Text Preview Suggestions

Glyphs
1

Hello fellow Glyphs App users,

I’m relatively new to the Glyphs App ecosystem and am trying to find the best way to preview fonts, specifically with a focus on Hebrew characters and glyphs with diacritics.

I attempted to use TextPreview on MacOS 12.5 but had some challenges. For instance, the “File > Open…” option was unavailable, despite pointing the font path to several valid sources.

Within the Glyphs App itself, I encountered some issues when attempting to combine the base character א (alef) with the diacritic, Patah. Instead of merging, they appeared in separate cells. I’ve tried different methods to solve this but am still facing challenges.

I’ve occasionally used FontBook, but I find it a bit tricky to navigate and am unsure of its reliability. I’d love to have a built-in solution in Glyphs App for a seamless experience, but I’m also open to third-party suggestions.

Any advice or alternative tools to make this process smoother would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

2

You can test your exported fonts in a wide variety of ways. My two main ways are testing in Adobe apps and on a web page.

For testing in Adobe apps, read this: Testing your fonts in Adobe apps | Glyphs

For a web app, a very solid choice is FontGauntlet.com.

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3

I use FontGoggles to preview and verify fonts. It works with both static and variable fonts, and it does both GSUB and GPOS unlike Glyphs that only previews GSUB.

https://fontgoggles.org

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4

That is intentional in Edit view. Make sure you add all necessary anchors in both glyphs, and you add at least one instance in Font Info > Exports, then you can use Window > Text Preview for previewing mark positioning.

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5

Thanks, regarding testing in Adobe apps: has anyone noticed or pointed out that you may get different results with the same font in Adobe (e.g., InDesign) vs. other previews, i.e., Google Fonts preview or Font Goggles app preview or https://fontgauntlet.com. I’m getting the wrong rendering in InDesign now with a long-established font on Google Fonts, but it’s right in the other previews.

I did not see this mentioned in the cited link Testing your fonts in Adobe apps | Glyphs.

6

Welcome to my world. Different renderers can be expected to render differently. Have you tried both composers in InDesign?

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7

Can you explain more about both composers in InDesign?

8

Better ask Adobe themselves:

And this is what once said about it at an ATypI Tech Talk (starting at 38 minutes):

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