Test before you buy: The Fontsampler at Linotype.com

Nobody wants to buy the famous pig in a poke. Even with fonts, you want to know exactly what you’re getting before buying, and whether or not the fonts meet the design and equipment requirements.
The Fontsampler on Linotype.com offers you exactly this. Here, you can retrieve detailed information for each style and evaluate and try out the font extensively. Under the tab “Character Map”, you’ll find an overview of all the characters included in the font. “Technical Details” offers specifications about the file format and the displayed font name in various systems.




It really starts to get fun under the first tab, however, the “Sample Texts”.
There are two modes available here: waterfall or body text. In the waterfall mode, one line of text is displayed in different sizes, one under the other, and you can evaluate them. The selected texts offer, for example, an overview of uppercase and lowercase letters or digits.


You can also enter your own text in the field that displays the example text. In this way, you can evaluate a logo lettering or a headline precisely. This allows you to have a good look at specific letters.


In the body text mode, you can choose from various sample texts or enter your own text. This text is then displayed in the font size selected in the pop-up menu.


In both modes you can set the text and background color using the swatches on the left. In this way, you can not only try different colors, but also see how the style works in inverse setting.


By the way: All settings and text specifications are also retained when changing the style or font. In this way, you can comfortably try your sample text on different styles and fonts.

You’ll find the Fontsampler on the detail page, directly below the specifications of language/format, font family and licenses.