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 X is a background application that displays a small "P" in the menu bar. Though small and unobtrusive, the "P" is always there when you need to insert a special character - no matter in which application you are currently working. Just click the "P", find the desired character, and click the character to insert it.
As an alternative, you can configure PopChar to display a small icon in the right area of the menu bar. No matter which location you prefer, just click the "P" to quickly access PopChar's character table.
- 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.
- Individually adjust the sizes of certain fonts.
- Custom favorites section provides quick access to frequently used characters.
- 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.
- 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 Pages, Word, Illustrator, QuarkXPress, InDesign, FileMaker and BBEdit).
- Various insertion modes: Insert characters as plain or formatted text or HTML.
- Support for Apple Color Emoji font.
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 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 field 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.
In OS X Lion, Apple has added a new font called Apple Color Emoji with hundreds of colored emoticons, icons and other symbols.
Starting with PopChar X 5.3, you can browse the beautifully designed color symbols in Apple Color Emoji, search for particular ideograms by name, and insert them as characters in applications that know how to handle color fonts.
Typinator users will enjoy our new Emoji snippet set. To insert a color symbol, just pop up Typinator's Quick Search box and type a short phrase that describes the symbol.
You can download the new Emoji set for Typinator for free and add it to your snippets with just a double-click.
Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) or newer is required to use the full potential of the "Emoji" set.
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.
Starting with PopChar 5.2, you can use the slider at the bottom of the PopChar window to individually adjust the sizes of certain fonts.
In addition to this adjustment option, PopChar also knows about peculiarities of more than 70 fonts and automatically fine-tunes the display for many popular fonts.
If you need the same characters again and again, simply add them to the new Favorites group. 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.
You can add favorite characters from any font. When you switch fonts, PopChar displays those of your favorites that are available in the current font. And if you wish to see all of them, switch to PopChar's "All" view. Or use PopChar's "Reverse Search" to find those fonts that contain a needed character.
To add a character to the Favorites section simply right-click or ctrl-click the required character.
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 Helvetica. Searching for "cub" does not yield any results, as the Helvetica 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. See also the "reverse search" feature below.
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.
The PopChar window contains an area displaying the most recently used characters, enabling you to locate and insert frequently used characters faster. Besides that, PopChar highlights recently selected characters in the main view.
In PopChar 5.1 or newer, you can now remove characters from the table of recent characters.
The PopChar character table appears in a window that "floats" above all other application windows and 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.
If you prefer to keep the window open at all times, uncheck all options. To make the window as unobtrusive as possible, check all options.
Starting with PopChar 5, you can also define a hotkey to open the PopChar window without having to move your hands off the keyboard.
If a character has a keyboard equivalent, PopChar displays which keys generate the character. This is most useful for quickly typing accented letters in foreign languages. 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 Pages, Word, InDesign, AppleWorks, and more). 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 list in a drawer.
Starting with version 4.3, you can use your font collections as defined in Font Book and the Mac OS X font panel to restrict the font list, or show only those fonts that contain a special character.
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 control-click or right-click a character to open a context menu for copying the character to the clipboard in various formats.
