A font editor is a class of application software

Application software

Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...

 specifically designed to create or modify computer font

Computer font

A computer font is an electronic data file containing a set of glyphs, characters, or symbols such as dingbats. Although the term font first referred to a set of metal type sorts in one style and size, since the 1990s it is generally used to refer to a scalable set of digital shapes that may be...

 files.

Font editors differ greatly depending if they are designed to edit bitmap fonts or outline fonts. Modern font editors mostly deal with the outline fonts, because bitmap fonts are an older technology and rarely used on modern PCs. The bitmap font editors were usually very specialized, as each computing platform had its own font format. One interesting subcategory are editors of text mode

Text mode

Text mode is a kind of computer display mode in which the content of the screen is internally represented in terms of characters rather than individual pixels. Typically, the screen consists of a uniform rectangular grid of character cells, each of which contains one of the characters of a...

 fonts.

Well known (outline) font editors are:

• Free Software
  Free software
  Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
  
  
  • DoubleType http://sourceforge.net/projects/doubletype/
  • Gbdfedhttp://www.math.nmsu.edu/~mleisher/Software/gbdfed/
  • Font Constructor http://www.fontconstructor.com/ Mac
  • FontForge
    FontForge
    FontForge is a typeface editor program developed by George Williams. FontForge is free software and is distributed under the BSD license. FontForge is available for several operating systems and is localized in several languages.- Features :Fontforge supports many font formats, including...
    
    http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/
  • fontstruct online
  • Raster Font Editor http://www.cylog.org/graphics/rasterfonteditor.jsp
  • Type light http://www.cr8software.net/typelight.html

• Proprietary Software
  Proprietary software
  Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...
  
  
  • Fontographer
    Fontographer
    Fontographer , is a software application used to create digital fonts, available for both Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh platforms. It was originally developed by Altsys but is now owned by FontLab Ltd.-Fontastic:...
    
    http://www.fontlab.com/font-editor/fontographer/ (Windows, Mac OS X)
  • FontLab Studio
    FontLab
    FontLab is both the name of a company, FontLab Ltd, and the former name of their flagship font editor product, now called FontLab Studio. Since the early 2000s, FontLab Studio has been the dominant software tool for commercial/retail digital font development. This is partly because the...
    
    http://www.fontlab.com/font-editor/fontlab-studio/ (Windows, Mac OS X)
  • TypeToolhttp://www.fontlab.com/font-editor/typetool/ (Windows, Mac OS X)
  • BitFonterhttp://www.fontlab.com/font-editor/bitfonter/ (Windows, Mac OS X)
  • FontCreatorhttp://www.high-logic.com/fontcreator.html (MS Windows)
  • CR8typehttp://www.cr8software.net/type.html (MS Windows)
  • Softyhttp://users.breathe.com/l-emmett/ (MS Windows)
  • Private Character Editor
    Private Character Editor
    Private Character Editor is a limited font editor that comes with Windows for creating private use characters. Those characters are user-defined characters as prescribed under Unicode. The program is accessible via the Start Menu on East Asian editions of Windows...
    
    (MS Windows)