When we joined the ranks of OSX users, we left many good friends behind in OS9. Adobe Type Manager and Type Reunion were two especially loved programs, the first for its font management capabilities (which thankfully, Suitcase Fusion, FontAgent Pro, Master Juggler and others have supplied), the second for its ability to group font families into hierarchal menus and show the actual fonts in the menus.
The folks over at Unsanity (love the name) have contributed many “haxies” for OSX users, maybe none so under-appreciated as FontCard . For a mere $17, you can have all the font info you could want in any application, at your fingertips. Font name, format, family, and WYSIWYG display. You can turn individual features on and off and disable for particular programs in the Preference pane. Wrangle that ever-scrolling font menu down into something more manageable and more organized. Try FontCard.
I am desperately trying to find the right font management software for the Art Department. What is your opinion of Suitcase Fusion versus the Font Agent Pro and Master Juggler.
Well, Zip, I have tried them all at one time or another and for my money, the one I have stuck with is Suitcase. It seems to be the least problematic in regard to error messages, fonts not loading and the like. With the addition of Fusion, Suitcase has added the Font Vault capabilities of Font Reserve (previously by Diamonsoft, purchased by Extensis last year) thus preserving your original fonts by activating copies.
You also have the ability to use the Suitcase Server, allowing you to maintain all your fonts in one location, standardizing font usage in the whole department.
Fusion comes with plugins for XPress, InDesign and Illustrator and also supports global auto-activation of fonts. There has been at least one program that I have found that doesn’t support the auto activation feature (FireWorks MX 2004), but that’s pretty easy to work around.
As an added bonus, Fusion comes with a license for FontDoctor X, which combs through your fonts looking for and repairing damaged fonts, removing excess font sizes, reporting on ophaned or missing fonts and can re-catalog your entire library.
Lastly, if you’re still running OS ( applications, you can use Suitcase to activate fonts for use in those apps as well. Pretty sweet!
To give the other apps you asked about a mention, I haven’t seen a current version of MasterJuggler (I had only one client who was using it, now they are using Suitcase) and as for Font Agent Pro, I had toyed with a demo and with the LinoType version called FontExplorer X. I can say I was not as satisfied with these products.
Hope that helps. Most of these products have 30-day trials, I would encourage you to try any or all of them out for yourself.
Thank ye verily. I shall download them next week, after my photo shoot this week. Be back on or about 15 June.