Typeface: This Font Manager Leaves Font Book Behind

For all the years we have used a Mac, the built-in font manager on macOS has not been satisfactory. Apple improved the UI with macOS Sequoia, but Font Book still lacks some fundamental features. It does not offer the best performance, despite being a native, Apple-made app either.

You might have heard about Typeface, a third-party font manager available for macOS. When people are not satisfied with Font Book from Apple, they tend to move towards something like Typeface.

TL;DR Highlights

✅ Typeface significantly outperforms macOS’s built-in Font Book.
🔍 It offers precise viewing and comparison tools.
🏷️ The tag-based organization makes it easy to sort fonts by weight, style, usage, and more.
🧩You can drag-n-drop fonts instantly in apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, Word, and others.
🧼 Built-in duplicate font remover and easy font export to PDF.
💰 One-time purchase — no subscription needed (also available via Setapp).
❌ Mac-only — not available on Windows; a few fonts may have preview issues.

What is Typeface

Typeface is a font manager app designed and optimized for professionals who use a Mac. It claims to enhance the way you collect, organize, and use fonts on your Mac with different apps and workflows.

While simply storing fonts is easy, seamlessly managing and using them across different applications requires more. Fortunately, getting started with Typeface is remarkably effortless.

Typeface Review (TheSweetBits’ Take)

For a week, we tested Typeface on our M2 MacBook Air, running the latest version of macOS Sequoia. Our objective was simple: to find out how and whether Typeface can improve the way we manage and use fonts on a day-to-day basis.

It is easy to get started with Typeface

We found the setup process of Typeface to be effortless. Whether you’re a seasoned font manager user or a complete beginner, getting started with Typeface is effortless. The app does not ask for any permissions from the Mac. Instead, it will list all the fonts installed on your Mac as soon as you launch the app.

You get to choose between a few viewing options. For instance, if you are exploring your font collection for a specific option, you can use the default version. However, once you find the best choice, you can use the Full View option to take a closer look at aspects like Characters, Features, Variables, Text Preview, etc.

It allows precise management and navigation

Navigating through a massive collection of fonts can be a bit tricky. But Typeface solves the problem.

We loved the option to change the size of font previews—something quite useful when we have a lot of area to cover. The Compare function is also great when you want to know what makes each font unique. Typeface also offers a Quick Selection tab, where you can find short-listed fonts.

The Compare function works regardless of the viewing option you have selected. You can right-click on a font and choose Compare from the options. From this point, you can see a superimposed comparison between other fonts on Typeface.

As you can guess, you can also change how fonts are previewed. We found this helpful option while searching for a good font for posters and logos. And, when you find the right font for your purpose, you can activate it instantly from the right-click menu.

Advanced previewing options of Typeface are also great. For instance, you get to see how the font will look as a part of single-column or multi-column text. This feature alone can save a lot of time, which we otherwise spend on shifting between multiple fonts.

You get a variety of organization options

Typeface adds a lot of value by helping you navigate through a vast collection of fonts. However, it doesn’t stop there. We saw an even bigger impact when trying to organize the huge collection.

You get a few different ways to organize the fonts on your Mac, regardless of how you installed them. For beginners, the default categories like User, System, Last Important, and Untagged. They are great when you want to understand where your fonts are or want to try a new font you installed or imported. However, you get more options as you move forward.

Tags are arguably one of Typeface’s most powerful organizational features. While you’ll find default categories like ‘User,’ ‘System,’ and ‘Untagged’ to get started, the real magic happens with its intelligent tagging system.

For instance, when we linked our Google Fonts library, Typeface automatically categorized them with descriptive tags like ‘monospaced,’ ‘ornamental,’ and ‘sans,’ making it incredibly efficient to find the perfect font for a specific purpose, such as a PDF document or a minimalist design.

Adding and removing tags from fonts is an easy task, thanks to a well-designed context menu. The menu also offers options to locate the font on Finder or trash it altogether. Overall, organizing your font collection is a redeeming experience when using Typeface.

Typeface integrates great with your favorite apps

So, we have seen how Typeface works great as an individual dedicated font management app for macOS.

However, probably the best thing about Typeface, especially compared to other font managers we have tried, is the dedicated font selection system. This can easily replace the sluggish font selection systems on a number of apps.

It lets you drag and drop the fonts that you want into professional apps like Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Pixelmator Pro, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, or something maybe less common as Swift Publisher or MindNode.

Even when we drag and drop fonts that we hadn’t activated, Typeface activates them temporarily. In short, Typeface makes it easy to experiment with numerous fonts and choose the best one by checking out how it looks.

This is a great feature we truly love from Typeface. Though the feature requires a few permissions from the Mac, it doesn’t take a toll on system resources. So, we could seamlessly access this feature even when Photoshop or Illustrator was handling heavy projects.

It offers some handy utilities

Typeface also packs some additional utilities that offer incredible value.

If you struggle with duplicate fonts, the Duplicate Remover utility from Typeface will surely be a solace. The utility scans your library for duplicates and intelligently removes everything in a jiffy. It is a great way to keep the library clean when you sync a cloud font library like Google Fonts or Adobe Fonts.

Equally important are the export options, we thought. Let’s say that you want to give your client a few fonts to choose from. You can export a set of fonts into an easy-to-read PDF document and export it. You get to choose between multiple viewing methods while exporting.

If you are into typography, you can choose between different types of ligatures, alternates, and capitals. All these options are customizable to a great extent. When something doesn’t work, you can always reset these settings to the default options. The view option also gives you a lot of control over what appears.

The latest version, Typeface v4.0, has also introduced a few handy features. For instance, the list view makes it easy to select fonts based on information such as weight, version, manufacturer, location, style, etc. Similarly, the amount of metadata available for each font has improved, and you now have the option to add something called partial families.

Typeface offers incredible value for money

Compared to the features you get, the pricing plans from Typeface are pretty reasonable.

It’s okay if you hate subscriptions, because Typeface offers a one-time purchase option for the Pro version. This Pro version not only offers lifetime access to the current version, but it also brings you updates and new features for the next 12 months. This pro license is priced at $44.99, but you can get some discounts depending on the number of licenses that you purchase.

You can get Typeface via a Setapp subscription as well, bringing the cost down to less than $1 a month.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• No subscription model – one-time purchase with perpetual license
• Live font previews with customizable text, size, and colors
• In-place font activation without copying or moving files
• Auto-activation of missing fonts when opening design documents
• Native Apple Silicon support and full macOS compatibility
• Flexible tagging system with sub-tagging and multi-tagging capabilities

Cons

• Not available for Windows or other platforms
• Some fonts may have trouble previewing

TheSweetBits’ Final Verdict

After going through all the features that Typeface offers, we believe it is a great investment for most people, especially if you deal with a huge number of phones on a day-to-day basis.

We appreciate how Typeface makes it easy to manage the massive collection of fonts that you have on your device or somewhere like Google Fonts. But the real power of this utility comes in handy when you want to use these fonts on your professional apps or something like Microsoft Word.

The drag-and-drop functionality has been a time-saver for most of us. We also loved the performance that Typeface offers compared to other font management apps.

Ready to elevate your typography? Go and visit Typeface to learn more.