PopChar X 3.1

Reviewed by Harry {doc} Babad

Publisher’s Summary

PopChar X is a floating window where you can click on a little "P" box to display a table of available characters for a particular font. Select the desired character and it instantly appears in your document. No more Key Caps, no more memorizing keystrokes.

Introduction

I have been using PopChar since it first appeared in 1987. Fourteen years and many versions later, I still use it! As soon as I saw a new OS X Tiger update I jumped at the chance to upgrade. This spontaneous act happened, even though I’m not using an Intel Macintosh. Then a surprise. Since at the time the 3.x update was released, I’d used the earlier version of the product for less than two years, I was delighted that updating was free {for two years}. Apple {e.g., QuickTime} Microsoft—Adobe, are you listening?

PopChar X plays nice with every application I tried and use it in. These range from disc labeling product, business card software, word and text processors, FileMaker Pro, MS Excel and all the notepad, brainstorming and ToDo software I’ve played with (er, reviewed).

I have even been able to make it work with Adobe Acrobat when I use the touchup text tool. [Of course the font can’t be imbedded in the PDF. Who cares it works up fine when printed or read on the screen.] PopChar also works well in Acrobat Professional’s sticky notes and comments as well as the typewriter tool function. All I can say is I’m impressed!

Working With

To install PopChar X, download it from the Ergonis downloads page. PopChar X is distributed as a Mac OS X disk image (DMG). Once you have mounted the disk image, simply drag the PopChar application icon to your Applications folder. Then double-click the copy of PopChar you have just created. No restart required; you can immediately start using PopChar.

Note that As long as you do not have a license key, PopChar operates in trial mode: some special characters are dimmed in the PopChar table.

I use the software in either ASCII or more usually in the recent characters mode. Since I do most of my writing in Lucinda Grande, I will often need to go to other fonts to get special characters. I use special symbols to illustrate keyboard shortcuts or my Macintosh function keys (e.g., control, option, shift and of course command.) This of course requires changing fonts… a nitpicking inconvenience. It alas, metaphorically speaking, comes out in the wash since my publisher uses Times New Roman, my least active favorite of the about 150 font packages I’ve installed.

As noted by ROGREROGRE in a MacUpdate review “I have many applications and ways to look up special characters on my Mac, but none are dedicated to doing just this. If you are looking up characters more than once a day the clumsy methods provided in OSX and all the font management software become a real pain. PopChar has always made getting to these characters efficient. However, the new version three is even better than the earlier versions. But there is one place where Version three was a "must have" for these old eyes. PopChar X 3.0 (and 3.1) is the most readable font display I have ever seen” Doc agrees!

Some users of the new version think the new PopChar 3 interface is very ugly compared to PopChar 2.3. I miss the older look but find the new interface allows me to work smarter and faster. Is it me or is it the fact that version 3 seems faster? And as an added bonus, none of my other “font” tools work across all my installed text using applications including the Finder.

Special Package Features

Instant Gratification — Inserts special characters right into your document - no font cheat sheet, no copy & paste, no need to remember keyboard combinations

Smart Font Menus — The product creates an optimized font menu that contains only the most recently used fonts, giving quick access to the required font, even with hundreds of fonts installed. You can also open PopChar’s new font drawer that lists all available fonts.

Fast Character Search — Search for characters by name as quickly as you type. E.g., show all variations of the letter "E", all "numbers", all "arrows", etc. I’ve not use this much, but it appears useful, especial when mixing languages (French, German, English) and disciplines (e.g., mathematics and engineering.) Type in an “e” and see what you get!

Learn Keyboard Combinations an oxymoron — 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. [Now why would I want to do that?]

As in Document Preference — PopChar can detect the font being used in the current document for many popular applications (such as Pages 2, Word, InDesign, AppleWorks, and more). Check the "As In Document" option, and PopChar will keep track of the current font. Furthermore in the As In Document Preference 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.

As noted elsewhere in this review, that defeats the purpose since I own no supper fonts that contain all the characters I’d use in any given complex technical document.

Discomforts

The Distracting Bouncing Blue Square — As I move my mouse across the character filled window this dumb blue square appears every where I go. Moving my allow me to focus on individual characters to check them out without missing anything. I’d hat to have to look more closely by using a wood pointer across my screen to focus my attention. Please provide a preference to kill this interface feature. [Note the graphic also show the HTML related information.]

Symbols Favorites — I wish I could store the symbols I rarely use, that are unique to my rarely used fonts, in a new variant of PopChar’s recent character window or perhaps called new favorite characters. Then I wouldn’t have to stretch so much for the rare symbols in underutilized fonts I occasionally need. [I know ASCII space is limited and most programs don’t not fully support Unicode, but…

An Academic Discount? — I’m not sure of the business trade-off, but it would be wonderful if this product could be offered at an academic discount. [I have no way of knowing how much it would cost to check credentials; perhaps a deal with Academic Superstore?]

Conclusions

The new version, which is Universal Binary, adds new features including search, Unicode support, html coding, and much more. However, these rich capabilities are invisible to you or me until we should need them.

Despite the addition features and strength, PopChar still as quick and easy to use as the first version I tried about 14 years go. I should have aged so well!

You don’t have to be a heavy user of special font characters to benefit from PopChar. If you reach for the option key to select a non-standard character more than once a day this is a product well worth buying. Noted in Matt Neuburg’s Tidbits review http://db.tidbits.com/article/06891 “for those wishing to use more than the plain Latin alphabet, it's a must-have utility.”

This is still a strong product that gets better with each upgrade. I would never consider this product as any thing but a priority one keeper – few other utilities I’ve used can make that claim. Thank you Ergonis.