Back in the day, there was a great free program for the Mac called TypeBook, which I used to print specimen sheets and character maps for my fonts. Unfortunately, it didn’t make the leap to OS X. I have been using an Excel spreadsheet to print character maps for my giant collection of dingbat fonts in the intervening years, but wanted to make something easier to use and to share. The result is my Inkscape version that you can download here.
And I also made a version for Adobe Illustrator that you can download here. Illustrator has a built in character table (Type menu>Glyphs), but if you want something to print out, this will come in handy.
Here’s what a completed page looks like for my 09kutups font.
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Awesome. I’ve never made a character map, but I’m sure going to try to do this in Inkscape. It would be nice to have a printout of
my character fonts. Thanks so much.
I have been all over the Internet the past few days looking for something like this. I wanted to be able to print out character maps of my dingbat fonts, to keep in a notebook for reference (keystroke). Finally made my own in my word processor, but this is so much better. Thanks for all you do. I’ve learned a lot from your site. (I especially loved the story of how you came up with the name of your site – haha.)
Laura
crcitucard-iologist.blogspot.com
Ok – I’m back. I followed your steps to select a font from my computer, and the apply button stays dim – unclickable – however you say it. Any ideas why? My layer is unlocked. Email me. Thanks.
Laura,
Step 1 is to select all. Did you do that? If so the only thing left to do to activate the apply button is to click a different font name in the list.
Yeah, I did select all, and tried clicking on several fonts. The apply button just stayed dim. I’m using Inkscape 0.46. I’ll try it in 0.47. Thanks.
I figured it out. You have to have the text ‘Create & edit text objects’ button selected, too (The ‘a’ in the left sidebar menu). Duh. Should have known that. Thanks for the template.
I don’t have to do that on my Mac in .47. Bet it’s a .46 thing so thanks for letting me know.
I tried your tutorial but the Apply button never lit up so I couldn’t hit apply. does this only work with Ink 47 or will it work with Ink46?
Me again, I selected the Create and edit text objects button also and the Apply button still would not light up.
Me one last time. I can get the apply button to light up if I make the font size 28 but I can only do one letter at a time. Isn’t this supposed to be easy?
Linda,
Sorry you are having so much trouble with this. I suggest you start over with a new download and go through the steps exactly as they are shown again. I have tested the process repeatedly and it works as shown for Inkscape .47. I can not run Inkscape .46 to test so it is possible that this is an Inkscape .46 issue.
This is fantastic, thanks so much for doing this.
This worked perfectly for me!
To anyone having troubles, try this:
Open the file from the download, click on ANY letter so that is has a selection box around it (box with arrows on all sides).
Once you have ONE letter selected, THEN click CTRL-A to select the rest.
Then click the “T” to bring up the text menu and choose any font.
Apply should be ready to click (-:
The problem may be that when you’re click Select All (CTRL-A), your curser is not on the mat and it doesn’t know what to select. By choosing one letter, you “tell” it what you’re trying to select…
Hope that helps…
thank you Kay, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, you are a genius!
You are so helpful, Kay. I downloaded the Inkscape version. I am on Mac OSX. What do I do with the download? Do I drag it into Inkscape?
Sorry, I’m not so good with computers.
Vesta,
This is a standard Inkscape file so you can open it just like any other. File>Open or Double click on the icon or drag the file to the Inkscape toolbar icon, etc.
I followed your instructions but could not get the inkscape map to work but the online one works perfect (dummy proof:) Thanks for the link Kay, you are a treasure!
I knew that there must have been something like this out there… You are amazing!
Hi, I would love to use this but I get a mal site warning each time I try to download. Also, does this work for windows?
Thanks
Yes this works for Windows. Mediafire is a well known download site, but you can just use the online one since you have Windows.
Will have to try this out. Thank you for sharing.
Will this work with something that has many characters (i.e. Samantha font)?
No, it only shows the keyboard accessible characters. Fonts like Samantha typically come with a PDF user guide that shows all the characters, including the ones that can’t be accessed from the keyboard.
Where can I find the online version? Does this work with otf fonts?
The online version is no longer available. Yes this works with OTF fonts.
2021 and this still worked amazingly for Inkscape! Thank you SO very much!