29

Is there a Mac app for viewing all the characters of a font?

Font book doesn't seem have this feature.

Improve this question

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
45

Font Book does in fact have a view that displays all glyphs provided by a font — just select Preview - Repertoire on the menu bar:

Fontbook preview all glyphs

You can also get a preview of a font using Quick Look: select a font file (from /Library/Fonts) and press space.

Improve this answer
0
20

I use character maps heavily and decides to make one which you access from anywhere using a web interface and requires no installation.

Features

  • Select your own font file
  • Provides font and character information
  • Character copy-able
  • Supports TTF/OTF
  • Supports Icon fonts
  • Smooth interface
  • No installation necessary
  • No server upload necessary

Screenshot

Imgur

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    This web interface awesome thanks for sharing with our.
    – muratoner
    Sep 21, 2018 at 21:42
4

I guess you're on Lion - right ?

Because in Snow-Leopard you could get that by showing the "character viewer" from the inputs menu or launching directly /System/Library/Input Methods/CharacterPalette.app as described here and choosing "Glyph" view.

character viewer

glyph view

Check out the new smilies (now part of the Unicode standard ;) in the DejaVu font

But if you still got access to a Snow-Leopard installation you can copy the CharacterPalette.app from /System/Library/Input Methods/CharacterPalette.app and it will run on Lion, I would not recommend replacing the Lion version, but rather keeping the Snow-Leopard CharacterPalette as separate app - why did Apple have to make it worse in the first place ?!

As you can drag & drop glyphs from the Snow-Leopard Character Palette but not from the new Lion Font Book...

This idea was inspired by Is it possible to use the character map as a standalone app?

Improve this answer
2
2

Alternatively in System Preferences -> International in the Input Menu tab there is an option to place a Character Palette on the menu bar that can (among other things) show you all the glyphs in a particular font, what the glyph is called and allow you to insert the character into a document or text field.

Improve this answer
3
  • 2
    In 10.7 Lion what you suggest is no longer possible in Character Viewer.
    – Tom Gewecke
    Dec 20, 2011 at 18:10
  • 1
    Which annoyed my so much (!) that I copied the SnowLeopard "Character Viewer" from /System/Library/Input Methods/CharacterPalette.app to my new Lion installation (not as replacement, but as separate standalone app) - and guess what: it works ! I was so happy :D - The idea was inspired by apple.stackexchange.com/questions/20165/…
    – iolsmit
    Dec 21, 2011 at 23:40
  • 1
    Well, crap -- I like the Character Viewer. Thanks for the update.
    – David Rouse
    Dec 22, 2011 at 12:39
2

Unfortunately the Snow Leopard /System/Library/Input Methods/CharacterPalette.app no longer works in newer versions of macOS. For example, on High Sierra (10.13) it crashes immediately.

It may be that our only option are apps like PopChar X at this point.

I don't even think I'm happy with PopChar as it doesn't seem to have as strong of a numeric tabular display and so forth and so it will be necessary to keep exploring this path for various options that may exist for native options.

Improve this answer
1
  • So sad, i try to find the codepoints for the new Catalina SF font icons but even their own special SF Symbols app is not showing the codepoints they used for their glyphs (they are all in the private block). Don't want to spend $40 on PopChar just to get this. Apple sucks.
    – Lothar
    Oct 12, 2019 at 20:15

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .