Fontagent pro 7 to 81/27/2024 ![]() So with the stage set, let's see how they fared. After a slow and rocky start for font management on Mac OS X, it's now good times for font junkies. The big three reviewed here-Insider FontAgent Pro, Linotype FontExplorer X, and Extensis Suitcase Fusion-are now all Universal Binaries for Intel Macs. Now, years after Suitcase started the ball rolling on System 6, we're lucky enough to have some very mature font management tools for Mac OS X. The result is a need to handle and navigate the abundant libraries available while not stifling that creative process. Nowadays clients are wiser and choosier, fonts are cheaper (not making them out of steel helps), and everyone and their dog is making fonts (the dog fonts are terrible you really don't want to use those). In simpler times, you pulled open a drawer, chose between the three sets of steel blocks, said "I don't care who you are, you're getting Garamond," and that was that. For designers that juggle a range of clients and projects, working with fonts is more a nebulous creative ritual of feeling a brand, and it demands a tool worthy of the task. To prepress houses and service bureaus, it is the pit stop: you turn it on, hit Print, and go deal with the real work-the more time you have to spend dealing with the font management/activation process, the less money you are making. To people outside of design and typography, I'm sure that the words "font manager" sound like something taking itself way too seriously-like some sort of gilded spice rack-but for those that need to work with fonts on a daily basis, the font manager is serious business. Giving a lot of time to these programs in a production setting is crucial to seeing how they perform on a daily basis, and I am confident I've thrown enough varied scenarios at each to find out where they succeed and fail. I've also succeeded in not completely losing my mind while the developers updated the apps, nullifying half my criticisms in the process. In this way, FontAgent Pro works like Font Reserve.Well, it was a long time coming, but I've been through the trenches and come up, sucking chest wound and all, with the Ars review of font management programs. But if you quit FontAgent Pro, all your fonts remain active as long as you keep your computer on, or until you open FontAgent to deactivate them. Like Suitcase, FontAgent Pro works as a separate application. ![]() Select the font, group of fonts, or font set then click on the On or Off button (rather than Activate or Deactivate) in the upper left of the FontAgent Pro window. Best of Both WorldsĪs with Font Reserve and Suitcase, activating and deactivating fonts is quick and easy however, FontAgent Pro uses different terminology. The font book you produce will include all the fonts you’ve chosen, displayed in the format you set in Font Player. ![]() But you can select as many fonts as you like, click on the print button in Font Player, and then save the set of displayed fonts as a PDF. Further kerning, spacing, and ligature controls found in the Fonts menu let you refine your preview.įont Player’s major drawback is that it limits you to viewing only one font at a time, unlike Suitcase, which provides an excellent multiple-font preview pane. Font Player is actually a versatile preview engine that lets you sample type size, font color, background color, and text. The lower right pane contains Font Player, an iTunes look-alike. You can designate font sets as startup sets, which means they will start up with your computer. Once you have a complete library, making working sets is easy: you just drag font names to the Sets pane from the library pane. It will also check for duplicate or orphaned font files. FontAgent Pro will verify all your fonts, checking them for corruption or damage, and it will remove them if it finds problems. FontAgent lets you set up multiple libraries to avoid confusion if you receive fonts from clients or other outside sources. The easiest way to begin building a comprehensive library is simply to drag your hard-drive icon into the library pane on the left. FontAgent’s printed documentation is sparse, but font-management novices will appreciate the application’s simple tutorial when they’re getting started = it’s located in the Secrets menu. The upper right pane shows sets, and the lower right one is for previews. ![]() On the left of the main window is the library and sets pane its tabs are similar in appearance to Microsoft Internet Explorer’s various tabs (History, Favorites, and so on). FontAgent Pro’s multipaned window interface is similar to Font Reserve’s and Suitcase’s, but FontAgent Pro has some subtle differences.
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