Font management software

Font management software is utility software that computer users use to browse and preview fonts and typically to install and uninstall fonts. In addition, depending on the individual font management program's capabilities, users can also

• activate and deactivate fonts (users can do this manually; sometimes programs will do this in conjunction with specific software, such as Adobe's InDesign)
• protect fonts that are required by the system by preventing them from being uninstalled
• organize fonts by groups and libraries
• find and uninstall corrupt fonts
• rename font files
• view fonts that are not currently installed
• print font samples or font books illustrating some or all of the fonts on the system
• sort fonts according to different criteria
• search for fonts meeting specific criteria

Contents 1 Uses 2 Objectives 2.1 Ease of Finding and Evaluating Fonts 2.2 System Stability 3 List of font management software 4 References 5 Further reading

Uses

Fonts - and therefore font-management programs - support people in a variety of professions: graphic designers, publishers (such as book publishers and news and periodical publishers), web-site designers, interface designers, illustrators, packaging designers, typeface designers, letterpress printers (using plates made from page layout programs), motion-graphic and film-title designers, advertising agencies, signage and wayfinding (environmental graphic design studios), industrial designers, and architectural firms that have in-house 2D design-staff who work with signs and typography.

These people require fonts as a basic part of their job. They purchase their fonts and typefaces either directly from type foundries large and small, such as Adobe Systems, Carter & Cone, FontBureau, Font Shop, Hoefler & Frere-Jones, Linotype, Paratype, P22, Stone Type Foundry; or from websites specializing in selling fonts. Eventually, they may end up with hundreds or even thousands or tens of thousands of fonts; hence the need to manage those fonts. Effective, reliable, and easy-to-use font management can help.

Objectives

Most operating systems come with basic font management abilities, limited to installing or uninstalling; however, people who use many typefaces need font management software with more capabilities.

Ease of Finding and Evaluating Fonts

When there are hundreds or even thousands of fonts on a system, font management software makes it easier to find, organize, and evaluate specific fonts. Using font management software, people can organize their fonts in ways that suit their needs. They can also view specific fonts in a variety of ways, such as by character or size, to better evaluate a font's suitability for a specific purpose.

Once a font is found, a person can view the individual glyphs (letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and other components of a font), and can visually compare two or more fonts with each other.

Font management software often provides details on fonts such as how many glyphs are in the font, whether the font can be embedded (such as in PDFs), and the person or foundry that created the font.

System Stability

One of the valuable uses of font management software is to improve system performance. Keeping thousands of fonts active can slow down many systems. In taking advantage of a font manager's ability to activate fonts when they are needed (either individually or in groups, such as a group of fonts for a specific project), users can reduce the system's font load.

This capability is especially important on older versions of the Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh operating systems, as with those systems, fonts are normally always active and available to all programs that use or display text. However, these operating systems have internal limits on active fonts; beyond that point, you may experience system problems.^[1][2]

Some font management programs can activate one font, several fonts, or a specific group of fonts when a specific application (such as Adobe's Creative Suite series) or document is launched. When the application or document is closed, the font management software can deactivate those same fonts. That way, fonts that are needed only for specific applications or projects can be made available on the fly, then put away when not needed, thereby reducing the load on the operating system.

Linux-based operating systems generally do not pre-load fonts on a system-wide basis. Instead, each application loads them as it needs them, leaving no need for a font management program. However, current Linux desktop environments (such as KDE and Gnome) manage fonts for applications using their internal framework library calls for font display, thus allowing management of fonts centrally and comfortably via the GUI.

Many Linux distributions supply a font server program (such as X Font Server) for distributing fonts over a network.

List of font management software

Most commercial font management programs offer a 30-day free trial. You can take advantage of this to try out different programs until you find the one that suits your needs. Just be sure to uninstall or at least deactivate one program before installing the next.

Note: Surprisingly, information on supported fonts is not readily available from many manufacturers. However, at a minimum most of the major commercial programs support OpenType and TrueType fonts.

