Inside Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: Font Book 3, Emoji support

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Apple has enhanced its Font Book app for managing installed font faces, and has added a new Emoji font commonly used in chat to express ideograms.



Font Book 3.0 now provides more flexible displays of the character glyphs supplied by a particular font face, with the standard alphabetical list augmented with a display of every glyph used in the font, and an information panel that lists its full metadata.



The information panel (below) presents every supported language, the version, its installed location, a description of the font, its copyright and trademark data, the number of glyphs supplied, whether it is embeddable, enabled, copy protected or installed as a duplicate.







Duplicate font files are flagged with a warning icon, and can be fixed automatically or resolved manually from a comparison drop down sheet (below).







The new Apple Color Emoji font supplies 502 glyphs in a TrueType font. Apple previously added emoticon support in iOS within Japanese input, which replaced typed characters with suggested faces created from Roman characters. The new move in Lion suggests company is likely to add actual Emoji input to the iOS as well.



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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 21
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    The new move in Lion suggests company is likely to add actual Emoji input to the iOS as well.



    Who writes this stuff? Let's all just jump to conclusions so.
  • Reply 2 of 21
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    Who writes this stuff? Let's all just jump to conclusions so.



    I don't get what's wrong with what was written.
  • Reply 3 of 21
    ivladivlad Posts: 742member
    OMG! I though Apple has forgotten Font Book and their designer base. A good change.
  • Reply 4 of 21
    Glad to see this getting attention. I've run into the duplicate font problem in Snow Leopard and it is a little clunky to resolve at the moment.



    Not mad about emoji, but I'm glad those that are are getting it I suppose. Not sure it's so outrageous a conclusion to jump to that it will get iOS support...it has made an appearance in the past after all.
  • Reply 5 of 21
    Does this manage all the fonts in Adobe CS?

    Does this manage all the fonts in MS Office?

    If not, then, whatever.
  • Reply 6 of 21
    I'm never going anywhere near font book again. Ever. Font problems are the 9th circle of hell. FontAgent Pro all the way.
  • Reply 7 of 21
    sheffsheff Posts: 1,407member
    Really liking the new UI, and the improvements overall in Lion. I was not completely blown away by what was announced at back to the mac, but the more details come out the more I feel like its going to be another solid update to the OS. The only thing I wonder now is weather it will be 149 , 29 or somewhere in between for the update.
  • Reply 8 of 21
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by davebarnes View Post


    Does this manage all the fonts in Adobe CS?

    Does this manage all the fonts in MS Office?

    If not, then, whatever.



    What do you mean? Anything you add to Font Book is accessible through CS...



    I never have any pity for anyone choosing to use Office on a mac. Pages blew Office into my bin long ago
  • Reply 9 of 21
    I'm confused on some comments... Emoji has always been on iOS...



    Nice to see it come to Mac OS X tho
  • Reply 10 of 21
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Apple has enhanced its Font Book app for managing installed font faces, ...



    Any improvement is good but IMO this seems only slightly less underwhelming than the current font management system. Apple has never been very creative nor seemingly interested in spending much time on these sorts of details of the OS it seems.



    Given that all this stuff is supposed to be under NDA, that it's a Sunday (traditionally a day where we are lucky to get a single story from Apple Insider), and that they've already posted copious details on every other aspect of Lion, perhaps this one could have been left on the cutting room floor, as it were?
  • Reply 11 of 21
    Interestingly, the UI of the new Font Book doesn't match the new Lion UI. See how the four toolbar buttons are buttons instead of a slider?
  • Reply 12 of 21
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by macosxp View Post


    Interestingly, the UI of the new Font Book doesn't match the new Lion UI. See how the four toolbar buttons are buttons instead of a slider?



    Font Book probably still has yet to be fully optimized under Lion. It will probably be addressed by the next build. If not, file a bug report with Apple.
  • Reply 13 of 21
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rokrad View Post


    I'm confused on some comments... Emoji has always been on iOS...



    Nice to see it come to Mac OS X tho



    Apple has been weird with Emoji on iOS. It wasn't there originally, but then was added. However, it was only enabled for input in certain areas (not the USA). There are easy ways to enable input on your US iOS device, and once you do that, you can send messages with Emojis and other iOS users will see them even if they didn't enable Emoji input.



    It used to be fun to send Emojis and have people not know how you did it, but that's kind of worn off.
  • Reply 14 of 21
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    Who writes this stuff? Let's all just jump to conclusions so.



    massive in the japanese market, which is a massive market. need we say more?
  • Reply 15 of 21
    hattighattig Posts: 860member
    So do those Emoji icons scale up, being colour TrueType fonts?



    I didn't even know TrueType could handle colour fonts.
  • Reply 16 of 21
    How about having Emoji replace the emoticons in iChat? I'd love that.
  • Reply 17 of 21
    haggarhaggar Posts: 1,568member
    How does Font Book compare with products such as Extensis Suitcase?
  • Reply 18 of 21
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody View Post


    Any improvement is good but IMO this seems only slightly less underwhelming than the current font management system. Apple has never been very creative nor seemingly interested in spending much time on these sorts of details of the OS it seems.



    Given that all this stuff is supposed to be under NDA, that it's a Sunday (traditionally a day where we are lucky to get a single story from Apple Insider), and that they've already posted copious details on every other aspect of Lion, perhaps this one could have been left on the cutting room floor, as it were?



    I'm not sure what more font management you want from OSX? Windows doesn't even have a font book.
  • Reply 19 of 21
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Haggar View Post


    How does Font Book compare with products such as Extensis Suitcase?



    Well, it depends on what you need. If you run a marketing firm would you use address book to manage your mailing lists? Obvioisly not. Likewise, if you are a professional graphic designer (which my wife is), font book will not cut it. One of the surest ways to hose your book design business is by messing up your fonts...and if you're a professional, you have lots and lots of fonts--including some older ones which you must hold onto for various reasons.



    Font Book has never shown me that it can handle that job. So unless and until font book becomes professional grade software (not likely), you get something that can handle the job. I've used one 3rd party font manager or another since the 1980s. During the osx switch, I went from suitcase to fontagent pro and I have no complaints at all.
  • Reply 20 of 21
    quillzquillz Posts: 209member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jonamac View Post


    I'm not sure what more font management you want from OSX? Windows doesn't even have a font book.



    True, but then again, most people don't manage their fonts all that much. And in Windows, the Fonts folder is more than just a typical folder. It has previews, the ability to quickly install/uninstall fonts. It's not Font Book but it's still more than adequate for most people.



    I don't have any issues with Font Book, but I do agree that it could be more robust in some ways.
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