iOS Font Viewer?

Mark Simonson
Mark Simonson Posts: 1,739
edited January 2014 in Type Design Software
Does anyone know of an iPhone/iPad app for viewing font files on DropBox?

I've searched through the App Store, and nearly all the "font viewer" apps listed only let you view the fonts that are installed on your device.

I only found one app that lets you view arbitrary font files. It's called Super Font Viewer, and it's not so super. Technically it does let you view arbitrary font files, but you have to email the fonts to yourself or drag them into iTunes during a sync (who does that anymore?). It has a horribly designed UI and doesn't take advantage of the iPhone 5's larger screen.

What I'd like is an app that lets me view fonts that I'm working on when I'm not at my studio. Having to sync or email font files ahead of time doesn't really cut it. I'd like to view files that I already store on DropBox. Something that could view .ufo files would be really cool.

Does such an app exist?
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Comments

  • Karl Stange
    Karl Stange Posts: 38
    I have found that Font Inspector can handle downloads from DropBox, though you would need to open the font in DropBox within the browser and then select Font Inspector as the app to open files with (in theory it is possible from within the app but I have not been able to make it work). Once in the app you can look at basic text previews and view basic metadata.
  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,739
    Thanks, Karl. It looks like Super Font Viewer can open fonts from Dropbox after all. Font Inspector is nicer looking, but also pretty limited. At least SFV shows the characters fairly large.
  • Georg Seifert
    Georg Seifert Posts: 674
    What should a font viewer be able to do?
  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,739
    View individual glyphs and strings of glyphs at arbitrary sizes. Black on white. It'd be cool if it worked not just with .otf and .ttf, but also with .ufo and other font development formats.

    It looks like the existing viewers that do allow one to open and view non-installed fonts can work with Dropbox indirectly using the "open with" option, which is okay, but in-app Dropbox support would be ideal.
  • Jack Jennings
    Jack Jennings Posts: 151
    You could host an HTML file on dropbox the loads web fonts and has a small UI for entering a test string. That would be the quick and dirty solution. No UFO love though, and a lot of steps to update the files.
  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,739
    edited January 2014
    Currently, the way I do it is to just create PDFs that I can view in Dropbox. Which is fine except when I forget to create them.
  • Karl Stange
    Karl Stange Posts: 38
    edited January 2014
    Georg, is a Glyphs Atom for iOS a possibility? It would be nice to be able to handle workflows on a par with Evernote, if you happen to be taking requests...
  • Mike Anderson
    Mike Anderson Posts: 16
    its true there still isnt imo any perfect font viewer for the ipad which is a shame. the best i used however were Typefaces (free), FontTome (99 cents), and Type Toy (free)
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/type-toy/id428237859?mt=8

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