Font management software is a kind of

utility software Utility software is software designed to help analyze, configure, optimize or maintain a computer. It is used to support the computer infrastructure - in contrast to application software, which is aimed at directly performing tasks that benefit or ...

that computer users use to browse and preview fonts and typically to install and uninstall fonts. Some font management software may be able to also: * activate and deactivate fonts (users can do this manually; sometimes programs will do this in conjunction with specific software) * protect fonts that are required by the system by preventing them from being uninstalled * organize fonts by groups and libraries * find and uninstall corrupt fonts * rename font files * view fonts that are not currently installed * print font samples or font books illustrating some or all of the fonts on the system * sort fonts according to different criteria * search for fonts meeting specific criteria

Objectives

Font management software generally possesses more font management capabilities than most operating systems.

Finding and Evaluating Fonts

Font management software allows its users to catalogue and inspect fonts on their system. Font management software allows its users to view a font in multiple ways. Users can inspect the font in more detail, such as looking at the fonts

glyphs A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

, or comparing another font. Font management software may also provide detail on the glyph count of a font, if the font can be embedded (such as in a PDF), or the creator of the font.

System Stability

Font management software may be able to activate or deactivate fonts depending on when they are needed. This reduces the load on the system to keep many font active at the same time. Some font management programs can activate fonts or a specific group of fonts when a program or document launched. When the program or document is closed, the font management software can deactivate the same fonts. This method of activating fonts can activate fonts on the fly (such as during a specific project), reducing the load on the system.

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

-based operating systems generally do not pre-load fonts on a system-wide basis. Instead, each application loads them as it needs them. Current Linux desktop environments (such as

KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-known products include the ...

and Gnome) manage fonts for applications using their internal framework library calls for font display, allowing management of fonts via the GUI.

List of font management software

''Note: Information on supported fonts is not readily available from many manufacturers. However, most of the major commercial programs support

OpenType OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark ...

and

TrueType TrueType is an outline font standard developed by Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the most common format for fonts on the classic Mac OS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows operating ...

fonts.''

Discontinued font management software