Quark Forums

Having just updated all my Graphics apps - XPress 8, CS4, I now find that the FontExplorer X auto-activation no longer works because the apps are too new. Time to choose: Suitcase Fusion 2 or FontExplorer Pro? I've been using Suitcase since the System 7 days, but as FontExplorer X was free I switched to that when I upgraded to an Intel Mac. Looking at the prices there only a couple of £s difference between the special offer price for FontExplorer and the upgrade price for Suitcase. So... what are people here using? Any issues I should be aware of?

Exactly the same dilemma here. I abandoned Suitcase a number of years ago for FontAgentPro, then when FontExplorer was provided free I swapped to that because of the cache removal tools it provides. Now running FontExplorer Pro during the trial period and am very happy with it, so will probably pay up before the special offer period expires. I'm also looking foward to the forthcoming PC version as I run a Windows system alongside my Mac.

So it's FontExplorer Pro for me.

Thanks for that. I've also had a recommendation from another forum where I posed this question for FontAgentPro which I've never used, and who's web site is sparse on info as to why I should use it over the competition. It's also twice as much the FontExplorer special offer or the Suitcase Upgrade price. As someone who's used it in the past does it offer anything useful that the others don't?

I used FontAgent Pro v3, and have just checked, and see that v4 is now available, so it may be a different animal to the version I used. Font utilities now appear to be provided, so it's probably worth installing the demo version just to see what it offers.

I'm careful with my fonts, so don't have any damaged or dodgy ones. As far as I can see all these management utilities offer the same functions with slight differences. One thing that irritates me somewhat about OSX font handling is the fact that some of my old PostScript fonts have screen fonts with no corresponding printer font - a situation that both FontExplorer X and Suitcase X1 were unhappy about. I'm sure I read somewhere in the early days of OSX that PostScript fonts would no longer need the screen font suitcases to be recognised, but this certainly isn't the case with FontExplorer X. Also it doesn't seem to be possible to edit the screen font suitcases either directly in the Finder like you could under OS9 or via FontExplorer, so any font management utility that would allow me to remove screen fonts that don't have a matching printer font would go to the top of my list!

It's horses for courses I guess. You say that you don't have any damaged or dodgy fonts, but Postscript screen fonts without printer fonts are exactly that - they're dysfunctional, especially when you come to try to print any job containing them, so any font utility will alert you to their presence, but as you may, for some reason, want to keep them the software will not remove them for you.

I think that, because of Truetype and OpenType, editing font suitcases is no longer feasible without font editing software. Many of the anomalies that existed in Postscript have been ironed out with the new formats, and OSX is orientated towards these rather than Postscript, so it's something we have to learn to live with. I used to edit my screen fonts in the 'old' days, and got into countless messes because of it, so in a way I'm glad that ability has been taken away from me.

One thing I have just noticed is that, when an old Quark job is re-opened, FontExplorer Pro does NOT automatically install the true italic or bold versions of fonts which have been italicised or emboldened within jobs, so we still have to manually load those fonts. The other utilities do achieve that, so it's a little disappointing to see that this problem has not been corrected in the Pro version. I hear the purists crying "You should use the true versions of those fonts right from the start", but they're not necessarily my jobs which I have to re-open.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but in the OS9 days I could open up a font suitcase and remove all the screen fonts I didn't have printer fonts for and everything was fine. My applications only showed the fonts I could safely print. This was something that I did fairly regularly and have never had problems with.

Now under OSX I get warnings but neither Suitcase X1 or FontExplorer X are apparently able to fix them.

Yes it would be nice to go over to OTF but I have probably several thousand £s invested in PostScript fonts and I don't see any of the type foundries offering any sort of reduced price upgrades from PostScript to OTF. Also some of the fonts I have needed to purchase even in the last year for big clients and from well-known type foundries are still not available in OTF.

"so any font management utility that would allow me to remove screen fonts that don't have a matching printer font would go to the top of my list!"

 

Suicase ships with FontDoctor which will "fix" your zombie screen fonts.

Thanks!

Looks like I'll be downloading all three to see which one suits me the best...

Definitely. You've given me a good reason to look again at what I use - whether to resurrect old registered versions of all three packages with a view to upgrading - or stay with, and pay for FEXPro. But at my age it's a case of "better the devil you know than the devil you don't"!

Hmmm, all 3 probably won't sit together very nicely. I know that installing LFEX pretty much wiped my Suitcase install. Trouble is Suitcase when set up to manage system fonts will do this by moving them to a location away from the norm so when you install another font management app it doesn't necessarily see them. it can be a bit of a nightmare so read the guides carefully.

My plan is to make a complete backup of my MacBook Pro and try each utility one at a time, reverting back to my "clean" state after each test.

Time consuming I know but, I need to find out which is the best management utility for me.

Would anyone here be interested if I was to report back here with my findings, bearing in mind that I'll probably only really be testing a small subset of all the features that these three apps provide?

  I just spent my morning looking through the three websites.

I managed to eliminate Suitcase Fusion, as the latest version only works on OS 10.5, and I would have needed to buy a full license, not an upgrade.

Then it was a toss-up between FontExplorer or upgrading FontAgent Pro. FontAgent Pro v4 does still not appear to provide font cache tools, unless we buy Smasher in addition - it does not appear to be part of the package.

So I then contacted Linotype re. my reservation with FontExplorer - its inability to auto-activate italicised or emboldened fonts - and was quickly told that an update is scheduled to launch in the next few (number not specified) days.

So, in faith, I opted for FontExplorer, and paid up before the discount period expires on 28th February.

We can compare notes!