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Short URL: https://scripts.sil.org/ViewGlyph_home
SIL ViewGlyph — Font Viewing Program
Bob Hallissy, 2009-10-31
Updated!
v1.81 2009-10-01: overflow error on startup fixed; new statistics added; auto-load Unicode cmap if present.
v1.80 2007-08-23: New features show font in right-to-left contexts
v1.79 2007-04-10: cmap overflow error (noticed with some Microsoft Vista fonts) now fixed.
What does SIL ViewGlyph allow me to do?
Among its most useful features, ViewGlyph allows you to see a font's contents through different eyes, so to speak. Want to know what the font looks like when used by a Unicode application? How about when the font is moved to a Macintosh? Or, suppose I have the multilingual extensions installed and want to know what a font looks like when viewed through a particular codepage? ViewGlyph can show you the raw glyph palette, which is useful if you are writing smarts (i.e. OpenType, Graphite, or AAT tables) for your font. You can view certain TrueType font tables (name and cmap) and see various font metrics. Finally, ViewGlyph is useful for investigating how Windows maps 8-bit characters into Unicode through various codepages.
To give you a feel for the program, here is a sample screenshot of the main window with some annotations:
System requirements
ViewGlyph works best on Windows 2000 or later, but it will work (with some reduced functionality) on anything from Windows 95 forward. The primary areas of reduced functionality on Win 9x/ME are where Uniscribe is needed for the correct display of text. See the Readme for more details.
Tutorial
In addition to the documentation provided with the program (and available below as a separate download), there is a ViewGlyph tutorial walkthrough.
Downloads
Zip file containing installer for program and documentation
If you already have version 1.75 or later installed, you can download just the .exe file and copy it into your Program FilesSIL ViewGlyphfolder:
 | Just the ViewGlyph 1.81 executable for those who have 1.75 or later already installed Bob Hallissy, 2009-10-31 Download "ViewGlyf.exe", Windows application, 324KB [5036 downloads] |
Documentation only
The user documentation is installed with the program, but if you want to download it separately here it is:
 | SIL ViewGLyph v1.81 User Documentation Bob Hallissy, 2009-10-31 Download "Readme.pdf", Acrobat PDF document, 139KB [10449 downloads] |
Older versions
In the event the latest fails to work for you...
Version History
| 1.81.0000 | 1-Oct-2009 | Fix | Overflow error on startup (Saved window positions > 32K) |
| New | Made cmap window auto-load Unicode cmap if present | ||
| New | Additional otm* metrics in the font statistics | ||
| 1.80.0000 | 23-Aug-2007 | New | Statusbar buttons to show Initial, Medial, Final and Isolate forms, and also to turn on right-to-left reading |
| 1.79.0000 | 6-Apr-2007 | Fix | cmap overflow with some Vista fonts |
| 1.77.0000 | 6-May-2004 | New | Home and End keys scroll chart |
| 1.76.0000 | 12-May-2003 | Fix | Crashed on fonts with more than 32768 post names |
| 1.75.0000 | 17-Feb-2003 | New | Support for supplemental plane chars ("surrogates") |
| New | Copy-to-clipboard from sample text window | ||
| New | Copy-to-clipboard permitted in any Unicode view (e.g., Mac Unicode) | ||
| Fix | Dragging certain objects over main window caused runtime error | ||
| Fix | Malformed cmap could put program in infinite loop | ||
| Fix | Did not handle fonts with multiple MacRoman cmaps | ||
| 1.74.0000 | 09-Sep-2002 | New | Hex and decimal display of character and glyph codes |
| 1.73.0000 | 09-Jul-2002 | New | Main window now fully sizable. |
| New | Options to control Chart and Text display APIs, including ability to suppress Uniscribe processing (via ETO_IGNORELANGUAGE) | ||
| New | Names window supports multiple-select and ctl-c copies selected items to the clipboard. | ||
| Fix | Corrected postscript names for Mac-std characters | ||
| Fix | Was not remembering font size when closed while viewing a font file. | ||
| 1.72.0000 | 10-Dec-2001 | Fix | Print of Windows Character Set, for symbol fonts, gave error or incorrect results. |
Version History
Support
As this program is distributed at no cost, I am unable to provide a commercial level of personal technical support. I am interested in hearing from you, however, and will try to resolve problems that are reported to me. You can send feedback to me here.
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