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Sometimes when choosing typefaces, it is helpful to examine all the characters so you aren't surprised when (for example) the dollar sign looks unusual.

Beyond typing "the quick brown fox", what is the process called?

Are there any webpages or applications that will help see all the characters quickly?

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  • The major Adobe design applications have the Glyphs panel, Microsoft Word has a similar feature (was it "Insert Symbol"?). Windows has "Character Map"; Mac OS X has FontBook. Of course it's a staple function of Font editors such as FontForge (free) and FontLab (not free). There may be countless free third party applications as well, as it's not that hard to create. (I wrote my own which also lists OpenType features. Now that was hard.)
    – Jongware
    Dec 16, 2017 at 0:19

3 Answers 3

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A 'Character Map' can also describe the feature as seen on Fonts.com.

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  • This is also what it's called in Windows and GNOME
    – JohnB
    Dec 15, 2017 at 14:59
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They are called type specimens, most type foundries provide type specimen sheets, these days they are PDF.

The "quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is a special case of Lorem Ipsum that contains all the letters of the English alphabet.

And "yes" a Character Map or Character Palette program is a quick way to display glyphs that is bundled as part of every major operating system.

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Almost all font foundry and font sales sites offer a display of all glyphs in a font.

For example, myfonts.com...

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/helvetica/pro-regular/glyphs.html

enter image description here

I'm not certain there's a specific name for it.... glyph index.... Character Table....

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  • 5
    Yes, but what is it called? You're not answering the question here :)
    – Vincent
    Dec 15, 2017 at 7:25

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