5 best font editors

There are thousands of paid-for and free fonts available these days. But sometimes, when you just can't find exactly what you're looking for, creating a your own typeface could be the way to go – imagine that in your design portfolio!

Making your own fonts can be some of the most inspiring work you ever do but finding the font editor that's right for you can be more than a little bit tricky. Here are five of the most popular font editors, complete with pros and cons.

01. Fontlab Studio

At $649, FontLab Studio opens up the whole gamut of type design, from designing a single font to crafting a whole typeface library.

Pros:

• Imports and exports fonts with support for up to 65,535 glyphs in a wide range of font formats
• Offers an extended toolset
• Can be used for a wide range of tasks, from outline editing to TrueType manual instructing
• Scriptable
• Runs on Mac as well as Windows

Cons:

• Steep learning curve
• Updates come rarely
• Can be buggy
• Documentation is less than satisfactory
• Limited OpenType (no support for Arabic features, for example)
• No native UFO file format support
• Expensive

02. FontCreator

Boasting over 4.5 million downloads to date, FontCreator is a popular font editor among creatives. Native to Windows, FontCreator's feature set makes it suitable for professionals, with a straightforward interface making it accessible to users at any skill level.

Pros:

• Affordable
• Add up to 65,535 glyphs per font
• Create and edit TrueType and OpenType fonts
• Create and edit Web Open Font Format (WOFF) fonts
• Create and edit scalable color fonts
• Redesign existing characters

Cons:

• Windows only

03. Fontographer

Coming in at $399, this is a cheaper option from the makers of FontLab, ideal for smaller projects.

Pros:

• Quite easy to use
• Intuitive interface
• Automated processes
• Imports and exports fonts with 32,000 glyphs in a wide range of font formats
• Runs on Mac as well as Windows

Cons:

• OpenType features are not preserved upon opening a font and code cannot be edited in the app, only imported as a feature-file
• No native UFO support

04. Glyphs

For beginners and casual users right through to seasoned type designers, and a snip at $300.

Pros:

• Easy to learn, easy to use
• Combined text and drawing views, in which layers can be automatically generated
• Basic OpenType features that can be previewed
• Scriptable and expandable
• Extremely fast updates
• Amazing support
• Comes in two versions

Cons:

• Mac only

05. Robofont

For those looking for a scalable tool, and prepared to spend €400 for the privilege.

Pros:

• Built in Python support and scalable
• Loads of extra functions already available from a dedicated community
• Full scripting access to objects and interface
• Perfect base on which to build additional tools

Cons:

• Mac only
• Not the tool for quick jobs

This article originally featured in Computer Arts issue 229.