I had happily used Font Reserve (Extensis) for years on my Macs running OS 9, until I finally upgraded in 2004 to Mac OS X. I then upgraded my Font Reserve app. for compatibility, and still enjoyed using it, but I noticed some weird things happening. Font activation was "iffy" in some applications, like Quark XPress 6.5. The font would be active in my Font Reserve Browser window but was not available in the app. I found that if I activated the font in Mac's Font Book, then it would work in Font Reserve.
SO... I decided to use Font Book as my font manager, and that was an effort in futility. It wouldn't activate fonts I needed, and it didn't work well with Quark, which is totally not acceptable. After some time spent in the Apple forums, someone told me to forget Font Book and try Linotype FontExplorer X.
So I did. And I just downloaded the FEX update with a better plugin for font activation in Quark XPress. But I'm having other issues that I just don't understand, and it's making me crazy! Fonts (mostly system fonts) are active and working in some apps, but other apps call for the same font and I can't even choose it from the menu. And I can't preview many non-system fonts -- the preview pane is empty and says "Not Available"...
I feel like I should start over, clean all the font caches, empty the library, and just go back to square one by reimporting every font. But which font manager? I have not tried Suitcase Fusion.
I posted on the Linotype FontExplorer X forum and haven't heard a good reply yet.
Any ideas on easy font management that works with all apps on the Mac and doesn't cause brain hemmorage?