Typable

Category: Projects
Published: Feb 25 2013
By: Ondrej Jób

Typable is a simple web application for type designers. Unlike dummy text generators, Typable allows you to strip or modify any characters from real text so you can use it for testing your unfinished font.

When working on a new typeface I was always quite desperate to get a good piece of text to test the fonts with. The dummy text generators are indeed, dummy. They are available for only a limited number of languages and even if you find one for the language you want, the nonsensical text is usually too disturbing to allow for focused judging of the design.

The other option — using real text — has its obstacles too. I usually want to test my fonts with a real text as soon as I have at least 20 lowercase letters. But what with all the glyphs that I haven't designed yet? It's not that easy having to skip the flocks of missing letters and symbols.

And that's why I decided to create a simple tool that would allow you to strip any unwanted glyphs from a real text so it can be used for testing your unfinished fonts. The first version created during my studies at Type]Media was called TextMod and worked with Latin and Armenian (so our classmate Khajag could use it with his Armenian script typeface).

And now, after a couple of years, here's a new version. It has a new name, few bug fixes, responsive layout and most importantly, it now works with Cyrillic and Greek. I hope it will make your typedesigner's life a little easier.

setuptype.com/x/typable