Stephen / April 8, 2005 @ 12:53 pm

Best OS X Font Manager: FontAgent Pro

Feaverish / April 8, 2005 @ 12:56 pm

We just switched to FontAgent Pro 3 for Mac OS X. We had been using Suitcase X1, which was annoying everybody with slow, choppy performance (on a dual-processor G5!) and undisplayable fonts. FontAgent Pro’s been chugging away for a week now with no problems and no complaints. It auto-activates fonts for the entire system, not just InDesign and Illustrator, so if a web page or even an email calls for a font you don’t have activated, FontAgent will activate it right then as the page is loading (and it lets you know via a very OSX-y transparent bezel). I feel like Suitcase has stolen years of my life dealing with all it’s problems.

Blacklibra / April 8, 2005 @ 1:31 pm

I use Typograf (http://www.neuber.com/typograph/index.html) - a nice and easy to use tool for Windows.

Ben Hiller / April 8, 2005 @ 1:58 pm

Just wondering, does anyone know of font management software for Linux?

joey / April 8, 2005 @ 2:03 pm

no, but i totally hacked my blender to run knoppix and gave myself root access. l33t!

Nemoflow / April 8, 2005 @ 2:26 pm

Windows - I use:

- XFonter (http://users.pandora.be/eclypse/xfonter.html)
- Fontprint (http://www.highq.de/home.htm)
- Schrift2000 (http://www.aha-software.de/schrift.html)

and

- AveFontbook (http://tinyurl.com/5fslq)

Valette / April 8, 2005 @ 3:06 pm

For Windows I have used AKFontViewer [1] and FontLister [2] for viewing fonts not yet installed. A few months ago I outlined what would be in the perfect font management program [3] and have found nothing to match.

[1] http://aksoft.net/ (down right now)
[2] http://www.theill.com/fl/
[3] http://rhapsodic.org/archives/2005/01/the_perfect_font_prgram.php

Paul Irish / April 8, 2005 @ 3:32 pm

FontExpert for Windows is what I’ve been using lately. Pretty solid.

Dharmesh / April 8, 2005 @ 6:50 pm

Windows:

Font Hit: http://software.fonthit.com/

codeman38 / April 8, 2005 @ 9:01 pm

Wow. Seems to work a lot like The Font Thing, which used to be my former favorite, but it also supports previewing PFB/OTF fonts as well!

Scott / April 9, 2005 @ 3:49 am

Suitcase from Extensis

RUDE / April 9, 2005 @ 5:34 am

FontAgent Pro without a doubt, for OSX.

eyolf / April 9, 2005 @ 5:55 am

Windows.
I use Typograf and FontExpert. They are both good, but with their shortcomings in the preview area: Typograf only displays the ANSI characters, whereas FontExpert cannot preview otf-files that are not installed. Typograf is quick, and I’ve used the function of enabling and disabling groups of fonts upon request (available from the tray). FE has good support for the full charset, and a quite useful function: click on a character in the character window, and you see the character displayed in all its glory in full zoom.
I have to mention one other alternative, which is not a Font Manager as such, but a general File Manager with font viewing options that de facto makes it a better alternative than most specialized font viewers.
Total Commander (http://www.ghisler.com/index.htm) is a shareware File manager, which should be the default replacement for Windows Explorer on all computers. There is a font viewer plugin available which displays all the characters (sorted by set), all extra font information, customizable preview text, options to sort by font family, or other properties, and the zoom function of Font Explorer. It does not treat installed or not installed fonts differently, and it works with all windows fonts - ttf, otf, type 1, whatever. These days, it’s practically the only font viewer I use, because it’s so convenient. What this particular plugin lacks is a direct install function, but there is another font plugin that can do that.

eyolf / April 9, 2005 @ 5:57 am

One thing I forgot: it would be nice if people could say a few words about why they like the programs they use - which needs they fulfill, which functions they lack, and which are particularly good.

Jeff / April 9, 2005 @ 9:23 pm

OS X:Without a doubt, FontAgent Pro 3. I’ve used Suitcase for years (ever since Adobe dropped ATM Deluxe, still probably the golden standard), and have hated every minute of it because of crashes and weird font activiation issues. I’ve tried using FontAgent Pro before version 3, and it acted a bit dodgy on my test machines (excuse my lack of specificsl it’s been awhile). But version 3 is solid as a battleship, and has the aforementioned niceness of auto-activation across all apps (this is a deal-sealer if you use it to manage system fonts, which it can automatically do if you set it in the prefs) and not having to have the program open all the time. It also has the nice feature of managing multiple libraries of fonts, so you don’t have to painsatkingly merge your work and home collections.The only real complaint is that unlike Suitcase, it makes copies of all your fonts into a dedicated folder, so if you’ve spent a lot of time putting your files in folders like “Serif” and “Sans Serif”, all that work will be for naught unless you import each folder individually as font sets.

phil / April 10, 2005 @ 12:15 pm

My collection is organized like this: [Initial Letter]: [Foundry/Designer Name] — although having an archive of about 10 GBs, i never have installed more than 100 Fonts at the same time. I’m not using any font-managing software like Suitcase, FontAgent or Font Book — fonts are activated via Finder-copy, project-related fonts are grouped together via Finder-folder. That’s it. ATM in OS

Bonna / April 11, 2005 @ 4:16 am

I’ve been looking for a font-manager that alots me to install fonts temperay, but without lucky! Anybody one?

7443 / April 11, 2005 @ 5:07 am

This link was posted a while ago in the STC thread. Excellent, “Free” font management for windows. Be sure and read the comments for a great shortcut regarding installation.

http://www.noscope.com/journal/2004/09/font-management-solution

Brian Meidell / April 19, 2005 @ 1:18 pm

I am also very interested in hearing whether there is any good font management software for linux.
I miss ATM on linux :)

And nice comments by the way ;)

oerdec / May 4, 2005 @ 5:52 am

At this moment I´m using Font Frenzy for Windows.

- with the option DeFrenzy you can remove all fonts exept the defaults to clean up the font folder
- with FrenzySnap you can make a snapshot of the currently installed fonts
- reinstall fonts from a snapshot
- view (not installed) fonts in a folder
- install or unstall fonts
- freeware with registration

I wouldn´t call it the ‘best font software’ because I haven´t tested a lot. But I like it.