Feature Overview
PopChar makes it easy to "type" unusual characters, HTML special characters and characters from Unicode fonts. It gives you quick access to all characters of all fonts, even those that cannot be generated from the keyboard.
PopChar Win is a background-only application. The small "P" in the system tray indicates that PopChar is running.
Though small and unobtrusive, the "P" icon is always there when you need to insert a special character - no matter in which application you are currently working.
Whenever you need a special character, just click the "P" or activate PopChar with a user-defined hot key.
- Inserts special characters right into your document - no font cheat sheet, no copy & paste, no need to remember keyboard combinations.
- Full Unicode support with different comfortable views and pop-up menu for quick navigation.
- Search for characters by name, by Unicode number or by simply pasting some text from your document into the search field.
- Custom favorites provides quick access to frequently used characters and fonts.
- Magnifier tool provides an enlarged view to see selected characters in full detail.
- Work across font boundaries and see all available characters system-wide.
- "Reverse search" for fonts that contain a particular character.
- Recent characters view for instant access to your frequently used characters.
- Individually adjust the sizes of certain fonts.
- Flexible user interface to satisfy the individual needs of different users.
- Displays the keyboard combinations for characters that have keyboard equivalents.
- Automatically detects the current font in many popular applications (including Word, Excel, Illustrator, PageMaker).
- Various insertion modes: Insert characters as plain or formatted text or HTML.
To get an impression how PopChar eases insertion of unusual characters and how you can explore the contents of your fonts, click here to see a short demo movie.
PopChar supports Unicode fonts with thousands of characters. Just enable Unicode mode to see all of them, neatly arranged in the standard Unicode blocks or by scripts and symbols. You can collapse groups you don’t need and use the navigation menu to quickly jump to a specific group.
Note: To insert Unicode characters, the target application must be able to handle Unicode. In older applications without Unicode support, you can still use PopChar in ASCII mode, although this will limit the number of usable characters.
In Unicode fonts, you can easily navigate through the Unicode characters by scrolling. You can also use the category menu right above the scroll bar to quickly jump to an arbitrary section.
"PopChar offers a quick search field to instantly search for particular characters."
Enter the character "e" into the quick search area to display special characters based on "e" (è. é, ê, ë, …) only.
If you need any particular representation of a number, just enter "number" in the search field to see all appropriate characters.
You can enter decimal or hexadecimal numbers to find the characters with the corresponding Unicode number.
Last but not least, you can copy an arbitrary piece of text and paste it into PopChar’s search field.
PopChar then displays all characters that occur in the text you entered.
Favorite characters
If you need the same characters again and again, simply add them to the new Favorites group of PopChar 5. This group is always visible at the top of the character table and gives you quick access to all frequently needed characters. Technical symbols, accented characters in foreign languages, arrows, mathematical operators, circled numbers, astrological symbols, etc. You define which characters are important for you.
The Favorites section provides fastest possible look-up and insertion of special characters with a single click. It couldn't be easier. To add a character to the Favorites section simply right-click the required character and choose "Add to Favorites" from the menu.
Favorite fonts
Also new in PopChar 5 is the possibility to build a set of favorite fonts. This makes font selection a no-brainer even with hundreds of fonts installed.
To add a font to the Favorites font list simply right-click the font in the font drawer and choose "Add to Favorites" from the menu.
To see the favorite fonts only, choose "Favorites" from the popup menu at the very top of the font drawer.
PopChar's magnifier tool lets you see an enlarged view of characters. This is especially useful for characters with small, subtle details.
The grid lines in the close-up lens also let you see exactly where a character sits relative to the baseline.
Just activate the magnifier in the bottom-left corner of the window. Whenever you point at a character, PopChar then displays a close-up view of the character.
Hint: You can toggle the current setting of the magnifier at any time by pressing the shift key.
"PopChar's "All" view lets you work with all available characters in any font."
Imagine you need the cubic meters symbol in a text written in Verdana. Searching for "cub" does not yield any results, as the Verdana font does not contain such a symbol. To find a matching font in the regular Unicode view, you would need to click through hundreds of fonts until you find one that contains the desired symbol.
As an alternative, the "All" view displays the entire repertoire of Unicode characters available in any font. The search for "cub" now produces the cube root as well as some metric units cubed, including the symbol for cubic meters. Click the symbol, and PopChar inserts it into your document.
If you have found the cubic meters symbol, you probably wonder in which fonts it exists.
To find all fonts that contain a particular character, you can use the "reverse searching" feature of PopChar: Just use the context menu to mark all fonts that contain the desired character. Then click one of the marks to jump directly to the marked character in any of these fonts.
Besides that, PopChar highlights recently selected characters in the main view.
Different fonts have different metrics. Whereas the characters of one font may appear large enough in PopChar's table, another font may have light and small characters with subtle details.
The PopChar character table appears in a window that can be placed anywhere on the screen.
Preference settings give you detailed control to adjust the behavior of the window to your liking.
You can leave the window open permanently until you dismiss it or make it disappear immediately after each use, depending on your personal working style and the size of your monitor.
To make PopChar as unobtrusive as possible, choose "Close window after inserting a character" in the Activation tab of the Preferences window.
If you want to learn the keyboard combinations for very frequently used characters, PopChar is also here to help.
It shows you the keyboard combination needed to type the selected character on the keyboard. If you need the same character again and again, PopChar tells you how to type it.
PopChar can detect the font being used in the current document for many popular applications (such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint, ...). Check the "As In Document" option, and PopChar will keep track of the current font.
Whenever you select a different font in your current document or move the insertion point into a text portion that uses another font, PopChar automatically displays the same font.
PopChar helps you keep track of your frequently used fonts, even if you have hundreds of fonts installed.
The font menu gives you quick access to the recently used fonts. When you need another font or wish to explore the available fonts, just open the font drawer.
You can filter the font list according to various categories, show only those fonts that contain a special character, or filter to see only your favorite fonts.
PopChar offers three insertion modes.
You can choose to insert selected characters as plain text or as formatted text, along with font information and in the font size you specify.
Web designers will appreciate the HTML mode that lets them insert characters as numeric or named HTML codes.
You can also right-click a character to open a context menu for copying the character to the clipboard in various formats.
