Printing up a Font Sample List

Apple has provided you with a "script" that will open TextEdit, type dozens of sentences (the same sentence over and over), and change each sentence into a font sample, labeled with that font name. Then you can print that up and have it next to you. It only prints the fonts in its list, not every font you have installed on your Mac (although if you know how to edit an AppleScript, you could add your font names to the list).

To open and run the Font Sampler script, do this:

1. Press Command Option A to open the Applications folder, or click on the Applications icon in any Finder window Sidebar.
2. Double-click the "AppleScript" folder.
3. Inside that folder, double-click the "Example Scripts" folder.
4. Inside that folder, double-click the "Info Scripts" folder.
5. Inside that folder, double-click on the file named “Font Sampler.scpt.” The Script Editor will open, as shown to the left.
6. Click the "Run" button.

The script will do as I explained above, then you can print those pages. Quit the Script Editor when you're done.

To customize this list, make a copy of the script (select the icon in the Info Scripts folder, then press Command D to make a duplicate). Open the copy and change the names of fonts you don't need to see to names of fonts you do want to see. Further down in the script, you can change the sentence that it types. The script will get stumped if it runs across a font name that it can't process, so you might have to play around with it.

ROBIN WILLIAMS MAC OS X BOOK PANTHER EDITION, pp.312-313; 336-337; 352-353;407;465;476;641-658, ©2004. Reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Peachpit Press. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. To buy this book, visit www.peachpit.com

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