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Install a free iTunes-like font management app
Authored by: gaoshan on Sep 22, '05 12:45:00PM

What are font management apps like this for? I really have no idea but it seems like heavy type users love things like this (or Suitcase).

What do they do and how do you use them?



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Install a free iTunes-like font management app
Authored by: DavidRavenMoon on Sep 22, '05 01:20:17PM

"What do they do and how do you use them?"

People use them in different ways, depending on the situation. Originally the problem was you could only have so many fonts open at once, and the more fonts you had open, the more memory, etc. they used. Back in the day you had to install a font into the Mac's fonts folder and restart. This way you turn on only the fonts you need.

The other reason is some people like to use the auto-activation feature, so if you open a document, and it uses a font not active, the font manager will activate that font. This is generally a bad idea if you work in a pre-press situation, and we leave that feature disabled. We need absolute control over which font is active or not.

In the workflow I outlined above, we use a font manager to make a font set, with the job number/name, and add fonts from that job on a server, and then turn font sets on and off as we work on different jobs. This way we can manage many duplicate fonts easily.

We also use the font manager to disable most of the fonts that come with OS X, so we can avoid font conflicts, such as having both the PostScript and dfont version of Helvetica open at the same time, for example.


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G5/2.7GHz x 2, 1.5 GB, Mac OS X 10.4.2
www.david-schwab.com
www.imanicoppolamusic.com



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Install a free iTunes-like font management app
Authored by: pub3abn on Sep 22, '05 03:04:33PM

If you are a general user, you probably won't get much benefit from this. To be honest, even as a graphic designer I've gotten along quite well -- despite a library of thousands of fonts -- with just Apple's Font Book. I pretty much work with a basic subset of fonts, and then activate and deactivate special fonts (mostly display or decorative faces) as needed. Home users might appreciate the ability to preview fonts, catch conflicts, and maybe even gain a better understanding of where your fonts are and what all you have. But unless you are regularly adding new fonts or working with type, you might not need or benefit from a font manager.

For people who juggle lots of fonts, and are very particular about what fonts are active (and which versions, technologies, etc.), a font manager is very useful.



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