Suitcase 10

Rating:
Summary: Essential for font freaks and graphic designers
Review: I must say, I wish I had discovered this type manager for my Mac a long time ago. I have been using Adobe Type Manager Deluxe 4.5 for almost 3 years now and during that course of time have had many problems with it. Besides the fact that I found ATM very "non-user-friendly", it was constantly corrupting my typefaces and conflicting with my virus protection software. I finally got rid of it after upgrading my operating system to OS 9.1 when ATM was no longer compatible.

I first learned about Extensis Suitcase when I began a new job working as a graphic designer for an advertising firm. They ran Suitcase 9 on all of their computers. I immediately fell in love with its reliable usability and accessibility... so I put it on my Christmas wish list.

I installed Suitcase 10 on my own computer a week ago. (I am running a G3, 256MB RAM, 500mHz processor, 50GB HD machine). While the installation, setup and customization was very tedious, it was well worth the time. The way that Suitcase works is you basically dump all your fonts into a folder on your hard drive (not the system font folder) and then install Suitcase. You then proceed to import all of your fonts into Suitcase and organize them to your preference (serif, sans serif, decorative, script, etc.). Once imported and organized, you can activate and deactivate them as you need to use them. You can preview the appearance of your fonts in a preview pane. Suitcase reads the fonts from the separate folder on your hard drive so as not to slow down your computer. You can also customize the program to deactivate and reactivate certain typefaces as you open and close programs like Quark, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.

I had a few problems at the beginning where Suitcase was bitmapping certain fonts. Apparently this was a common situation as I easily rectified the problem through the trouble-shooting section of the Extensis website. Other than that, Suitcase has given me NO problems and I have been very happy with this product so far. I recommend it to any print or web designer who has an obsene number of typefaces on their machine (like me) and wants to keep them all. Don't waste your time and money on Adobe Type Manager.

(I might also note that Suitcase 10 is Mac OS X compatible... for when I finally upgrade to that)

Rating:
Summary: I just love this font manager!
Review: One of the first software that I purchased for my MAC G4 using OS X was Extensis Suitcase 10. What I love about OS X is the ability to use PC and MAC fonts together and with Suitcase 10, the ability to store those fonts somewhere and activate or deactivate them through Suitcase 10.

Extensis customer support has been excellent answering my questions immediately. Also, with every OS X update, especially now with Jaguar, there has been updates with Suitcase 10.

Suitcase 10 has received perfect ratings from many magazines and reviews have been wonderful.

I know there are a plethora of font managers for the MAC at this time but Suitcase 10 is worth the money and worth the investment. It's easy to install, easy to add your fonts, put them in categories and look at the fonts if you deal with many of them, like I do.

Also, they have released updates to work directly with Adobe Illustrator 10 and Adobe InDesign 2 for font auto-activation which is awesome!

Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: I just love this font manager!
Review: One of the first software that I purchased for my MAC G4 using OS X was Extensis Suitcase 10. What I love about OS X is the ability to use PC and MAC fonts together and with Suitcase 10, the ability to store those fonts somewhere and activate or deactivate them through Suitcase 10.

Extensis customer support has been excellent answering my questions immediately. Also, with every OS X update, especially now with Jaguar, there has been updates with Suitcase 10.

Suitcase 10 has received perfect ratings from many magazines and reviews have been wonderful.

I know there are a plethora of font managers for the MAC at this time but Suitcase 10 is worth the money and worth the investment. It's easy to install, easy to add your fonts, put them in categories and look at the fonts if you deal with many of them, like I do.

Also, they have released updates to work directly with Adobe Illustrator 10 and Adobe InDesign 2 for font auto-activation which is awesome!

Highly recommended!