[MojoRising022]

Which one do I buy?

i have a ton of fonts that i use for different projects - using Quark in Clasic for the most part - and would like to have the ability to organize them somehow. I would alos like the softweare to be X native for use with Freehand, Indesign, and (tomorrow hopefully) Flash MX.

Thanks folks!!

[KidRed]

I reccomend Suitcase, only because I've used it for a few years and I'm happy with it. Suitcase for X is out, works with PC fonts no need to convert, reads all my old 9 fonts and can have have many sets as I want. I have never used FotnReserve, so I can't comment or compare. Maybe get demos of both?

[EddieDesignsDotCom]

good topic!! I also want a true answer to this...

over the last week I have read in many places FR is the way to. Suitcase constantly crashes on me and at present takes 2 hours to open up every time I reboot!!

what are the advantages of Font Reserve?

[macusrX]

i use suitcase at work and have had no problems really.... the only thing about both that is annorying is the lack of plug-ins for programs like illustrator 10. any of the newer programs are not supported yet.....

[Mark N]

I have been using both and both have pros and cons. Font reserve handles the fonts better. Suitcase reports conflicts but doesn't seem to auto switch. I like the suitcase instant preview of the fonts. Right now with Font Reserve, I'm getting Error 600 all the time. If I could fix that, I would plan to use it.

forgot to log in...


font doctor is out for x for all of suitcases short comings- it REALLY diagnoses the problem font issues- i may say too much - its the way it favours bitmaps over postscript, over true type, (or ps over bit over true or some combo of those) however, i ended up with true versions of font i know i have the 2 correct files of postscript, as well as true type. still, it fixes problems suitcase doesnt- and if you set it up right, i think these problems could be easily over come.

i say the above because suitcase continuosly crashes when i import my fonts (well, drag+drop the whole fonts file onto it), and if it cant do that properly,im sceptical. plus the auto activation is pony, if non exsistant, but like said, the preview is brilliant. i doubt my problems with it are hardware based ie pushing it too hard as ive got a dual 800+1.2gb ram, or font based- this is after i got font doctor, and in os9 it did the same task no problems. i guess im still at a loss at atm deluxe's untimely departure...<sniff>

Font reserve i cannot comment on, (the demo is too limited to fully test- i would really like to do it though) but any app that works as well as atmd (in 9) in x has my money- to be honest, despite its sort comings, i recon it will be suitcase in a future release. like kid red says, i think its purely suck it and see...

[himself]

I'm using Suitcase 10 right now and I must say it is pretty good, except for a few minor probs...

1)It used to crash on startup/login for no apparent reason... rebooting would clear it up

2)Some fonts activated in Suitcase won't show up in Illustrator... I suspect that this is an Illustrator problem, since those same fonts work fine in Indesign

3)It wont recognize the font file for a couple of typefaces that I know are installed... I get only pixelated previews in the preview window. It could be that my font files are corrupted, although they work fine in ATM Deluxe in 9...

Those are the only problems I've had with Suitcase, and they are minor for me (at least, they aren't major *yet*). i would still like to give font reserve a try just for comparison, but I'm inclined to say that it's a toss-up.

[cowerd]

Font Doctor fuxored up many of my fonts trying to "repair" them. Beware.

Font Reserve has had problems starting up the database when booting, and doesn't seem to activate fonts that are suppsoed to be open in sets. Go figure.

BTW OSX is much pickier about corrupted fonts than OS9. If you are having any problems with font management check for corrupt fonts first.

[KidRed]

I have no crqash problems with suitcase, and it does not slow down lon start up as noted above for me. It handles fonts nicely for me. I love how I can activate a font and it's live instantly in PS.

If you get a pixelated preview I believe that means the font doesn't have its post script counter part (or something)

[tinrib]

I like suitcase, although it is crash prone. Without the crashes, suitcase would be very good. The crashes are usually blamed on a font. Funny how fonts can just corrupt by sitting there not being used... Anyway I expect the bugs to be ironed out in either the next release or the following one. Although they *are* taking their time. I mean what do the folks at Extensis do all day?

Not bringing Adobe Type Manager to X... I still can't get my head around that decision.

I haven't tried Font Reserve, it's current version is 3.0.1 and the latest number in Surfe.... hang on wait, what am I saying??

What I meant was after spending so much money on Suitcase I am loathe to spend more $$$s on something I might not like.

[Timo]

My vote's for Font Reserve.

I'm not sure if Suitcase auto-activates fonts, but it sure is handy in Font Reserve. In Quark (or some other programs), if a document needs a font that you don't have turned on, FR temporarily activates it. When you close the file, the font is deactivated.

The font management has a number of good features. You can manage fonts in any folder, or fold them into a "vault." From the vault you can activate any font, or a copy of the font, so that your font is less likely to become damaged. Fonts can be sorted any number of ways with on-the-fly filters.

I also used FR to print a large typeface book.

Finally, tech support at Diamondsoft is good, and the upgrade from 2.6 (OS 9) to 3.0 (OS 9/X) was free.

[KidRed]

Originally posted by Timo:
<STRONG>My vote's for Font Reserve.

