Good to hear Stephen. That is exactly the config I had planned to try, I did search and read but still a bit undecided. Not many of them include the OS and apps info.

I use Font Reserve for X.2 and I'm not terribly impressed with it. But then, my work Mac is a little under-powered... G4/733 w/ a gig of ram.

Mr. John B., cheer up!
I am on a G3 266 MHz, 96 Mb of RAM. :-)

Extensis Suitcase X1.

Accept no substitutes. ;)

Suitcase is poo.

* It tells me some fonts are damaged, even though they're straight copies from a Linotype disc.

* Autoactivation is a joke. With Adobe CS apps I activate in Suitcase, switch back to app, font not there, click outside text box, click inside again, font appears.

* Any other apps, you don't get autoactivation anyway (I don't run Quark) and must quit and relaunch.

* It regularly hangs, and likes to take down other apps with it.


This is on a dual G5 with up to date patches, btw.

Having said all this, I'm not sure there's anything better than Suitcase out there. Being a large(ish) company, it's likely Extensis will get there act together sometime soon.

Thanks all,
I will go back and post some review of everything I have looked at. I am a little leery of Suitcase because of pre OSX issues and what I am hearing about the OSX version. Also one thing that bothers me about Extensis is they have bolted together a solution from three different products and my past experience with companies who buy code is they tend to not support it well in the future.

Right now I am leaning toward two possible solutions, Font Agent Pro for repair/management/display.
or
FontDoctor (was Morrison SoftDesign

I was using Suitcase's latest version, but always had problems with it crashing on me while browsing through un-active fonts. I just installed Font Agent Pro, and am currently importing my sets as I write this. I'll let you know how it works out.

vudutu,

Glad to see your a Master Juggler fan. I've tried all of the font managers and I like MJ the best. To me it works very much like the old ATM Deluxe that had so many fans back in pre-X days.

I think MJ's biggest advantage is not building its own database of the fonts. It just turns them on and off, anywhere they are located, and it doesn't have to be running all the time. Launch, active your fonts, quit. It does lack an auto-activation, but I was told by Alsoft that that would be in an upgrade. I fear that the upgrade may be a long wait since MJ is definitly a cult font manager at this point.

James

10.4.2 with the CS suite

10.3.9 with the CS Suite

The Linotype FontExplorer X is doing it for me! So easy and straightfoward, it even seems to be polite, which is odd. My 2 cents.

Yeah I just switched to FontExplorerX for the last few days to give it a try. So far I have no complaints, I find it activated my fonts much quicker than Suitcase and I really like the way the interface is setup and organize my types. Also like the preview area better than in suitcase and seems to integrate with Indesign quite well.

Is this only free now because it is still beta or is the goal to always keep it free?

Is this only free now because it is still beta or is the goal to always keep it free?

Thomas, not only is the beta version of FontExplorer X free, but the final version will be free as well.

Any news on an expected date for the Windows [sorry, folks] version?

Ever since I chose to block pop-ups, my toaster's stopped working.

Dave, a windows version is in the works. During the ATypI conference, it was announced that it might be available in three months or so. So maybe early 2006? News will be posted here when it is available.

Thanks Dan; I'll keep my eyes peeled...

Thanks for the FontExplorerX suggestion. I'm on a G4 733 1.5GB RAM, OS 10.3.9, ID 2.0 etc etc.... and Suitcase is just not cutting it any more. I'm not sure when (at which upgrade point) it started to balk, but it no longer auto-activates fonts. I loved that feature and it was a dream for years. It has become a nightmare however and it's time to change.

pd

I've been using FontExplorer for a week, now with positive results. I'm a long-time Suitcase user who got tired of it about six weeks ago; I began using Font Book, but when I saw the speed and stability of FontExplorer I switched.

10.4.2
InDesign

Good to hear its going to be free :)

Also glad to hear there is a Windows version, all this is way more than I could have ever hoped for. I work between my Powerbook and my Desktop PC all the time so support on both platforms with FontExplorerX would be pretty nifty.

Used suitcase before... but when I switched to OSX, my friend Stephen Coles told me to check out FontAgent Pro. It rocks! And as soon Apple are doing upgrades, so are FontAgent Pro. Their own graphic design could be slightly improved, but that's another story.

Cheers
/Stefan H

OS X 10.3.4, FontAgent Pro, and InD CS for me. No major issues.

Use the forum search and look for "manager". This has been
discussed many times already - even in the last 3 months.

Craig, to Stephen's point, maybe you could compile the
concensus from the various threads and tell us what it indicates.

I've used FontAgent Pro for about 2 years now... It works perfect, no complains... it is great!!! really!. I agree their own GD could be improved quite a bit. Also, I would like to see more display/grouping options.

Fontexplorer X has been the best answer for me since ATM Deluxe.

pbc

I used to use Font Reserve when I ran OS 9, and while generally satisfied, I had annoyingly frequent enough database corruption issues, which forced me to rebuild my libraries over and over again manually. That I did not like.

I was floundering on OS X until Linotype Font Explorer X came out. The only thing I miss in it over Font Reserve is the ability to print sample sheets in various configurations. It is much more stable and has far better sorting options. I've heard some bad things about the latest update, though, so I'm hesitating to install it until the next patch comes in.

I vote for Font Book. Like everything else that ships in-box it's perfect. How can you improve on perfection?

Font Book gagged on the way I wanted to use it. I'm spoiled by having instant editable previews and so simply dragging the fonts around when I need them isn't an option either. I use FEX and have very few complaints.

Linotype Font Explorer was just updated on July 10; maybe the doubters can give it another try. I've been loving it; it works the way I want a font manager to do. I don't like the ones that make their own secret copy of things or move my data around. FontExplorer adds some iTunes-like features, like making new sets from any fonts already activated or added.

I use font managers to test fonts in development, so my usage is probably different from that of most graphic designers, but the convenience of activation is the big hook for me, and that's useful to anyone with a lot of fonts they don't want installed permanently.

I like Font Explorer too but the latest upgrade doesn't let you view the complete character set for open type so I suggest you NOT upgrade until they've fixed this bug.

I hate Font Book and don't feel like paying for Font Agent Pro. I'd rather save my money and buy fonts instead.

Hihi... I'm all for Font Explorer, too. Great App. Since I use iTunes all day, it was a dream to implement this into my workflow.

Sometimes, though, I click on a font and wonder why my headphones stay silent :-))

"Sometimes, though, I click on a font and wonder why my headphones stay silent :-))"

House Industries could probably remedy that.... ;) Can sound files be embedded in a font? MusicType?

Wow.
Three years of posts on this subject and there's nothing close to a consensus.

Great. I deal mainly in CS2 apps on my Imac G5. I'm trying to use Font Book to run my fonts from an external hard drive but it absolutely chokes when I try to feed it my entire library.

It will simply open and show no fonts at all.

I know there must be an objective 'best' out there, but if we can't figure it out on Typophile.com then where in the world will we?!

- cynicdesign
Jason Wood
jason@cynicdesign.com

Still using Font book? Yuck. You'd be better off manually managing your typefaces.