FontAgent® reveals a treasure trove of metadata, metrics and descriptive details about your fonts. And it makes all that data available for you to search, sort and explore as you select fonts and create criteria for Smart Sets — on both Mac and Windows platforms.
The information that FontAgent places at your fingertips is derived from a variety of sources that include:
- Font name, family and style information from font files
- Digital font metrics and style information from font files
- Descriptive data provided by font designers and foundries in font files
- Font file name, format, size and path in the operating system
- Font activation status and metrics calculated by FontAgent
- Comments and ratings that you enter into FontAgent over time
- Tags and keywords provided by you and others that enable you to organize and search your fonts
All this font information appears in various locations in the FontAgent interface. But most of it also appears the Properties Inspector in FontAgent’s right sidebar, which you can show and hide easily.
FontAgent for Mac
Click the rightmost button in the FontAgent top toolbar
FontAgent for Windows
Click Ctrl-R to display and hide the Properties Sidebar
Font and Style Names
Font Name
Font names are specified by their designers, and always contain their font family name, usually contain a style name as in AdamsBold. Sometimes, they contain a foundry indicator such as in PerspectiveSSi, whose suffix identifies it as being published by Southern Software Inc. For more details, see the post entitled What’s in a Font Name?
Family
FontAgent displays font family names as they are specified by their designers such as Formata or Lithos Pro. Some designers apply family names broadly as in the Expressway family in which all styles and widths are assigned Expressway as their family name. In contrast, other designers separate fonts of different widths or styles into separate families such as Cargo and Cargo Condensed. To learn more about font families, see Organizing Your Fonts by Family.
Style
The style of the font such as Roman, Italic, Light, Medium, Bold, Black or Heavy. Learn more about font families and styles.
Font Metrics
Weight
A numeric value provided by the font designer to describe the thickness of the stroke widths of the font style. Regular and roman styles have a value of zero, heavier strokes have positive values, and thinner strokes have negative values.
Proportion
A numeric value provided by the font designer to describe the width of the characters in the font style. Regular widths have a zero value. Wider, extended styles have positive values, and compressed styles have negative values. Available on Mac only.
Slant
A numeric value provided by the font designer to describe the slant of the font style. Regular styles have a zero value, italic styles that lean to the right have a positive value, and styles that lean left have a negative value. Available on Mac only.
Traits
Summary characteristics of the selected font as provided by the operating system. Available on Mac only.
Font Source Details
Foundry
The foundry or publisher of the font specified in the font file such as Summitsoft or Bitstream. This name is usually different from the font designer’s name.
Designer
The designer of the font as specified in the font file such as James Sisler. The designer’s name is not the same as the foundry name, which refers to the publisher of the font.
Copyright
Copyright information as claimed by the font’s designer or foundry. This field sometimes can indicate that a font is freeware and occasionally contains other licensing terms.
Trademark
Trademark claims made by the font’s designer or foundry such as Pricedown is a trademark of Ray Larabie.
Description
Optional descriptive information provided by the font’s designer or foundry. This field is often empty but can also include marketing information, license details or how to purchase the font.
URL
The web URL specified by the font foundry for more information on the font such as www.charlesdaoud.com.
Font File Properties
Font File
The name of the Windows or Mac file containing the font. The file names can be descriptive such as portofino.ttf or helveticabold.otf. Older Windows filenames were limited to eight characters that were often concatenations of abbreviated family names and styles such as ancisibi.com, or simply numbered styles as in antiq3.ttf.
Type
The format of the font file and the type of outline it contains. TrueType fonts contain TrueType outlines and Type 1 fonts contain Postscript outlines. OpenType fonts can contain TrueType or Postscript outlines, resulting in descriptors such as OpenType with PostScript outline. See The Benefits of OpenType for details.
Last Modified
The timestamp of the last time the font file was updated by its designer such as May 18, 2017 at 7:43 PM. This value is read directly from the font file and is not assigned by FontAgent.
Version
The version number of the font specified by the font’s designer such as Version 2.21 2013. This value is not assigned by FontAgent, but is read directly from the font file.
Size
The size of the file in bytes such as 161KB (161,328 on disk). The larger the file size, the more likely the font contains a large number of characters including accented letters, language support, symbols and other glyphs.
Path
The path showing where the font file is stored in the FontAgent font archive. To open the file folder, click the right-arrow button below the path name. To open the folder in the file system containing the font file, click the right-arrow button below the path name. In some enterprise FontAgent installations, file paths do not appear.
Your Tags and Comments
Tags
Keywords assigned by you or font administrators in your organization to classify and organize and search your fonts. For more details on powerful uses of tags, visit here.
Comments
Descriptive notes that you enter into FontAgent. Use comments to describe projects, usage tips, preferred uses, etc. Comments appear in the Tags and Comments View in the bottom pane of FontAgent’s main window.
Font Rating
Your rating for the font on a one- to five-star scale. Click a star to change the rating. Later, filter your fonts by star rating to see all your favorites.
Activation Status
Active
If the font is activated, this field displays YES. When active, the font is available to appear in your other Mac and Windows applications.
Auto-Activated
If the font has been auto-activated by an application, this field displays YES or the name of the app. Auto-activation occurs when an application such as Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress opens a document that requires a deactivated font and activates the font for you.
Count
The number of times the font has been activated in FontAgent.
Learn More About Your Fonts
There so much more to learn about how FontAgent makes you and your fonts more effective. Take a look at some of these articles to unlock the power of your font collection.
