Better Font Management : Comments
March 6, 2007
Comments
At work we’re using the Suitcase, but at home I’m using another one, the Font Expert 2006. I’ve tested the 2004 version and ever since, I never installed other options. It’s really stable, easy to use, and mid-ranged in price-tag.
I’ve used FontExplorer X on Mac for quite some time now. It’s a solid font manager and it has a very easy to use iTunes-like interface. Best of all, it’s free.
What is the actual point of this article?! ..apart from self-promotion that is.
That we might be OK with a free app but that we might be better with a pro app… ?!? WTF.
I guess this falls into 0.1 % of dodgy “articles” in DW. I’ll stick to the great other 99.9 %.
I second John Henshaw‘s callout to FontExplorer X. It’s by Linotype, so it’s no slouch of a program. And it’s free. Linotype makes money by providing links into its store any time you want to auto-activate a font that you don’t have in your collection. Consider an iTunes-like convenience or intrusion depending on your stance. Like iTunes, I haven’t needed FontExplorer’s built-in store access myself; but it’s nice to know it’s there should I decide to use it.
I find it hard to believe he hasn’t heard of The Font Thing. With this free program, there’s no need to purchase any font manager for Windows.
Gosh, “Useless,” if only you’d left a link to your site, I could send you a few hilarious behind-the-scenes stories. :) Well, at any rate, If we are pleasing you 99.9% of the time, I feel great! Focusing on that section of your message, I’ll say thank you for the compliment, and thanks for writing.
Are there any sites where you can play around with complimentary fonts (like a colorblender)?
Article would have been great if Joel shared methods of categorising fonts. (thematic, keywords, etc)
Using Linotype’s fontexplorer, great app..
Printer’s Apprentice is also a good font manager that is relatively inexpensive. It would be great if there were a program that could filter lists of fonts by meta-data (e.g., style, foundry, category, etc.), the way itunes or most other audio software can sort large music collections.
Here is another free font management tool AMP Font Viewer
I LOVE The Font Thing…it’s the greatest! It should be added to that list.
JDL wrote:
“It would be great if there were a program that could filter lists of fonts by meta-data (e.g., style, foundry, category, etc.)...”
My program, FontExplorerL.M. font manager for Windows, offer you much more than you ever need. You can download free trial at:
http://www.lanmisoft.com/FontExplorerL.M..exe
After testing font managers extensively on windows, FontExpert 2006 was the hands down winner. The larger players on windows are really inferior (Suitcase being the clearest example of badly-ported me too software).
Most free windows apps offer pretty weak management and fail to support OTF and/or PS fonts (yes, that means The Font Thing which was released in 1999 and only handles TTF fonts!).
Anyway I then switched to the Mac which has wonderful font support (OpenType ligatures anyone?), and FontExplorer X is really great on that platform…
I don’t understand why X-Fonter was left out. Been using it over a year now and very satisfied about it.
It’s very powerful, but also very easy to handle. I haven’t seen any program with such filter capabilities
I’ve been using the web based STC Font Browser to supplement Windows inadequate font viewer, as a speedy way to fly through my fonts until the right text treatment leaps out at me.
I have to tell that, up to this point, I didn’t consider to use a font manager, even having a large font data base.
Forget about The Font Thing as it doesn’t support OpenType fonts. I use MainType from high-logic. It is compatible with Vista and supports all font types.
another +1 here for The Font Thing
Try latest 22-03-2007 Advaced Font Viewer v3.7 here
http://www.styopkin.com/details_advanced_fonts_viewer.html
It’s much harder when you try to manage various foreign languages fonts, without having some font manager.
I could send you a few hilarious behind-the-scenes stories. :) Well, at any rate, If we are pleasing you 99.9% of the time, I feel great! Focusing on that section of your message, I’ll say thank you for the compliment, and thanks for writing…
It’s by Linotype, so it’s no slouch of a program. And it’s free. Linotype makes money by providing links into its store any time you want to auto-activate a font that you don’t have in your collection. Consider an iTunes-like convenience or intrusion depending on your stance. Like iTunes, I haven’t needed FontExplorer’s built-in store access myself; but it’s nice to know it’s there should I decide to use it.OK
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