I'm not sure if Suitcase auto-activates fonts, but it sure is handy in Font Reserve. In Quark (or some other programs), if a document needs a font that you don't have turned on, FR temporarily activates it. When you close the file, the font is deactivated.

The font management has a number of good features. You can manage fonts in any folder, or fold them into a "vault." From the vault you can activate any font, or a copy of the font, so that your font is less likely to become damaged. Fonts can be sorted any number of ways with on-the-fly filters.

I also used FR to print a large typeface book.

Finally, tech support at Diamondsoft is good, and the upgrade from 2.6 (OS 9) to 3.0 (OS 9/X) was free.</STRONG>

Suitcase does everything you mentioned. I know the auot-activation happens with Illustrator. I think they are working on others, but i believe it does have that.

I have 6 font folders, about 200+ fonts that Suitcase handles. I've used it for a while, so I'm used to it, again, no crashes here.

[tinrib]

Originally posted by Timo:
<STRONG>Finally, tech support at Diamondsoft is good, and the upgrade from 2.6 (OS 9) to 3.0 (OS 9/X) was free.</STRONG>

Really? hmmmmm...

[chris v]

Suitcas auto-activation works fine in Illustrator and Quark, so long as Suitcase is open. It's fast, too.

I've found that if you have the Spinning Pizza of Death when launching Suitcase, that dumping the prefs takes care of it. I was experiencing 15-20 second delays, trashed the suitcase prefs yesterday, then reloaded all my third party fonts, (drag and drop the folders-- takes 2 secs.) and now it launches in 1 bounce, and the main window displays instantly.

We use it at work all day, and haven't had any crashes in a month.

It's not perfect, but it works as advertised.

CV

[trilogic]

I used atm deluxe on os9. now I'm looking for a fontmanager for OSX.

So I downloaded both trials for suitcase and fontreserve. for me suitcase looks more familiar and I think it's just easier to use. I can't say anything about speed or crashes yet. but I think I'll buy suitcase.

[oranjdisc]

I have used both Font Reserve and Suitcase, and my vote goes to Suitcase. Mainly because...

� On my side, Suitcase is more stable than FR.
��Extensis has a history of updating their apps often - Font Reserve is a sloth.
� The interface, for me anyway, is better in Suitcase.
� Plus, and I could be wrong, isn't Suitcase less expensive?

[subego]

I thought FR was the cat's pajamas on 9, so I was pretty happy when they released 3.0.

Let's just say the pajama factor has been reduced somewhat. It chokes alot. Bad fonts kill it dead, dead, dead.

It functions though, and from this thread it seems like Suitcase has it's share of crash problems too.

Almost needless to say, at least when FR crashes, it doesn't take the whole machine down.

From my perspective (using only one of the two apps) it seems to be six of one-half, a dozen of the other... Pick the one with the features you want, as they are both basically young, buggy-ass programs that, despite this handicap, do what they say.

Quite impressive really...

P.S. Haven't used FD... The report above of it munging fonts is a bit scary, huh?

[mkurland]

My experience has been somewhat different.

I used to use Font Reserve under OS 9, for years... and was happy with it.

When I moved over to X, Font Reserve continued to do a good enough job for my Classic apps, but I jumped onto Suitcase when it became available for OS X. I've found it to be solid compared with Font Reserve, but I miss Font Reserve's superior ability to filter and display sets of fonts by a variety of criteria (including font class, like serf/san serif/script/dingbat, etc.) With several thousand fonts being managed, scrolling through Suitcase's list is *slow*.

Anyways, I was up-to-date with the most recent version of Font Reserve, so upgrading to 3.0 for X was free, and I thought it would be worth trying out. I didn't spend more than a few days with it. I found it to be extremely unstable, and it also seemed to have (IMO) an unintuitive manner of dealing with the System fonts that it doesn't manage (they're essentially ignored). I really wanted to be able to use it because of its better filtering features... but it wasn't worth the idiosyncrasies.

One thing that I really wanted to do with Font Reserve was to export a slew of fonts, by foundry, for backup purposes... and it crashed on sets of a couple of hundred fonts. (This wasn't stable under OS 9 either... but I had hoped it was a memory management issue that would be a non-issue in OS X. No such luck).

All in all, warts and all, I'm living with Suitcase for now.

Another observation: It seems to me that recognition of activated fonts is more a property of the application involved than the font manager. some apps seem to recognize newly activated fonts... others seem to cache the available of fonts at launch to build their menus, and there's nothing to be done about it unless or until we complain about it!

[badtz]

was wondering how is the situation between the two software now-a-days?

[oranjdisc]

Extensis has updated Suitcase a handful of times since March, and to be perfectly honest it isn't getting any better with me. I use it, but don't necessarily like it. The app is dog slow, especially when it comes to previews, moving fonts, activating / deactivating, etc. Plus, font activation only works half the time in Illustrator, and never in apps like Photoshop and Flash.

I was spoiled by Suitcase in 9, which activated any font from any app when called for.

Font Reserve...don't go there. That beast is a sloth.

Truth is, font management / control in X is HORRIBLE compared to 9. I can't stand it.

Here's hoping Extensis releases more updates with the landing of 10.2.