I agree, I can’t wait any longer for Linotype’s FX for windows.

Yippee!

As a follow-up, a few notes on what I’ve found after a couple of days working with FontExpert:

Auto-activation via the InDesign CS2 plug-in:
For fonts to auto-activate they must, of course, be included in a custom font group in FontExpert. On opening a document in InD CS2 which uses a non-activated font, the file simply opens and the font is loaded. This seems to work by creating temporary font shortcuts in the Windows Fonts folder, which means that the activated fonts are available to any program while activated. Fonts de-activate on rebooting.

Program loading and system tray:
Unlike Suitcase (which I’ve used for years), FontExpert does not load on boot, which means it’s not loaded into the system processes on start up. This, however, results in a bit of a lag when you open FontExpert for the first time after a reboot. On my part, this may be because I’ve loaded a lot of groups with shortcuts pointing all over my font library, but it is a noteworthy lag and so I’m mentioning it here.

Bugs/observations:
On starting FontExpert all custom font groups are listed in the Groups pane, but a small irritant is that you must double-click on a font group folder (thereby “opening” it) in order for its contents to show up in the preview pane (unlike Suitcase, which showed preview on single-click). This means you can’t simply click on the first group and “scroll” down to preview each group’s fonts, which would be nice. Once a group is “open” and each font is previewed, you can then click on a single font to see the character map, font info, and sample text.

I’ll post more as I continue to explore the program...

Jason, I wonder if you are still sold on FontExpert. I have downloaded Font Agent Pro Public Beta for Windows and it’s acting very beta-ish on my computer, crashing often and very slow. I have Suitcase now and will be interested in seeing their upgrade later this month.

I do like the way Font Agent manages your fonts. It makes it very easy to separate out the necessary system fonts from the unnecessary and it does a good job of weeding out problem or duplicate fonts. But I spent hours trying to recreate my Suitcase sets. The method required is cumbersome and buggy. I have deactivated Suitcase while I try out FAP.

If you have a chance, can you tell me how you like FontExpert after using it a few months?

Thanks,

Sharon

Hi Sharon,

I continue to be pleased with FontExpert, both in terms of ease of organization and, in particular, the preview options. I’m curious to see the new Suitcase, and I must admit I haven’t tried FAP, but at this point it would take a fair bit to pull me away from FE.

That said, there are still a couple of bugs that irritate me. The main thing is that there is a significant lag in starting the program, and if you use the auto-activation plugin for InDesign it significantly slows down opening your InD files because each file you open must first call up FE to check which fonts need to be activated, and thus the program start-up lag comes into play. I’ve actually turned the plugin off to speed things up in InDesign, but I’m a freelancer so I’m not having to juggle more than a handful of projects at a time, so auto-activation isn’t a big issue.

Setting up groups is very simple, and I love that I can back-up my groups, something I could never seem to do with Suitcase.

If you have any specific questions I haven’t touched on, let me know.

Thank you, Jason. I think I will go with Font Expert also. Font Agent Pro is too buggy and I prefer the interface of Font Expert over Suitcase. The upgraded Suitcase didn’t solve any of my issues.

It helps to hear from someone using the program. Thanks for the update.

Sharon

One of my frustrations with Font Expert (at least I think it was Font Expert—I’ve tried out so many managers in the past few weeks that I’m having trouble keeping them all straight) is that it organizes your fonts into sets by moving the actual files. I much prefer a system like Suitcase or the old Font Reserve for Windows, which can organize your fonts into sets without moving or reorganizing your actual font files. (These managers simply create a database that contains information on the location of all of your font files.)

I want to keep my font files as they are now: in folders that are organized alphabetically by typeface. But I also want to create sets for projects and for general classification purposes. Am I correct in thinking that Font Expert can’t do this?

Matthew,

It’s been a while since I switched from FontExpert to High-Logic’s MainType (see my post on MainType here [32985]), but I’m pretty sure there was a preference/option that you can set in FontExpert to tell the program to create sets by linking, rather than moving/copying fonts.

In MainType, each time you create a set and/or install the fonts you’re asked if you want to copy/move/shortcut the font(s). Here’s a screenshot during the add to group step:

Like I said, have a look at my post on MainType if you’re still looking around for a manager; I’ve been running it for about 6 months now and am very pleased with it. It’s quick, does (almost) everything I want it to do, and it’s nicely inexpensive, and Erwin at High-Logic is very open to feedback and suggestions.

Thanks, Jason. I appreciate the helpful comments (and screenshot). I’ll give MainType a try.

I was also thinking of trying FontAgent Pro, when they release their Vista-ready version later this month. They allow for nesting font sets (which is nice), but I don’t know if their allow you to view all of the characters in an OpenType font. (That Suitcase allows you to view only the standard 256 characters is a crime. That you have to go to the options menu to switch between temporary and permanent activation is a crime against humanity. The again, the auto-activation with Suitcase runs pretty smoothly.)