Comments on: Grading the New Font “Features” in OS X Leopard

By: kelly

kelly — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:50:47 +0000

i just migrated from tiger to leopard, and did it in a vey “clean” way… i was wondering what’s the deal when migrating fonts… do you have any tipp?
thanks!

By: Stephen Coles

Stephen Coles — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:00:52 +0000

Cathi - I used to be a FontAgent Pro user, and it served me well for many years. But the free Linotype FontExplorer X does all that FAP does, and more, in an elegant iTunes-like interface. I highly recommend it for casual users and pros alike.

By: Cathi

Cathi — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 08:21:43 +0000

What is the best font management program for OS X?
Particularly for Creative Suite 3?

By: Jerald

Jerald — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:48:39 +0000

Well, they got one thing fixed that was broken with 10.4, and stayed that way.

With 10.4, alternate glyphs did not work. Finally, Apple has fixed this with Leopard. Seems a shame to buy Leopard for the fix to something that Apple broke.

Sorry if this is a double post.
The problem occurred with 10.4, not 10.3.
Still, the point remains.

By: Karly

Karly — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:24:34 +0000

Wow, auto font activation. That might be a good enough reason for me to upgrade. Extensis Suitcase is failing me and I’m having all kinds of font issues.

Thanks for the review.

By: Bert Vanderveen

Bert Vanderveen — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 20:25:31 +0000

JHARR asked: “Are there design professionals out there not using another 3rd party for their management and actually relying on Apple’s internal management?”

I don’t think so, but there are professionals that bypass 3d party and FontBook and put (aliases of) fontfiles directly in the Font folders in the User library. Providing you are an organized person, that’s a good and working solution.

(With some scripting thrown in this is also a very quick way to handle fonts in an environment where a lot of shuffling around is needed, eg service bureaus.)

By: John Jenkins

John Jenkins — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:02:06 +0000

Chris L., I’m not sure what you mean about selecting glyphs by Unicode value. (And, BTW, Unicoders would cringe at the idea of selecting “glyphs” by “Unicode value.”) The Character Palette and Unicode Hex Keyboard let you do exactly that and have been present in Mac OS for a long, long time. It’s only applications that draw text via QuickDraw that still need hacked fonts, and Apple strongly encourages people to migrate from QuickDraw text drawing ASAP.

By: Adam Twardoch

Adam Twardoch — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 01:24:30 +0000

In Mac OS X 10.5, Apple added support for all OpenType GSUB and GPOS lookup types, so that advanced OpenType Layout features such as contextual alternates or mark attachment works in all Cocoa applications (e.g. TextEdit, Keynote, Pages etc.). I just tried Zapfino Extra LT Pro, and the contextual features work like a dream.

Also, they added OpenType linguistic engines for some complex scripts so that e.g. Arabic can be displayed using any OpenType font (while previously it required AAT fonts). The Typography palette has undergone some minor changes, e.g. it now allows activation of “smcp” and “c2sc” at the same time (though stylistic sets are still accessed on an alternative and not additive basis).

I must say this is great news.

By: jharr

jharr — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 01:47:20 +0000

Are there design professionals out there not using another 3rd party for their management and actually relying on Apple’s internal management? If so I’d love to hear ‘why’ you’d prefer to use Font Book vs Suitcase, Font Explorer, aside from being “free”.

By: Nicolas Martin

Nicolas Martin — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 13:42:58 +0000

Stephen,
At first glance I hadn’t recognized you as the reincarnation of Voltaire, but now it is clear.