Unlocking Your Typography Potential: Top Type 3.2 Alternatives for Every Designer
Type 3.2 is renowned for making advanced typography accessible, offering powerful tools to design, edit, and convert OpenType and TrueType fonts. It's a go-to for running user-defined actions and adding OpenType features like ligatures and small capitals. However, for various reasons—be it platform compatibility, specific feature needs, or budget constraints—many users seek a robust Type 3.2 alternative. This guide explores the best alternatives to Type 3.2, ensuring you find the perfect fit for your font creation and editing needs.
Top Type 3.2 Alternatives
Whether you're a professional typographer or an enthusiast just starting, there's an excellent Type 3.2 alternative out there that can streamline your workflow and expand your creative horizons. Let's dive into some of the most compelling options available today.
FontForge
FontForge is a powerful, free, and open-source Type 3.2 alternative developed by George Williams, available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It's an excellent choice for font creation, offering features like a font maker, portability, and web font support, all distributed under the BSD license.
BirdFont
BirdFont stands out as a free and open-source Type 3.2 alternative for personal use, allowing you to create vector graphics and export TTF, OTF, EOT, and SVG fonts. It supports Mac, Windows, Linux, and BSD, and features include color font support, OTF editing, TTF editing, and SVG editing.
FontCreator
FontCreator is a commercial Type 3.2 alternative for Windows that provides professional font editing capabilities. It allows you to create and edit TrueType and OpenType fonts with powerful drawing tools, making it a strong contender for typographers and graphic designers, notably featuring multiple font color support.
FontStruct
FontStruct is a unique, free web-based Type 3.2 alternative that allows you to quickly and easily create fonts using a modular, drag-and-drop interface. Brought to you by FontShop, it’s an intuitive tool for those looking to build fonts directly in their browser.
Glyphs
Glyphs is a commercial Type 3.2 alternative tailored for Mac users, offering a highly Mac-like font editor experience. It's designed for creating everything from dingbat webfonts to full-fledged text typefaces, providing a seamless and intuitive environment for font design.
Fontself Maker for Illustrator & Photoshop
Fontself Maker is a commercial Type 3.2 alternative that functions as a plugin within Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop CC, available for Mac and Windows. It's celebrated as one of the fastest and easiest tools to create OpenType fonts directly within your favorite design applications, widely used by thousands of creatives, including those at Nike, and supports color fonts.
TruFont
TruFont is a free and open-source font-editing application written with Python3, ufoLib, defcon, and PyQt5. Available for Mac, Windows, and Linux, it serves as a viable Type 3.2 alternative for developers and designers who prefer a robust, scriptable environment for their font projects.
FontLab Studio
FontLab Studio 5 is a commercial Type 3.2 alternative and a professional font editor for Mac and Windows. It's widely used by industry giants like Adobe, Apple, and Microsoft, underscoring its status as a next-generation tool for serious font design and editing.
Type light
Type light is a free personal Type 3.2 alternative for Windows, offering a lighter version of the Type 3.2 font editor. It's an ideal package for designing, editing, and converting OpenType, TrueType, and PostScript fonts for personal use.
Private Character Editor
Private Character Editor (PCE) is a free, built-in Windows tool that serves as a simple Type 3.2 alternative for creating unique characters. It allows users to create up to 6,400 special letters and logos for their font library, perfect for basic customization.
With a diverse range of Type 3.2 alternatives available, from free open-source options to professional commercial tools, you're sure to find software that perfectly aligns with your operating system, budget, and specific typography goals. Explore these options and unlock new possibilities in your font design journey.