Compared to the PC side, there is a dearth of font viewing software for Macs. In particular, none of the freebies and few of the for-pay font utilities I have found allow you to view uninstalled fonts. However, you can view the character sets for your fonts, whether installed or uninstalled with this Mac OSX Leopard (and beyond) trick.
Open a finder window and select the fonts you want to view. Here I have filtered my downloaded fonts folder by searching for “ttf” to eliminate most of the folders and read me files. It doesn’t matter what view you are in. I am showing this in the cover flow view, because some of you may not know you can use it for fonts.
Next just tap the space bar (or the QuickView icon which looks like an eye) and your font slide show window will appear. Use the arrow keys to navigate or click on the triangle on the screen to play the slideshow automatically. In Lion it looks like you have to press the full screen button before you get the slide show option.
The contact sheet button works, too, though it acted a little quirky for me .
This is really a lot of fun to play with. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
I don’t know what you mean by Cover Flow View. Maybe this is an option on a newer version of OSX, I can’t seem to find it on my Mac. I am using OSX Tiger.
Sorry for the confusion, Kay. Cover Flow is a view of files like iTunes has of album covers. It, and the QuickLook feature are new in Mac OSX 5.5 (Leopard). I’ve edited the post based on your input. Thanks.
Thanks for this. I know a lot about a mac and this is a new trick for me. I am so excited to find your blog.
Linda B.
This is soooooo cool!
Thank you very much!
I love my Mac. There are so many wonderful features.
and I can’t wait to get SCAL and use it with my Mac.
Thanks again,
Robyn
Can you please tell what font that is showing above?
Thank you so much for sharing all of your great ideas.
I really love your blog.
Thanks,
Amy
The font in the center image is “Desigers Bold”
Thanks for posting this! I sometimes forget how much utility is already built into the Mac OS, or how easy it is to use a script or app to add value to the existing functions. This was a timely reminder, as I am trying to review & control the thousands of fonts on my system right now!