Font Management Systems for Photoshop CS2

[SteveD]

I'm not sure if I have ever read any postings on FONT Management Programs for Photoshop CS2. I spend all day using PhotoshopCS & editing with FCP 4.5, going back & forth correcting what are Art D. sends us. Sorry Dudes & dudetts!

Here is the question, when I open a PSD from the Art D. to correct a spelling issue,
it seems I don't have the font on my local system or it is turned off.
Here is the text message I see:
(The following fonts are missing for text layer "Blah Blah Blah" (example)
Futura CondensedBold, Font substitution will occure. Continue?)
Is there a font program that will trigger that font & turn it on for that PSD?
I have over a gigs worth of fonts & I keep 90% of them turned off.


Thanks

SteveD

[Paul C]

Auto-activation works well in Illustrator and InDesign, but it's iffy in Photoshop. Something to do with the text engine.

Also once auto-activated, the font is going to stay active until you manually deactivate it or shut down (if you have the preferences of the font manager set to do that).

I have had minor success with auto-activation in Photoshop with Font Agent Pro and Linotype FontExplorer X. But like I said, it's iffy.

The second one I mentioned is free. I'm actually using it in a production environment (it's only Mac at this point I think) and am happy so far after using Suitcase for years and recently trying out the demo of Font Agent Pro. This seems more stable on my system.

Are you all on the same network? Maybe you need to look into a font server like Suitcase Fusion Server or Font Agent Pro Workgroup Edition.

Best of Luck!

peace

[The Repro Kid]

You have a gigs worth of fonts and no font management program?

Wow. You must like pain or something. ;)

I'm still waiting for Paulc's scoop on font reserve or wahtever it was he was going to try.

But even with a font management tool, Photoshop still needs to be restarted or have the type menu rebuilt after activating fonts, it's not like Illustrator where newly activated fonts come on right away. There is a key command for rebuilding the font menu without restarting the program but I can never remember what it is.

woa, I had to answer the phone and now that I've submitted my post paulc got in there before me.

[Paul C]

Fortune favors the quick Repro :cool:

I am liking FontExplorer X. I finally got sick of Suitcase and decided to do some testing. I downloaded Font Agent Pro and used the demo until it ran out. It wasn't any better than Suitcase on my system. There are others who swear otherwise.

I've been using FontExplorerX for 2 months now and it is dealing with what I throw at it better than the others so far (I will now hold my breath). And the best part is it's free. Go to the Linotype site and check it out. The interface is very I-Tunes which is kind of cool…

So far so good.

Actually Repro Font Agent Pro and FontExplorerX have managed to successfully auto-activate some fonts in Photoshop, it's just not something you can rely on so I try not to.

peace

[The Repro Kid]

But can you remember the key-command to rebuild the font menu in Photoshop?

I've asked that one in here before, but I need to write down the answer and pin it on my wall.

:confused:

Oh, I almost forgot. I live for freeware. I'm going to look that free one up.

[Paul C]

Never did know that one Repro, along with about a million other things… :rolleyes:

peace

[ccarter]

<SNIP>Maybe you need to look into a font server like Suitcase Fusion Server...<SNIP>

Have you actually heard news on this or just speculating?

[Paul C]

Not speculation. This is out. You can download fully functioning demos of Font Agent Pro and Suitcase Fusion.

Linotype FontExplorer X is free of course.

You can try all three and see which one suits your situation and workflow…



peace

[ccarter]

Ah.

I'm well aware of Suitcase Fusion, but Suitcase Fusion != Suitcase Fusion Server, which is what you originally said that caught my attention.

Currently, Extensis' only workgroup Font solutions are Font Reserve or Suitcase Server, but there is not a Suitcase Fusion Server available yet, nor has one been officially announced yet, which is why I got all excited, but looks like it was a false alarm. :)

We now return to our regularly scheduled program...

[Paul C]

Absolutely right ccarter - my mistake…

Now what were we talking about? :D

peace

[rainierexpress]

Sounds like you definitely need font management other than the standard font book (if you are Mac). I do a lot of InDesign work and have a couple thousand fonts. I've tried Suitcase Fusion but could never get it to run on my system. It would hang, autoactivation would never work, etc. Now I am using FontAgent Pro and it works much better. It doesn't seem to handle duplicate fonts very well, but that just may be a learning curve thing with me.

The point here is that if you are going to use fonts in ways beyond the default system functionality, a font management system is needed. Start with some free trials, load your fonts and test them a bit. If you end up buying one, expect to pay around $100 for a single use license.

[Paul C]

An update: I've been using Linotype Font Explorer X for quite a while now and it is for me, by far the most stable font manager for OSX. I ran Suitcase for years, ran the demo of Font Agent Pro for the full 30 days. Neither one of them was very stable.

The Linotype font manager has the best interface and just runs without giving me problems. And it's FREE!

I was thinking about it the other day and I came to this conclusion: Linotype was not saddled with previous versions and making them compatible, etc…
Font Explorer X is a pure OSX font manager, conceived and written for this operating system. It just seems to work.

peace