Font managers

baronpork

New Member
Been collecting fonts since 90s, file folder is such a mess i cant believe it.
Any way to weed out duplicates, order into folders on disk.

Had used corel font manager way back when, but then it was useless for this. Good for displaying/installing, but not for moving files around/ordering on disk.

Any free/commercial options for doing physical font management ?
 
Just tried corel font manager again, and true to its form, 2 hours into font scanning it crashed and wrecked entire corel suite. Had to dive in the system to fix, as none of damn suite apps would start.
 
I've used fontbase in the past (it's free) but personally I just don't install many fonts these days and imo the ones I have are usually pretty easy to see in the font folder on windows 10 because the font's are shown as 'thumbnails'.
 
My usual workflow is - find font file i need, install, do the graphics, annotate in project file all font names used, convert to curves, save, uninstall font. Not efficient, but works for me. However, me returning to designing now and looking at that old crusty multilevel folder folder (oof, a mouthful) just does my head in. Font management on my part is way overdue...
 
Creating outlines is not necessary at all - unless specific to a certain type of workflow, for example, some plotters need the text as curves.
But outlining fonts is an outdated practice - and not necessary and font foundries agreed with Adobe (creator of the PDF) to allow embedding of the fonts in PDF - which is really what you should do.
You can outline the fonts in the PDF if necessary - using the Preflight tools of Acrobat Professional - or your print vendor can (should) do this if necessary.

One reason for not outlining fonts (especially with InDesign) is that the underlines/strikethroughs and a few other little pieces are often not converted, like paragraph rules, text column rules etc.

And if these are missing then you have issues going forward with your files.

Best to keep the font live.

There's no reason really to have a million squillion fonts these days. Get some cloud storage (usually free for a few GB of storage) and store online and pull down when required.

But having a font management software is handy.


Suitcase Fusion is cloud based, and when I open a document, the fonts load up - when I close the document the fonts close down.

Handy. And inexpensive. Sorry for pushing it, but it works.
 
Dont mind you pushing it. I am a cloud refusenik, but it looks like things are rolling down that hill anyway.
My main reason for converting manually is software version compatibility and need for interoperability between machine software. Looked at my super old files yesterday, most of them are unusable due to fonts missing. All due to years of changing operating systems, corel versions, bazillion reinstalls, HDD moves etc...
I generally dont do much "designing" as much as prepping for cutting/machining.
Which means corel has to be able to output the graphics in whatever format i need it to be EXACT. And i need to be sure that some procedural effect/structure will not wreck geometry upon converting AWAY FROM corel.
When i've finished "designing" i convert EVERYTHING to geometry in corel, check that cut lines are correct and only then start exporting be it plotter or a laser cutter for cut/engrave, because both of those have dedicated software for machining.
It has to be plain geometry, no colors/effects/layers. I dont use any methods used in printing at all. In my shop plain geometry rules all.
Also, PDF is the stupidest format to export plain geometry in :D (yeah, i dont print)...
 
Well fonts don't go missing using the cloud version - load them up there and they stay there - they activate when the file is opened.

Anyway - I'm aware of Corel and plotting and having everything outlined. Which is fine.

Font control is important.
 
For fonts that aren’t cloud-based, I use https://www.fontexplorerx.com/ This was because a client required it for access to their licenced fontserver. I stuck with it after that, but to be honest, I use various subscription services more now.
 
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