Hellbox: live font proofing for Mac

jakeflem

Hi all. I make Hellbox, a native Mac app for proofing fonts while you draw them.

Some of you may recognize it. It launched in June as Font Proof, a name that sat too close to Font Proofer, so it's now Hellbox. A hellbox was the bin in a print shop where broken type waited to be melted down and recast. Kind of a weird name, but for an app whose job is finding busted glyphs, I think it works! And I am no stranger to weirdly named tools... (see idiotproofed.com)

Just like Idiotproofed, the idea is one idea: the proof keeps up with you. Hellbox watches your Glyphs file, and when you save, the open proof updates. It does the same with RoboFont and FontLab (in beta), no plugin required. Everything renders as a live PDF through CoreText, the Mac's native text engine, so what you proof is what your users get.

In the box: waterfalls, glyph sets, compare styles, columns and rows with per-cell control you can combine into complex layouts, mixed fonts and styles in the same proof, linked text files, markup on frozen proofs, proof templates and section templates, 70+ OpenType feature toggles. Pay once ($100, 14-day trial), no subscription. macOS 14+ (12 and 13 in beta).

More at hellbox.com, and the longer story is on the blog: From Idiotproofed to Hellbox

Release notes are on the site if you want a sense of how fast updates ship. If something's missing or broken, tell me and I'll fix it.