How to quickly preview a font in illustrator?

Wanna know something even more annoying? It works just fine in Photoshop. I hope they do something about all these little inconsistencies with CS3.

This is the only way I know to do what you want, a quicker keyboard shortcut would be nice as this indirect method drives me crazy when choosing type faces.

Type > Font

To change the size of the preview:

Edit > Preferences > Type (Windows) or Illustrator > Preferences > Type (Mac OS), and setting the Font Preview Size option.

It is annoying isn't it. I find myself previewing fonts in PS, then adding it with Ill. Probably not the most efficient way, but It beats going one by one in Ill.

ChicoWeb said:

It is annoying isn't it. I find myself previewing fonts in PS, then adding it with Ill. Probably not the most efficient way, but It beats going one by one in Ill.

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Another solution along these lines that also works is having Font Book open while designing in Illustrator, still a pain though.

Font explorer x is even better, you can set type and background colours as well as previewing different fonts or faces simultaneously.

highres said:

This is the only way I know to do what you want, a quicker keyboard shortcut would be nice as this indirect method drives me crazy when choosing type faces.

Type > Font

To change the size of the preview:

Edit > Preferences > Type (Windows) or Illustrator > Preferences > Type (Mac OS), and setting the Font Preview Size option.

Click to expand...

YOU ARE A GOD, OR I'M TOO IGNORANT!!!!! LOL
BUT SERIOUSLY! THANKSSS!

Selecting the font menu from the Character Palette displays font names in their individual typefaces. If you click once on a font in the menu, you can then use up an down arrow keys to scroll through others. If text is highlighted in advance, it will not change until hitting the Enter key.

better than where I was at...

Kwill said:

Selecting the font menu from the Character Palette displays font names in their individual typefaces. If you click once on a font in the menu, you can then use up an down arrow keys to scroll through others. If text is highlighted in advance, it will not change until hitting the Enter key.

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im on OS X and I still cant arrow through the font but from the drop down I can at least see each font name displayed as itself, any thoughts?

There is another option, don't know if it is usable:
http://anastasiy.com/diskfonts/

opeter said:

There is another option, don't know if it is usable:
http://anastasiy.com/diskfonts/

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Hi there! I came to this thread mentioning my creation. I'm the author of this tool, you can ask me any questions and make suggestions for new features.
It was a really hard work, but I want to make it better for the community. I'm preparing the next update which is coming very soon. Thank you!

Sorry for necromancing the thread, but does anyone know if this has been fixed in CS5 Illustrator?

Mhaddy said:

Sorry for necromancing the thread, but does anyone know if this has been fixed in CS5 Illustrator?

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Short answer: no.

Upgrading to CS6 over the weekend, but I'm not holding my breath.

Cheers

Jim

Jim Campbell said:

Short answer: no.

Upgrading to CS6 over the weekend, but I'm not holding my breath.

Cheers

Jim

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Please let me (us) know because I'll be upgrading sometime this month and would like to know whether I should get my hopes up or not. Thanks, Jim!

Jim Campbell said:

Short answer: no.
Upgrading to CS6 over the weekend, but I'm not holding my breath.

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Yes, this was fixed in CS6.

Ref around 1:10: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/visual-design-cs6/new-efficient-flexible-interface-in-illustrator-cs6/

Hallelujah! Now to start saving my pennies for CS6...

Mhaddy said:

Hallelujah! Now to start saving my pennies for CS6...

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There are, however, two absolutely maddening new bugs in Illustrator CS6:

1) Using a Magic Mouse, Illustrator routinely fails to register a right click, treating it instead as a normal click. This is very frustrating if your workflow includes: double-click word to highlight; right-click to bring up 'Recent Fonts' contextual menu, since it means that you don't get the menu, you highlight the whole paragraph instead…

2) You have multiple document windows open (I have a library document with some pre-made elements that I keep open behind the working page). CMD-TAB to another application (say, Word, to get your copy). CMD-TAB back to Illustrator.

Whatever document you had frontmost in your stacking order will no longer be at the front and the other document will now be at the front. This doesn't happen if you use tabbed documents, but I loathe tabbed windows!

I've filed bug reports with Adobe on both of these.

Cheers

Jim

Jim Campbell said:

2) You have multiple document windows open (I have a library document with some pre-made elements that I keep open behind the working page). CMD-TAB to another application (say, Word, to get your copy). CMD-TAB back to Illustrator.

Whatever document you had frontmost in your stacking order will no longer be at the front and the other document will now be at the front. This doesn't happen if you use tabbed documents, but I loathe tabbed windows!

Click to expand...

I've seen this in CS5, with a slight variation. If I have Illustrator open on Snow Leopard in a certain Space (let's say, #1), then go to Space #2 where Mail is to open an emailed draft, more often than not, Illustrator will open the draft in Space #2, not Space #1 where the other window was. What's irritating is that all of the Illustrator palettes are back in #1, so if I click on the draft in #2 and then go to edit it, it'll fly me back to #1 and I cannot edit #2.