New Font ID Software: FindmyFont - My Review

[Fred Weiss]

A few days ago, I mentioned in another thread a new font identification program I was testing. The name of the program is FindmyFont and I've posted a review of it HERE in the Reviews section. Missing from the review due to a program malfunction is the numeric rating I give it, which is 9 out of 10.

 

[SignManiac]

Thank you Sir.

 

[Colin]

Thanks Fred. While initially somewhat exciting, the fact that it only identifies fonts that one already has on their computer (installed or in a folder), and the 2000 font search limit, feels like a deal breaker for me. I am open to being persuaded otherwise though.

 

[oldgoatroper]

Search limit? Is that in the free version?

 

[J Hill Designs]

nah no search limit just a browse limit - it still searches through all of the fonts on your computer (as long as you tell it where they all are)

 

[oldgoatroper]

nah no search limit just a browse limit - it still searches through all of the fonts on your computer (as long as you tell it where they all are)

That's what I thought. I did notice the 2000 font browsing limit, though... why is that, I wonder...

 

[Fred Weiss]

Thanks Fred. While initially somewhat exciting, the fact that it only identifies fonts that one already has on their computer (installed or in a folder), and the 2000 font search limit, feels like a deal breaker for me. I am open to being persuaded otherwise though.

I can't agree that either of those things is a deal breaker ... especially at the $69.00 price. After a couple of email exchanges with them, they have indicated a recognition of the lack of a database of fonts and have indicated that would be addressed in their next major upgrade. The browse function being limited to 2,000 fonts is not a big deal. They point out that the fonts being browsed can be changed almost instantaneously by typing a letter or two into the search box in the browse section. Limiting what is displayed, in their opinion, helps keep the function very fast.

 

[The Vector Doctor]

Ew, the lack of postscript support could be a deal breaker for me. I have been in the business a long time and 75% of my fonts are Postscript as this was THE standard in the early days of Mac design/publishing. TTF fonts were mostly associated with PC/Windows and OTF was not around yet

If it could access the whatfontis database then this would be a non issue. I love the fact that wfi can locate the 10s of thousands of freebie fonts out there that I don't want clogging up my hard drive

 

[Colin]

"Browse"......"Search"............Can someone please clarify that in regards to this software?

 

[oldgoatroper]

Ew, the lack of postscript support could be a deal breaker for me. I have been in the business a long time and 75% of my fonts are Postscript as this was THE standard in the early days of Mac design/publishing. TTF fonts were mostly associated with PC/Windows and OTF was not around yet

I agree. We're in the same boat having lots of Type1 fonts from the 90s.

 

[Fred Weiss]

Ew, the lack of postscript support could be a deal breaker for me. I have been in the business a long time and 75% of my fonts are Postscript as this was THE standard in the early days of Mac design/publishing. TTF fonts were mostly associated with PC/Windows and OTF was not around yet

If it could access the whatfontis database then this would be a non issue. I love the fact that wfi can locate the 10s of thousands of freebie fonts out there that I don't want clogging up my hard drive

I agree. We're in the same boat having lots of Type1 fonts from the 90s.

I do agree that users with Type 1 libraries have been shortchanged by their lack of support for the format. When I discussed it with them they hadn't realized the issue. Perhaps that will be added to a future release.

 

[J Hill Designs]

"Browse"......"Search"............Can someone please clarify that in regards to this software?

search = a whatthefont for your system using your fonts

browse = a list of your fonts to view/turnon/turnoff (this is the only one ive seen that actually can browse by name (like start typing the name it shows a list of what fonts include those letters)

 

[Fred Weiss]

"Browse"......"Search"............Can someone please clarify that in regards to this software?

The program has a section that allows you to browse your installed fonts and additional fontsets you've added from your archived fonts. You can view a group of entered letters in each font selected. You can also search for fonts from these groups by name. Their approach to using the search box to reduce the list is flawed, however. I can't be limited to the starting letter so, for example, entering the letter "T" won't give you a short list of just the fonts that start with "T". Rather it supplies a list of all fonts that contain the letter "t" in its name.

You might want to go to their website and download the free trial version.

