FontView

Text on your computer might be just a default thing Windows comes with, but there’s an entire art and architecture related to fonts. Windows keeps them in a special folder, and the more you have installed, the less chances to encounter unreadable text. To view them, you can simply use applications like FontView.

Once launched, the main window shows up and instantly starts to display all fonts installed on your computer. You might want to find a suitable position on the screen, because every minor interaction forces the application to update the list, having a rather disturbing flicker effect on fonts, and also slightly affecting functionality, but this mostly depends on the amount of fonts installed.

There’s a side scroll bar you’re sure to use if you want to see all of them. However, scrolling has the same update effect, so you need to frequently pause. By default, fonts are shown in multiple columns, and there’s even a slider to choose the density. On the other hand, setting the value too high can make text overlap and difficult to read.

An additional slider is there so you can set the size of font. However, the application doesn’t automatically adjust the view in accordance to number of columns, so you need to find a balance by trying different values for each slider. In case the list seems stuck or incomplete, there’s always the update button to refresh the list.

Unfortunately, you can’t interact with any of the fonts, and neither is there a scratchpad to test them out. Moreover, the application itself isn’t capable of reading all type of characters, meaning it doesn’t correctly display all of them. The total number of fonts isn’t shown, and counting them all can take a considerable amount of time.

Bottom line is that it’s nice to have many fonts on your computer, especially if you have to design different projects that involve creativity on a regular basis. Viewing installed fonts can easily be done through most common text editors, and it’s probably the best way, since FontView doesn’t quite live up to expectations.