics of how to index fonts, customize font preferences, organize fonts into groups and review font file information.

1. Set Import Options

Launch iView MediaPro and make sure it is setup to allow importing of fonts. In the"Edit" menu choose "Import Options." On the Import Options dialog, switch to the "Media Types" tab and make sure the "Fonts" box is checked.

2. Set Thumbnail View preferences

Create a new iView MediaPro catalog. Before you import fonts, you may adjust the size of your thumbnails in the lower left corner of the catalog (shown). As well, you may adjust the font size in the thumbnail. Click on the "Fonts" tab in the "Preferences" dialog box. You can always change these settings later.

3. Drag-and-drop catalog creation

Drag and drop any folder containing fonts into the open catalog window. All fonts included in this folder will be inserted in the catalog. Save your catalog.

Drag and drop creation

4. Set Media View options

Under the "Edit" menu, chose "Preferences." Click on the "Fonts" tab. Choose what you would like MediaPro to display in Media View or slide shows. In this example, we have chosen "Beduin Trail" and set the preferred font size.

Note: Option "Adjust to nearest available point" is useful if the font is a Bitmap, and would look jagged if the selected size didn't exist in the suitcase. In this case, iView MediaPro would pick the nearest available size to display the font. This option is not required for displaying TrueType fonts, or when font related system extensions (such as Adobe ATM™) are installed.

5. View sample text in slide show

Switch to "Media View" and view your phrase using the fonts available in the catalog. Pressing the up and down keys to quickly view all different examples.

You can also use MediaPro's slide show functionality to view the sample text. To start the show, click on the slide show icon (shown right) in the tool bar. For slide show options, see "Setup Slide Show..." in the "Make" menu (or click CMD U).

6. Organizing fonts

Label menu You may find it useful to "Label" the preferred fonts as you view them, by selecting a label from the drop-down menu in the toolbar (shown right) or by pressing any of the F1 to F8 keys.

Once you go through all your fonts, you can use the "Quick Sort" function under the "Find" menu to reorganize your thumbnails by the Label you just applied.

Useful tip: In "Thumbnail View," select a group of labeled fonts and choose "Move to Folder" under the "Action" menu. Here, you can move the desired font files into to the Fonts folder in your System Folder. That will make those fonts available to the running applications.

7. Font file information and annotations

If you are interested to find out more about a specific font, choose "Show Info Panel" under the "Window" menu (or click CMD Y).

With iView MediaPro you can add annotations to your fonts. For example, switch to "Caption" through the "Media Info" pull menu and type remarks about this font, or information about the project and reason you used this font. Another option would be to add keyword categorization. Switch to "Keyword" in the same pull menu and add up to 256 keywords. Font files could later be sorted by keyword. The font file functionality is only available in Mac OS 9.