FontMap

Examining all your fonts, installed or just stored on your disk, can be a daunting task. To ease the process, you can use a specialized third-party utility, such as FontMap.

By default, the application shows an alphabetical list of all your installed typefaces, along with a preview of the characters from the selected font.

At the bottom of the main window there is a one-line text field, called the Buffer, where you are able to type using the selected font, in order to try it out. Alternatively, right clicking on a symbol will insert it in the said field.

Something not obvious at first sight is the fact that clicking and holding down the left mouse button on a character will enlarge it to fit the main window.

Another feature of the program allows you to browse the local disks for typefaces that are not installed. This way you can test fonts before you install them.

A downside of FontMap lies in the fact that it does not allow you to rearrange items based on other characteristics, such as the presence of serifs or support for special characters. The latter attribute is important to users who want to use the fonts to type texts that contain diacritics.

This utility can show you the extended character set of any typeface. The only way to insert such symbols is by using their ASCII codes.

When previewing the enlarged representation of any of the characters, in the top part of the main window the program displays the corresponding ASCII code.

FontMap brings more functionality than the integrated Character Map application, yet allowing the rearrangement of the typefaces would have increased the program's potential.

Being able to view the extended set of symbols present in a font or the default keyboard layout are features that some users might find appealing.