Font Viewer for Mac Without Font Book's Limitations

macOS comes with Font Book — Apple's built-in font management utility. It's useful for previewing fonts, installing them, and organizing them into collections. What it doesn't do is show you the metadata embedded inside the font file: the license text, the designer name, the version string, the embedding permission flags.

If you need to check any of those things on a Mac, there's a fast alternative that requires no install: a browser-based font metadata viewer that reads the file locally and displays everything Font Book omits.

What Font Book Shows (and Doesn't Show)

Font Book shows:

• A visual preview of the font at various sizes
• The font name
• The font format (TrueType, PostScript)
• Whether the font has any validation warnings

Font Book does not show:

• The embedded license text
• The license URL
• The designer's name
• The version string
• The fsType embedding permission flags
• The weight class value
• The unicode range coverage
• The total glyph count

For casual use, Font Book is fine. For professional work — especially anything involving licensing, version tracking, or web deployment — you need the missing fields.

How to View Full Font Metadata on Mac

Open the WildandFree Font Metadata Viewer in Safari, Chrome, or Firefox on your Mac. Then drag your font file from Finder directly onto the tool's drop zone.

The font file is read entirely on your machine — nothing is uploaded. The full metadata appears within a second: family name, designer, version, copyright, license text, license URL, glyph count, weight class, unicode ranges, and embedding permissions.

You can inspect multiple fonts in a row by dropping a new file — the results update each time.

This works on Intel Macs, M1, M2, M3, and M4 machines. No compatibility issues with Apple Silicon since it's running in the browser.

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Why Mac Users Need More Than Font Book

Checking a client font before a project: A client drops a font file in your Shared folder. Font Book confirms it's installed. But you need to know: is this the right version? Is it licensed for the deliverable you're creating? Drag it to the metadata viewer. Check version and license text in 15 seconds.

Web embedding compliance: macOS developers often test web fonts locally. Before deploying a @font-face stylesheet, check the font's fsType flag to confirm web embedding is permitted. Font Book won't show you this.

Design system audits: If you manage a library of brand fonts across a design team, knowing the exact version string and license URL for each file is important. The browser viewer gives you this without opening FontLab or any paid tool.

The macOS Terminal Alternative (For Power Users)

If you prefer the command line, macOS includes Python, and the fonttools library can be installed via pip:

pip3 install fonttools
python3 -c "from fontTools.ttLib import TTFont; f = TTFont('yourfont.ttf'); print(f['name'].toXML())"

This dumps the entire name table to XML, including all license fields. It's powerful but not fast or convenient for quick checks.

The browser viewer is faster for most tasks. The terminal approach is worth knowing if you're processing many fonts programmatically or need fields beyond what the viewer shows.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Font Book on Mac show font license information?

No. Font Book shows a preview, the font name, and some validation info. It does not surface the embedded license text, license URL, designer name, version string, or fsType embedding permissions.

Does this work on Apple Silicon Macs?

Yes. The viewer runs in the browser and isn't affected by chip architecture. It works on all Intel and Apple Silicon Mac models in any modern browser.

Can I view fonts that are already installed on my Mac?

You need to locate the font file itself. Installed macOS fonts are typically in /Library/Fonts/ or ~/Library/Fonts/. Open a Finder window, navigate there, and drag the TTF or OTF file to the viewer.