X-Fonter 14.0

Font View

The Font View tab is the first tab in the Font Detail Panel and is the quickest way to judge how a font looks in practice. Type any text directly into the edit box and it is rendered immediately in the selected font, at whatever size and colour you have set in the Control Panel. As you move between fonts in the font list, the same text is redrawn in each new font so you can compare them without retyping anything.

Your sample text is saved automatically and restored the next time you open X-Fonter, so you can set up the exact phrase or heading you are working on and pick up where you left off.

The Font View tab in single-pane mode showing a sample text rendered in the selected font — Font View in single-pane mode. The sample text updates instantly as you move between fonts.

Typing Your Own Sample Text

Click anywhere inside the edit box and start typing. The preview updates with every keystroke. A few things worth knowing:

The edit box accepts multiple lines. Press Enter to start a new line, which is useful for previewing how a font handles both a headline and body text at once.
You can paste text from the clipboard with Ctrl+V, so it is easy to drop in an actual headline or paragraph from a project you are working on.
Copying text out of the edit box (Ctrl+C) copies the plain text only — font, colour and size are not carried across. To export a styled image of the text, use the Image & Effect Studio tab instead.

Tip: Use text that is representative of your actual project — a real product name, a chapter heading, or a sentence from your copy — rather than a generic placeholder. This makes it much easier to judge whether a font truly works for your use case.

Dual-Pane Mode: Comparing Two Fonts

Switching to dual-pane mode splits the Font View vertically into two independent preview areas, each showing a different font rendering the same sample text simultaneously. This is the fastest way to decide between two similar typefaces.

To enter dual-pane mode, press Ctrl+D or go to View → Font Compare in the menu. Press the same shortcut again to return to single-pane mode.

In dual-pane mode:

The text entered is always identical in both panes. Typing in one pane automatically updates the other.
The active pane is the one that responds to font selections in the font list on the left. It is identified by a highlighted (blue) header bar. Click a pane's header to make it active.
Style, size and colour changes made in the Control Panel apply to both panes at the same time.

Step-by-step example

Press Ctrl+D to enter dual-pane mode.
Click the upper pane header to make it active.
Select your first font (for example, Georgia) in the font list.
Click the lower pane header to make it active.
Select your second font (for example, Palatino Linotype) in the font list.
Both fonts now render the same sample text — adjust the size in the Control Panel to preview at your intended body or heading size.

Preset Sample Texts

Right-clicking inside the edit box opens a context menu with a library of ready-made sample strings. These save time when you want a consistent test across many fonts and do not need to type anything yourself. The presets are divided into two groups.

1 — Predefined character sets

The right-click context menu showing the predefined character set presets — The right-click menu showing character-set presets.

Preset	Contents
Alphabet	Both cases of the Latin alphabet on two lines — good for a quick overview of letterform consistency. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Numerics & Symbols	Digits and common punctuation across three lines — useful for checking number style and symbol coverage. 1234567890. !@#$%^&*()_+ []{}\\|;:,<>
Alphabet, Numerics & Symbols	The two presets above combined into a single block — a comprehensive first look at how a font handles all the most common characters.
ASCII Characters	All printable ASCII/ANSI characters in code-point order — the most thorough single-screen test of basic character coverage. !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>? @ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_ `abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{\|}~

2 — Pangrams

The right-click context menu showing the pangram presets — The right-click menu showing pangram presets.

A pangram is a sentence that contains every letter of the alphabet at least once. Pangrams are the standard tool for evaluating how a font handles the full range of letterforms in a natural, readable context — unlike a raw alphabet string, they show how letters interact with each other in real words.

X-Fonter includes several pangrams to choose from. Selecting any one of them replaces the current edit box content with that pangram immediately. The classic English example is "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", but several alternatives are provided so you can pick one whose letter distribution or visual rhythm suits your preview needs.

Tip: Pangrams are especially useful when scanning through a large number of fonts quickly. Load a pangram once, then arrow through the font list — the same sentence re-renders in each font so you can spot character-shape differences at a glance.