 

[qmr55]

No Linux support -__-

 

[Colin]

Sorry guys, perhaps my brain isn't firing on all cylinders today, but I'm still not clear on "search" vs "browse" on this software.

Fred, I don't quite understand you're comment below (from your review):


Of lesser note, the browse feature limits the number of fonts listed to 2,000 and has no apparent way to increase that number from the user interface. Insomuch as I have more than 24,000 fonts currently setup in the program, with more to add, the 2,000 font limit greatly reduces the usefulness of the browse feature.


For example, if I have a "folder" of, say, 5000 (not installed) fonts, will it search the entire folder content?

 

[Fred Weiss]

Sorry guys, perhaps my brain isn't firing on all cylinders today, but I'm still not clear on "search" vs "browse" on this software.

Fred, I don't quite understand you're comment below (from your review):


Of lesser note, the browse feature limits the number of fonts listed to 2,000 and has no apparent way to increase that number from the user interface. Insomuch as I have more than 24,000 fonts currently setup in the program, with more to add, the 2,000 font limit greatly reduces the usefulness of the browse feature.


For example, if I have a "folder" of, say, 5000 (not installed) fonts, will it search the entire folder content?

A "Browse" feature is normally described as a list of items which one can through one at a time in succession. A "Search" feature would be where on enters a keyword or part of one to view a result that is limited to the keyword. Thus, if I choose to browse my font library, FindmyFont is going to display a list of them in alphabetical order. Since it's limited to 2,000 in the list and I have many more, it isn't very useful as a feature. The search function allows me to enter a keyword ... let's say "Garamond". the result will be a list of fonts that contain the work "Garamond" and nothing else ... but it will have covered every font I have set up to be seen by the program. Browse is what one uses when they have no idea what the list contains and Search is more often used when one is looking for something specific.

So, in your example of a folder with 5,000 fonts in it (that has been added to the program as a "fontset"), the browse feature will only see the first 2,000 of them and the search feature will scan the entire 5,000 fonts for any match to the keyword you enter into the search box.

The attached pic will give you an idea of how the "Fontsets" are setup.

 

[Colin]

Thanks Fred. So if one doesn't know the name of the font (which I suspect is the case 99.99% of the time - otherwise why search for it if you know even the family name), then it seems to have a very serious limitation, no?

 

[Fred Weiss]

Thanks Fred. So if one doesn't know the name of the font (which I suspect is the case 99.99% of the time - otherwise why search for it if you know even the family name), then it seems to have a very serious limitation, no?

No, because browsing is a minor function of the program. What the program was designed to do is to identify unknown fonts from a visual sample. A browse feature would only come into play if the automated matching failed to find a match and you wanted to manually compare them.

Browsing is an important feature of a font management program such as Font Navigator or Typograf. It is an afterthought in FindmyFont. If you, however, take the time to create a sorted set of your fonts (see my pic of Fontsets in my previous post where I have all my scripts etc. in their own folders), then browsing can be done a bit more efficiently and wouldn't necessarily exceed the 2,000 limit in most cases.

 

[oldgoatroper]

Thanks Fred. So if one doesn't know the name of the font (which I suspect is the case 99.99% of the time - otherwise why search for it if you know even the family name), then it seems to have a very serious limitation, no?

If you don't know the name of a font, then you almost certainly have a sample. That's what you use search for.

But I've been playing with the browse and I'm finding it kind of useful, too. For instance, Let's suppose that I want to find out what the real font name is for the font Trekker. I know I have it, but I can't remember what the name is. So, I locate the font Trekker in browse mode, then click Match Similar Fonts, and it goes and finds all fonts that are close, in particular, the one that I couldn't remember -- Crillee...

I just also had it find all similar fonts to Coronet, and it unearthed every version of Ribbon131 and Savoye that have found their way into our collection, as well as many other "close" fonts -- I'm beginning to see that this could be useful, indeed...

 

[Fred Weiss]

My feeling is, after seeing other efforts fail, that it would be nice to see this program get some support so that improvements are made and we end up with a much better product down the road. What they've done so far is well worth the price of admission.