Fonts, how do you manage them?

farss wrote on 5/5/2006, 2:12 PM
I've been looking at some very nice fonts, the ones that COST that is. My opinion is these are worth the serious money, they just add that extra little bit to the look of a work.
But I'm slowly getting bogged down by the sheer number of fonts on my systems, even trying to find a font becomes an issue. Seems what I/we need are better tools for managing these crucial assets than the native way Windoz does it. One app that does a good job is Cayman Graphics, you load the fonts you'll use as part of a project / template, makes for a better workflow.
However it'd be good to have something at the system level that spanned all apps or at least Vegas AND DVDA.
Now here's a thought, could fonts be stored into Media Manager, hm, that'd give me cause to turn it back on as they're one thing I use accross all project, being able to say reference them on a per client basis would be attractive.
The other thing I'd like to see is a font recognition system, I know of one graphic artist who earns money doing this by eye, I'd think today this should be doable by software, if we can find a face in a crowd a font from a bit image should be simple.

And here's my other beef, some of the high end graphic apps seem to do sensible things with fonts. When you save the project they package all the font files with it. I've had a right PIA problem with moving Vegas projects between systems only to find that the other system (which is miles away) doesn't have the fonts needed on it.

Bob.

Comments

Coursedesign wrote on 5/5/2006, 2:46 PM
FontAgent Pro is the best program for managing fonts in a professional environment.

Unfortunately it is for that other platform only.

Suitcase is the best font management program for Windows. They have a 30-day trial, too.

To identify a font, scan a sample and go to WhatTheFont. Works very well, and the price is right (i.e. free).

Myfonts.com is a very good supplier for fonts, great ways to browse and/or search for fonts, and good prices. I have used them fairly extensively for more than one year, consistently great to deal with.

kentwolf wrote on 5/5/2006, 2:51 PM
>>Suitcase is the best font management program for Windows

Question: Why is a font manager even needed?

It is my understanding that WinXP handles fonts differently than previous versions of Windows, so reportedly, tons of fonts, don't bog down the system like days of old.

I ask because I used to have Suitcase, but got my money back when I really saw no advantage for using it.

It just seemed to introduce another layer of complexity.

Comments?

Thanks!
Grazie wrote on 5/5/2006, 3:04 PM
Simple. No song and dance. Boss Fonts. Love it.

http://www.arts-letters.com/bossfont/bossfont.html


Grazie
farss wrote on 5/5/2006, 4:06 PM
Thanks guys,
some good info. However what I'd really like is a way to catalogue fonts, I'm starting to use more 16 bit fonts and in Windows even their names are in the native language, what a pain.
So what I'd like to see is instead of just having a drop down to select from 2,000 fonts is a way sort them by language, then maybe style etc. Getting all the 'bad acid trip' fonts mixed in with everything else is going to become unworkable, although the program that Grazie linked to might just be an answer.

On a per project basis I could swap fonts in and out of the Fonts directory.

Hm, thinking about this one could script this with Vegas?

BTW, the Lineotype and David Carson fonts that I 'found' somewhere are very good. I'm not talking 9 inch nails stuff here, just the ones that look very similar to the standard fare but are way more pleasing to the eye.

Bob.
Coursedesign wrote on 5/5/2006, 5:35 PM
So what I'd like to see is instead of just having a drop down to select from 2,000 fonts is a way sort them by language, then maybe style etc.

Suitcase allows you to do just that.

WIndows XP loses less performance with more fonts than previous versions, but you can still gain significantly from not having many hundreds of fonts loaded, not to mention 2,000.

kentwolf wrote on 5/5/2006, 7:58 PM
>>Suitcase allows you to do just that.

Good point. I hadn't thought of that.

Thanks!
snicholshms wrote on 5/5/2006, 9:58 PM
Check out AMP Font Viewer 3.70 here:

http://www.ampsoft.net/utilities/FontViewer.php

See all your fonts and make your selection. Easy to use, too.
farss wrote on 5/5/2006, 10:27 PM
Thanks guys, Suitcase looks excellent and a reasonable price.
AMP Font Viewer also looks good and seems to be a freebie.

Bob.
Coursedesign wrote on 5/7/2006, 11:32 AM
Custom fonts are sometimes designed for just one word, but I doubt that was the case here.

For WhatTheFont, did you isolate the font to black on white, and used the # of pixels recommended for the height?
mrBun wrote on 5/7/2006, 5:39 PM
I'd have to agree with the other voices coming out for "Suitcase".
Been using it for years (had it as a Quark companion back in the Pre-Press days)...can flip it open from the toolbar and add fonts as needed...can customise your folders to get to where you need to be with a minimum of fuss...once you have set your categories up, it is easy, and painless.