Tell me more ×
Ask Ubuntu is a question and answer site for Ubuntu users and developers. It's 100% free, no registration required.

On Mac OS X, the Character Viewer (equivalent to Character Map on Ubuntu) has a feature where, when looking at a certain character, it can show a list of all fonts that contain that character. Is there something equivalent on Ubuntu?

The use case is that, for instance, I could click on a Kannada character and see all fonts that cover that character (and presumably, the rest of the Kannada language range).


Edit: Just for an idea of what I mean, here's a screenshot of Character Viewer on Mac OS X 10.6. The "Containing selected character" is near the bottom of the screen. I seem to remember that this part of the interface was better in 10.5 or 10.4, actually.

enter image description here

share|improve this question
Make a feature request for the Character Map application, please. – Oxwivi Feb 24 '11 at 8:44
2  
@Toki: It took me ages to locate the project responsible for Character Map! Anyway, it's called gucharmap, uses Bugzilla, and this feature has already been asked – in 2007. The reporter even contributed a patch. There are even many other similar bugs/requests in the list. No progress seems to have been made. – ShreevatsaR Feb 24 '11 at 9:13
I see, that really sucks and this is a default app of Ubuntu too... And for future reference, you can easily find the package names use Synaptic or even Software Center by going into details. – Oxwivi Feb 24 '11 at 9:38
1  
I've also made a feature request to the Ubuntu maintainers, HERE – palhmbs Feb 24 '11 at 19:21

1 Answer

up vote 4 down vote accepted

In Fontmatrix you can compare font characteristics - In the Font Information - Compare.

Fontmatrix's Font Compare

PS. I think that feature of Character Viewer on Mac OS X would be an awesome feature request to ask of the fontmatrix developer team.


In fact, the interface of Fontmatrix has something even better: you can select the Preview tab and enter a string (containing characters you would like the font to have), and see how it is displayed by each font. So you can scroll through the list of fonts and simultaneously see the fonts' coverage of all the interesting characters, instead of just one character at a time. This helps you visually pick out the fonts containing the selected character(s).

In the screenshot below, you can see that "BABEL Unicode Bold" (selected) contains all characters except ṝ and that "Arial Regular" (where the mouse is) contains only a few characters.

Screenshot of Fontmatrix's Preview

share|improve this answer
Yeah, this is one crude hack that works… the problem is that you have to compare all fonts one by one, and visually pick out those fonts for which what's displayed is not gibberish. This is a problem when there are many fonts and only very few contain the character in question (which is when you want the feature, anyway). Still, +1. – ShreevatsaR Feb 24 '11 at 2:38
@ShreevatsaR - thanks for the +1, it would be a great feature for fontmatrix, I have made a feature request for it here – palhmbs Feb 24 '11 at 3:38
Thanks for making a feature request! Let's hope some version of FontMatrix or some Font Manager (or even Character Map) includes this feature soon. :-) – ShreevatsaR Feb 24 '11 at 8:26
Hey do you mind if I merge my screenshot and description (see my other answer) into this? – ShreevatsaR Jan 16 '12 at 10:18
@ShreevatsaR - is that possible? I'm not sure I should be taking credit for your answer though... – palhmbs Jan 21 '12 at 8:47
show 1 more comment

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.