Extensis Suitcase??

digital disastadigital disasta
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I've been reading a lot about Font management for the past few days and I kind of don't understand what the point of it is. I understand that the more fonts you have installed on your Mac the slower it is to bring up the menus, and the less amount of ram you have for other applications, that much I get. What I don't get is what these Font Management programs do. Do they eliminate the usage Ram by installing the fonts as you need them? Do they do anything at all resource wise to help the comp run any better? Or is this just a nicer way to install/view fonts? I have Adobe Font Folio, and I was going to install them all, until I started reading about how it could really bog down the computer. Info??

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,322moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Digital Disasta View Post


    Do they eliminate the usage Ram by installing the fonts as you need them? Do they do anything at all resource wise to help the comp run any better? Or is this just a nicer way to install/view fonts? I have Adobe Font Folio, and I was going to install them all, until I started reading about how it could really bog down the computer. Info??



    Yeah, that's pretty much what they do, they can load your fonts when you need them. Like if you open an Indesign file, if there are missing fonts, it will activate the ones you need.



    I don't think they do anything to make the machine run better. They do use their own caches though so possibly they can be more optimal but I doubt it.



    One advantage they do have is finding font corruption and being able to repair it.



    I don't really understand much about how fonts work because to me they seem so simple and yet they can cause quite a few problems. They are basically just vector outlines of shapes. They should really come to about a few hundred kb at most and yet some are 10MB or more. Also, I don't get how the system can't detect corrupted fonts and correct them or load/unload them on the fly when you do and don't need them. If they're only a few hundred kb each then surely it can load them when it needs them.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    digital disastadigital disasta Posts: 495member
    I guess I'll try the demo and see how it goes. I've been reading more about it, and it sounds like something I'm just gonna have to try and see if it works for me. It sounds useful, but shelling out 100 bucks for something that might be of use is a little steep.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    digital disastadigital disasta Posts: 495member
    So I've been trying out the Suitcase Fusion app, and I have to say, if you have a lot of font it's worth it. I tried the demo for 2 days and bought it. I definitely needed something like this.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    rezwitsrezwits Posts: 879member
    One of the best things about Suitcase is that when you add fonts to Font Book, it copies them from a master font folder to /Library/Fonts/ then you can turn them off and on but Suitcase doesn't copy them over leaving them in a master folder just nice, so if you need to send some to your service bureau got to you organized folder instead of digging thru the /Library/Fonts folder. Another thing is Font Book still seems buggy and is slow...
  • Reply 5 of 6
    digital disastadigital disasta Posts: 495member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by rezwits View Post


    One of the best things about Suitcase is that when you add fonts to Font Book, it copies them from a master font folder to /Library/Fonts/ then you can turn them off and on but Suitcase doesn't copy them over leaving them in a master folder just nice, so if you need to send some to your service bureau got to you organized folder instead of digging thru the /Library/Fonts folder. Another thing is Font Book still seems buggy and is slow...



    Wait I'm confused...what do you mean? I have realized that when I install the fonts through Suitcase, and search for the font in spotlight, it doesn't find it, which I thought was very strange. Do you have to activate the font and then search for it, or are they hidden some where? Honestly I don't really care where they install to, but in the case I would ever need to send a font to someone, I don't know what the hell I would do.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    rezwitsrezwits Posts: 879member
    When you use font book to add a new font, font book copies the font over to you Library/Fonts/ folder. When you use suitcase you drop the font in the suitcase window and it just uses the font immediately, wherever the font is as soon as its activated, it doesn't make a copy.
Sign In or Register to comment.