ACCESSING EXTRAS: MAINTYPE (PC)

Operating system: PC

Date tested: 25 November 2024 / Missy Meyer

Cost: Free for up to 2500 fonts; $49 USD for up to 10,000 fonts; $79 USD for unlimited fonts.

Where to get it: https://www.high-logic.com/font-manager/maintype

Font file types to use: TTF/OTF, single stroke or double stroke

How to Access Glyphs in MainType

First, make sure that the font is installed on your computer or device. Check the “Install fonts on [operating system]” guides for more information.

MainType is not a design program; it’s a supplemental program that lets you choose alternates, ligatures, and other extra characters that may not be easily accessible through your design program. If your design program has built-in access to those extras, you’ll most likely want to use that method.

MainType is also a full-featured font manager, where you can label and organize fonts with custom tags and categories.

There’s a lot going on in MainType, but to access the alternates, ligatures, and extra glyphs in a font, it’s only a couple of clicks. First off, select “Active Fonts” in your top left-hand panel. Then choose your font from the big list. In this example, we’ll be using Spicy Sketcher 2, the double-stroke version of Spicy Sketcher.

Over in the “Characters” area, select the drop-down menu and scroll all the way to the bottom to select the “Private Use Area” set. This is almost always where a font designer will place their specialty characters like alternates, ligatures, dingbats, catchwords, and any extras.

If you’ve already checked out the Windows Character Map guide, you’ll be delighted to know that in MainType, you can increase the size of the grid to see all of the characters more clearly. Just click on the font size drop-down, and choose your preferred size. Here I have it set to 72, and it’s nice and huge!

Now you can browse around the grid to find the character you want. In this example, I’ll be grabbing the RR ligature.

Once you have the character’s box selected and it turns blue like this, just click Ctrl+C to copy the character. Or if you prefer, you can go to “Edit” in the top bar menu, and then choose “Copy” from there.

From there, go back to your design program and paste in the character where you want it to go. In this example, I’m putting that RR ligature into the word TERROR.

Depending on the program you’re using, you may see the character immediately, or you may see an empty spot where it should be, like what you’re seeing above. (This example above is in Affinity Photo.)

If the character isn’t showing, odds are that it either needs to have a stroke applied, or it’s pasted in very small. Or sometimes both of those things! Here you can see that I’ve selected the character and added a stroke, and it now shows up very tiny. I just need to resize that character to be the same size as the rest of the letters.

(Why did this happen? For some reason, Affinity Photo likes to paste in text in its default size and style. My default size is something like 12 point, and the style does not have a stroke applied to it. So even though I’m pasting this in the middle of a bunch of letters that are styled in a different way, it’s choosing to paste in its default way. Oh well! [shrug] )

Once the stroke is applied and the size is the same as everything else, you’re good to go!

If this program has been updated since this test and this guide no longer works, please drop me a line at the contact form so I can update this page!