Name	Operating system	License	Author	Publisher	Supported fonts	Notes
Adobe Type Manager Light (ATM Light)	Mac OS 8.6 through 9.1, Mac OS X Classic; Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0 with Service Pack 4	Free		Adobe Systems		ATM Deluxe was discontinued in the mid-2000s[3]
Advanced Font Viewer	Windows	Commercial		Styopkin Software
AMP Font Viewer	Windows	Free		AMPsoft	OpenType, PostScript Type 1, TrueType
BDF Font Viewer	Windows	Freeware	Komeil Bahmanpour	Chortkeh
California Fonts	Windows	Free		The Scone Company, LLC	OpenType, Postscript Type 1, TrueType
Cfont Pro	Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7	Free		Veign LLC	Bitmap, OpenType, Postscript Type 1, TrueType
DiskFonts	Mac OS X (10.5+), Windows (XP, Vista, 7)	Commercial		Anastasiy	Bitmap, OpenType, Postscript Type 1, TrueType	Font manager panel for Adobe Creative Suite (CS3, CS4, CS5), supports FontExpert groups
FontAgent Pro	Mac, Windows	Commercial		Insider Software	OpenType, PostScript Type 1, TrueType	Initially a Mac-only product
Font Card	Mac OS 10.4 (but not Mac OS X 10.6 Leopard)	Commercial		Unsanity	OpenType, PostScript, TrueType	Modifies the Font menu and the font panel in Carbon and Cocoa applications. Supports FontAgent Pro, FontExplorer X, and Suitcase Fusion font sets.
FontCase	Mac OS X	Commercial		Bohemian Coding
FontExpert	Windows	Commercial		Proxima Software	OpenType, TrueType, TrueType Collections, PostScript Type 1, Bitmap and vector (*.fon)	With plug-ins for Adobe Creative Suite products (Missing Fonts Loader plug-in, Font Info plug-in, etc.)
Font Explorer X Pro	Mac, Windows	Commercial		Linotype/Monotype		The Windows version is only available as part of the company's Server product.[4]
Font Fitting Room Deluxe	Windows	Commercial		Qweas	Microsoft Windows (*.fnt, *.fon), OpenType (*.ttf, *.ttc, *.otf), PostScript Type 1 (*.pfm, *.pfb), TrueType (*.ttf, *.ttc)
Font Frenzy	Windows	Free	Timothy Williams (computer programmer)	SDSoftware
Font Manager	Windows	Commercial		Styopkin Software
Font-Manager	Linux	GNU GPL Version 3	JerryCasiano	font-manager project		Last update: 08.2010. Depends on GTK 2.x
Fontmatrix	Linux, Mac, Windows	Free under the GNU General Public License	Pierre Marchand	Fontmatrix.net	OpenType, TrueType
Font Pilot	Mac OS 10.4+	Commercial		Qweas
Font Safari	Mac OS 9+	Commercial		Dreystone Software		Last updated in 2006
Font Wrangler	Windows XP, Vista, 7	Shareware or bookware		Alchemy Mindworks	TrueType
Font Xplorer	Windows 95, 98, Me, NT 4, 2000, XP	Free	Ahto Tanner	Moon Software
Font Xplorer	Windows	Commercial		Qweas	TrueType (*.ttf, *.ttc)
Free & Easy Font Viewer	Windows XP, 2000, Vista	Free		Styopkin Software
MainType	Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2003, 2000	Commercial		High-Logic	OpenType, PostScript Type 1, raster, TrueType, vector
MasterJuggler	Mac OS X	Commercial		AlSoft	Outline, OpenType, PostScript, printer, screen, TrueType
NexusFont	Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7	Free	Noh JungHoon	Xiles	OpenType, TrueType, Type 1	Last update: 09.2010. Provides: Libraries and Sets, Tags, Find of duplicates.
Opcion Font Viewer	Linux, Mac, Windows; requires Java 1.4.0+	Free (and open source)	P. Chiu	Opcion
Printer's Apprentice	Windows XP, Vista, and 7	Commercial	Bryan T. Kinkel	Lose Your Mind Development	OpenType, PostScript, TrueType
Suitcase Fusion	Mac OS X, Windows	Commercial		Extensis		Was merged with Font Reserve
The Font Thing	Windows 95, 98, and NT 4.0	Free	Sue Fisher	Sue Fisher	TrueType	A legacy font management program; has not been updated since 1999, though apparently is still popular among some users
Typograf	Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, XP, 2000, 2003	Commercial	Alex Neuber	Neuber Software GmbH	Bitmap, OpenType, PostScript Type 1, printer, raster, TrueType	For Windows 95, 98, Me, and NT, you will need Adobe's free ATM Light to support PostScript Type 1 fonts
X-Fonter	Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7	Commercial		Blacksun Software	Truetype, OpenType, PostScript Type 1, raster, vector

References

Further reading

• Dhall, Sachin (25 September 2008). "25+ Font Management Tools Reviewed". Smashing Magazine. Smashing Media GmbH. http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/09/05/25-font-management-tools-reviewed/. Retrieved 6 September 2010. 
• Phinney, Thomas (7 October 2007). "Windows Font Management has sucked". Adobe Typblography blog. Adobe Systems. http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2007/10/win_font_mgmt.html. Retrieved 6 September 2010. 
• Rutter, Richard (7 October 2007). "Matrix of fonts bundled with Mac and Windows operating systems, Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite". 24 Ways to Impress Your Friends. Richard Rutter. http://media.24ways.org/2007/17/fontmatrix.html. Retrieved 15 October 2010. 
• "The best font manager". Windows Secrets (WindowsSecrets.com). 18 October 2007. http://windowssecrets.com/support-alert/2007/10/18/19-The-best-font-manager. Retrieved 6 September 2010.