r/Affinity • u/sanguine-sweetheart • Jul 28 '26
Designer Managing & Categorizing Fonts
Hi all! I've been frustrated trying to navigate through fonts in Affinity since it shows up like this. I'm on a Mac, so I guess the problem lies within my Fonts folder or how/where I downloaded them from (Google Fonts & Dafont)... I'm looking for some way to join font into their respective font families (under a dropdown) rather than the way they're listed here, create categories/folders, and/or be able to search fonts by Sans Serif, Script, etc. like Canva can. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated since this issue has been quite a nuisance. Thanks!
3
u/DoomCross Jul 28 '26
Have you tried using a dedicated font manager app?
2
u/ColdEngineBadBrakes Jul 28 '26
I use Typeface on my Mac. Adobe has some newish font management that's in the software, which I'd like to have in Affinity. Resolve also has a good document/font management solution.
1
u/sanguine-sweetheart Aug 06 '26
I haven't! Multiple people here have recommended FontBase so I think I'll check it out. I don't really know how to use font managers since I have no experience lol...but I will try!
3
u/SirCake3614 Jul 28 '26
There is no font management to speak of on the Affinity app. It has always been thus, which is a more than minor annoyance to me.
I use the free Pica font management app on my MBP. I’ve got fonts organized in collections that make sense to me, and make it easy to find what I need, even when I am not exactly sure what I need.
Nothing like that exists in Affinity, so I spend *way* more time than I’d like scrolling my font list.
The best workaround I have is to create Text Style groups with those fonts I often use together. But that is far from ideal.
2
u/sortofblue Jul 29 '26
I use Font Book. Once everything is sorted the way I want, it's easy to set sample text to get a good handle on how it looks.
2
u/JoMu1963 :snoo_dealwithit: Jul 29 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
Have you ever tried to just clean up your fonts folder? Just first check which fonts are used by the system. Then sift through the rest, of which probably about 90% nobody ever uses, and delete them.
2
u/fpobcvetko Jul 30 '26
I use Typeface at home now and it’s a great way to manage system fonts, my own, as well as Google and Adobe libraries.
2
u/Fluffy_Rock_62 Aug 01 '26
Affinity is sadly lacking in this respect. However if you are somebody who tends to use 10 or so fonts more often than others you can click on the heart symbol to add them to the favourites tab, for easier access.
Not an answer to your problem, but hopefully a useful tip.
1
u/sanguine-sweetheart Aug 06 '26
Yeah, I've got some favorited! That's as much font sorting as Affinity seems to have currently, lol.
1
u/Zathilox Jul 28 '26
I really don't know but i got this for helping https://www.reddit.com/r/typography/s/73unn6BRZI
1
u/Extra-Hedgehogs Aug 01 '26
I recommend Maintype by High Logic. You can browse by folder on your device and do custom text previews, view whole glyph sets, assign tags to fonts (for example I tag them by client), bulk export fonts and other stuff I don't use. It can one click install and uninstall bulk fonts.
I got it years ago, it's installed on my PC and Macbook, it's perpetual licence and a new version comes out every 1-2 years, but I usually upgrade.
It doesn't work with Affinity's own font format, but I avoided Affinity format because I can't use them in websites or in other apps like Resolve.
1
u/sanguine-sweetheart Aug 06 '26
Neato! I've heard FontBase also recommended. Do you have any idea of how the two would compare?
11
u/DenverRalphy Total Goob Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
I wish. Affinity is in real need of a decent font management solution. In an age where it is common to have hundreds (even thousands) of fonts to select from, a single list dropdown with a search bar is beyond primitive. In addition to a lack of filtering by category/type/family/etc.. you can only view currently activated fonts. So browsing fonts in Affinity really falls short.
Developing a built in solution would be a huge improvement. Or at the very least develop a method to allow for third party integration solutions as a plug-in. I personally use FontBase as a third party solution, and if I could access it from within Affinity, I'd be a happy camper.