Suitcase Fusion vs Font Explorer® X

[tonyconte]

I've been using Suitcase Fusion for a few years now and its kind of been fine really.  I love the way it handles fonts with Quark and Indesign well.

I'm now in teh process of getting a new MBP 17" with Snow Leopard and was wondering if Font Exporer X is better or not?

Has anyone made the switch to it?  is it better? faster? good at auto activiation?

many thanks for your comments.

[Guest]

It's obvious, as with anything, that people tend to like that which they use and they'll defend it vehemently, to the point of making themselves look foolish.

I've been dealing with font management for decades, since the early pre OSX versions of Mac OSs.

I've gone back and forth from one solution to the next, never bearing allegiance to any software developer.

There's pro's and cons to every piece of software and fonts are a particualr pain in the arse, as they utilize a lot of system resources.

So with that being said, here's a cold, hard fact...

FontExplorerX is made by Linotype. Linotype develops & distributes typefaces.

So the question you should ask yourself is, do you trust your Ferrari to the Yugo mechanic or do you bring it to the Ferrari mechanic?

FontExplorer has given me infinitely less problems in it's entire short history than Suitcase did the first year alone that I used it when it first came out back in the day.

Type management built from a company which has a solid history of type development. Makes sense, no?

[BobLevine]

Your logic is completely lost on me.

[jhjhhjh]

Probably not the best analogy.

I'm glad this topic picked up again because I've intended to report in.

I gave the Font Explorer trial about 3 weeks. There were little things about it that I didn't care for. Probably more of a personal nature in that I was accustomed to Suitcase for a number of years, despite that it peed me off on occassion. I don't even recall exactly what it was that I didn't care for with Explorer X. It was 2 months or so ago - a long time for my pea brain to recall. Basically fiddly nitpicky stuff.

It took longer than Suitcase to activate fonts each time I opened a file. It also required me to click OK to activate fonts, or do something of that nature, each time. There could be a setting to avoid doing this.

I've upgraded to Suitcase 5 and haven't had a single problem (yet). It's way easier than previous versions to add fonts and in all it's just been doing everything that could be expected, smooth as can be.

One problem I did have, was trouble with InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop freezing on me. It turned out that the software was looking for my Font Explorer install, which I thought I had thoroughly uninstalled. Not so. For those who may have the same problem, when you uninstall Font Explorer you also have to manually remove the plugin file from the plugins folder of each application - InDesign etc. At least that was my experience.

Anyways, I'm now happy with Suitcase 5. I run Windows 7.

Thanks to all who contributed their 2 cents

Keith

[finktank]

So what kind of library are you running? Have you crated a million new libraries to manage your fonts as Extensis advise or do you just have a small one?

[jhjhhjh]

If you're speaking to me, I have one main library with several sub catagories. Around 6,000 entries I think. I haven't added all my fonts. I was only saying what works for me.

Bob is extremely helpful over a number of forums and is well aware of issues.

Keith

[finktank]

Not sure Bob is that aware. Honestly, I think anyone can become Adobe certified. You speak to many of the large agencies with worldwide offices using Extensis products and they will reel off the issues they have with Extensis and how they got lumbered with it. For people who work with them and have our own kit we just want some stability in the software which we're promissed we can only have IF we upgrade to the latest version which only come with further issues. I've been through several versions of Suitcase and it's always been a problem. The honest truth is Extensis don't care about their users.

[jhjhhjh]

I can only say that with Fusion 5 I see an improvement over previous versions. Granted I've only added about 6,000 as yet (out of sheer laziness & lack of necessity) but I haven't had any problem at all. I agree that previous versions had glitches and support was terrible. That's why I was hesitant to upgrade and tried out Explorer X. Based on my 2 month experience with Suitcase 5, I'd say that Extensis has dun good this time. But don't whine to me if it doesn't work for you.

Keith

[Guest]

I agree with you. As an example, I've been working on and with Apple computers so long (since the first Mac) that I could put any Apple tech to shame and I'm not certified.

Certification is typically just something a company charges, to make extra money, from fools who want to act like they knew more than everybody else, as some high school kid comes along and trumps the so-called "certified" expert five ways from Sunday.

[MW Design]

This thread is going nowhere pretty fast.

[Guest]

While I agree with you, to an extent, the fact is that sometimes, no, I correct myself... always, one must weed through the excruciating minutia of "certified" BS and semantics to come to a real solution.

That's what we're doing here right now, as you can tell, a certain someone hadn't been active for two months exactly, but jumped back within 13 minutes, to lay nonsense into the mix.

It's a sad reality of the internet, have been dealing with this garbage for more than 20 years of my app and interactive development career.

Typically those people are the catalysts in getting topics closed.

[MW Design]

Well, I agree with Bob to a large extent. The argument that if a company can publish fonts (and create some) that they will therefore make the best font manager, is nonsense. Now, they just might make the best. In the one day I had it installed just recently, I found it slow as a snail jogging down the expressway. Didn't muck anything up on my system, though. So that's a plus.

As to Bob's posting frequency? You did look at his profile to view his activity, didn't you? He averages 2400 posts per year since what Adobe shows as his join date. That would be about 200 posts per month. Which is about 6.6 posts per day. While Bob and I would disagree on a few issues (mainly the viability of using a subscription model for software), I know if I needed to request help, I would read his post(s) and try what he has to say.

[jhjhhjh]

Wasn't me that was knocking Bob. I've always found him to be most helpful. Whether a person agrees or not is no reason to slag someone for trying to help. If I recall correctly, Bob used to chime in from time to time on the old 'comp.publish.prepress', or whatever it was called, on newsnet. That was a good forum when it was active.

I found Explorer slow as well. I expect that will ignite yet more furor. oh well.

K

[BobLevine]

AhŠusenet! What memories.

[jhjhhjh]

Yeah, I learned a lot on that forum. I was relatively new to the computer side at the time. My background is primarily as a press operator & film assembly. I guess everyones background was film heh,heh. At least everyones beyond a certain age.

Keith

[jhjhhjh]

Hi MW

You have that right. heh,heh. It started out harmless enough.

Keith

[Guest]

It's not that difficult of a concept to comprehend, no idea why you find it so bewildering.

You do realize that there is more to making an application than just the interface, right?

Clearly not.

[finktank]

I think you make a pretty logical point. Not to mention, if your have a large library, as I imagine Linotype obviously do, the last thing you'll want is to have font issues. Dunno who Bob is but he doesn't know the issues we face.