Manage your fonts in style (Extensis Suitcase X1 for Mac)

Member Name: davomrmac

Product:	Extensis Suitcase X1 for Mac
Date:	27/04/09 (37 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, powerful

Disadvantages: None

If you have ever used an Apple Macintosh you will know how superbly easy it is to use. You just seem to get things done. However, if you have ever worked in the 'design' industry, you will know that you have to handle many different typefaces, type styles, fonts, call them what you want. If you handle work from outside clients, they also bring their own fonts in from time to time. This makes it essential to have some way of organising and managing those fonts, otherwise you Mac will end up in a real mess. This is where the likes of Extensis Suitcase steps in.

The software gets its name from the way it presents the font management to you. You create groups (which look like little suitcases) and they contain fonts, or at least the information about where a particular font or group of fonts is stored on your Mac. You can then activate fonts individually or as a group. Once activated they become available in your design applications. There is also an option to 'auto-activate' your fonts, for the likes of Quark Xpress, InDesign and Illustrator, if you open a document or design that has fonts previously managed with Suitcase, they will activate, then deactivate (depending on your settings) when you close the document.

This is a great way of managing your fonts. If you handle a lot of different fonts, the only other way is to have them all active on your system the whole time. This is fine for say 100 or so, but the more you have starting up each time your computer starts, the slower your system will get. Plus, imagine wading through a few hundred fonts, just to find one, when you only use 200 of the others once in a blue moon. This is an essential application for anyone involved in design. It is not your only option, there are others (eg. FontExpress), but Suitcase is stable and very easy to setup and use.

Summary: Ver intuitive way to manage vast numbers of fonts

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