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mstress · Jan 23, 2004, 10:31 PM

Hello All ::

I'm looking for font management for OS X that organizes fonts in menus + flyouts as Adobe Type Reunion does in OS 9.

Does anyone know of an OS X font util that will do this?

your help, appreciated.

-mvs

himself · Jan 24, 2004, 07:52 AM

In menus? I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but there are only 3 (or 4, if can still get the last one in the list) font management apps out there that I know of, not including the one that came with OS X 10.3:

Font Agent Pro probably the best one available now.

Extensis Suitcase X1 a close second, could use some improvment though. still effective

MasterJuggler fairly decent. effective. still has some bugs to work out, interface needs work.

Font Reserve recently acquired by Extensis. I hated this app, it screwed up my system a couple of times, but some people swear by it. hasn't been updated for 10.3, but it was supposed to be.

I don't know if these meet you criteria, but none is as simple and efficient as ATM for OS 9. Go to their websites, look at the features and screenshots, and try a demo, if available. That's the best way to determine if one of these will suit your needs.

mstress · Jan 24, 2004, 10:29 AM

Originally posted by himself:
In menus? I'm not exactly sure what you mean,

What I mean is similar fuctionality to what Adobe Type Reunion provided for OS 9. Organizing font in the font menu of each app.
Instead of seeing a font menu with selections in an incredibly long list of fonts like this ::

IBO Futura Bold Oblique
B Futura Bold
BI Futura Bold Italic (etc.)

The menu has a more organized structure, organized by font family, like this

Futura >
Thin
Thin Oblique
Light
Light Oblique
Roman
Roman Oblique

Helvetica Neue >
25 Light
26 Light Italic
35 Thin
36 Thin Italic.... (etc.)

To my knowledge, there are no apps/utils to handle this in OS X.

(If this ASCII illustration isn't clear, I'll post an image.)

Thanks for your suggestions. I've tried Suitcase, and been mostly underwhelemed.
I'll take a look at Font Agent Pro, and see if that suits my needs better.

Cheers!

Corys · Jan 25, 2004, 12:03 AM

you are correct...there is no program that I know of that will do this..

while most apps handle this internally now (adobe/macromedia/quark) a few of my apps don't (filemaker pro is my main one)..

frustrating..

I use font agent pro for my font organization and activation and had good success.

himself · Jan 25, 2004, 01:01 AM

I see what you mean... it would be good to have a utility like that for OS X. hopefully, some programmer will develop it eventually.

godzookie2k · Jan 25, 2004, 02:40 AM

most apps should handle this internally now. reunion was nothing but a nightmare to keep a system stable with back in the day.

mstress · Jan 26, 2004, 11:05 AM

While we've been having this conversation, I've still been on the hunt for a Type Reunion type utility for OS X, and I found this ::

http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/fontcard/

It's the only thing that I can see that makes sense of a font menu.
I don't care about the WYSIWIG display -- infact I hate it -- but the font organization is just what I was talking about. The PS/TT signaling is a nice feature, as well.

There is a caveat... It's not ready for Panther. But, Unsanity is forecasting a Jan '04 delivery on that.

Thanks for the tips on the other apps, I'll definitely be checking out FontAgent pro.

BTW:: It hasn't been my experience that apps handle this internally. What am I missing????

himself · Jan 28, 2004, 08:51 AM

Originally posted by mstress:
�It hasn't been my experience that apps handle this internally. What am I missing????

Some apps (namely the Adobe suite) does handle this internally, but not for all fonts. I've noticed on numerous occasions where the individual fonts from a single font family a strewn across the font menu.

pconnell · Feb 4, 2004, 10:36 AM

I've been with Mac since OS 3 and Mac Plus, when I saw the (then) amazing things it did for printing and graphics. I've spent tens of thousands on Apple software and hardware over the last twenty years, but lately I feel orphaned.

I find it significant that people here (as well as myself) are wistfully wishing for the arguably flawed type management functionality of Sys 6.

I too remember how convenienient ATR was, but how buggy it was too. I don't like WYSIWG menus, either so bravo that unsanity is developing a hack to help.

I just installed Font Agent in Panther and it seems to work, mostly. I'm still feeling my way around.

However, I've been using Apple's Font Book to manage the resident system fonts, many of which I either turn off or trash.

Last night, the program was putting all my deleted fonts into the trash, when I selected one font (I forget which one) it "evaporated" most of my system fonts, some few of which I've recently gotten attached to (thanks to a kind of a shotgun wedding, courtesy of Apple). I say evaporated, because I checked off one font to be thrown in the trash, and ZAP, about 20 native families disappeared into hyperspace. I can live without most of them, but I'm not even sure what was lost. I looked in the trash among the other fonts that the program had previously trashed, and they weren't there. Who knows where they went? Something to do with String Theory, perhaps?

This is really a minor bump in a long road of cheeseball font management in OSX, so I'm not even surprised. But I do feel abandoned by Apple and Adobe. Thank goodness for people like unsanity who are paying attention while
Steve Jobs goes all starry-eyed over the next latest fad. Does Apple have to be so friggin' monophasic?javascript:smilie('

')

I'd jump over to Intel in a heartbeat if I weren't such a Mac junkie and fearful of viruses.
javascript:smilie('

')

Timo · Feb 4, 2004, 10:48 AM

Originally posted by himself:
Font Reserve recently acquired by Extensis. I hated this app, it screwed up my system a couple of times, but some people swear by it. hasn't been updated for 10.3, but it was supposed to be.

FWIW Font Reserve has been updated to work with Panther (3.1.3), and auto-activation is working for me in Quark again.

mydog8mymac · Feb 5, 2004, 10:01 AM

Originally posted by Timo:
FWIW Font Reserve has been updated to work with Panther (3.1.3), and auto-activation is working for me in Quark again.

Thanks�I love Font Reserve and admit that it's been wonky in the past, but I haven't upgraded to Panther because of this issue.

naderby · Feb 12, 2004, 06:41 AM

FontCard has been updated today.

rilina · Feb 25, 2004, 01:56 PM

I'm not a professional designer by any means, but I've got a working knowledge of Quark--one that allows me to do minor design projects on quick turnaround times when our Art department is swamped with more important things. Anyway, I was designing a print ad in Quark 6 (on a G5 running 10.2.8 with Font Agent Pro) and found that only part of any font set was loading. For example, when I went to use Scala Sans, Quark would only find Scala Sans Caps and Scala Sans Caps Bold--none of the normal roman, bold, or italic faces were showing up. When I looked in Font Agent, the entire font set was listed as activated. Restarting apps didn't solve anything. Does anyone have any suggestions that would allow me to use all of my activated fonts?