New font testing page

Ofir Shavit
Ofir Shavit Posts: 402
in Type Design Software
Hi! I’m developing a font-testing page, primarily to assist with Latin–Hebrew type design and development, and I’ve added a few helpful features I couldn’t find elsewhere.

Drag & drop font files into the top-left drop zone, then browse the display tabs to explore each font and its weights.

The Weights and Words tabs lay out the family’s weights across letters and words. You can also select any word or passage in the specimen and apply a different weight just to that selection.

It supports Variable Fonts (both axes and named instances).

Privacy: everything runs locally in your browser—no uploads. No personal data is collected; at most, basic anonymous visit counts may be recorded for SEO/analytics.

Feel free to use it,
feedback appreciated.

https://ofirshavit.com/fonttester/



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Comments

  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,079
    That’s pretty cool!

    I don’t think I like having the initial text samples on top being letterspaced. But that may just be me.

    The letter spacing controls seem much too coarse at 0.05 em increments. That’s 50 units in a 1000-unit em square, and of course as it applies to both letters in any pair, they get 100 units closer. So my test font went from “too loose at this size” to “too tight at this size” with one click. Maybe try 0.01 em increments?

    If it is specifically intended to compare Latin and Hebrew, maybe consider swapping them, Hebrew on the left and Latin o the right, so the text will generally be closer together, with a consistent margin between them? Seems like that would facilitate closer comparison.
  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 402
    Thanks for the insights Thomas! you're absolutely right about the letter spacing. I'll also cancel the spaces of the initial lettering.
    There is a Swap Columns button though, so it's possible to switch them with a click.

  • Tural Alisoy
    Tural Alisoy Posts: 65
    Hi Ofir. Thank you for this useful work. I often add Hebrew script to my fonts. I really need this. Thank you.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,079
    Also, although variable fonts are generally supported and most things work, for some reason it seems to dislike the “slnt” axis; it has no effect. At least, not the one in Science Gothic.
  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 402
    You're most welcome @Tural. 

    I found a conflict with the "ital" and "slnt" axes (ChatGPT did;) which caused the problem, it should be fixed now.
    I've also changed the Letter-spacing to px and it's much more reasonable now.
    Thanks for the spotting!

  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,079
    Letter spacing (tracking) in px is weird because it is size-specific. I mean, the effect of 1 px is a lot more at 12 px than 24 px. I really dislike size-specific tracking... I know it well because that is how Microsoft Word does it, also.
  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 402
    I see. Is it at all necessary in a font testing page? the tracking feature?
  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 402
    edited September 12
    Well, it fixed it back to em + px reference. 
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,079
    Looks pretty good!

    If somebody might be putting kind of “the same” content in the two columns, only some Latin and some Hebrew, it might be nice to be able to link them for scrolling purposes? Scroll them together, I mean?

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