Anyone use a Font Manager Software? Suggestions

[bold_will_hold]

I have accumulated well over 2000 fonts.
When I am designing it is hard to figure out which font to use.
I resort to just downloading new fonts because it is easier to see what I need.

I have been looking at font manager software.
Something I can type a phrase is and see the type options.
Most importantly create categories like serif, san serif, script, etc.

Now the confusing part certain apps allow fonts to be turned off I guess the idea
is to not slow your pc down with loading all fonts. I don't really have this issue
as I recently purchased a pc that is more then capable. I defiantly do not want to run
the issue of fonts not being found when I open a file containing said fonts.

When designing I think it would be nice to easily see fonts I can use
based on categories showing the fonts I have installed.

So far I have two options NexusFont and FontBase.

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with these or has any suggestions.

 

[unclebun]

I've never found font management software to be useful. Its original purpose was to keep your computer from crashing with too many fonts installed. That's from the days when RAM was measured in megabytes. As a categorization/browsing tool, I find it un-useful.

 

[Dan360]

We use Suitcase Fusion and have for years, works great but we only use it on Macs. The previews are good if you have a good knowledge of your fonts and just use it for a quick reference, but not scrolling through until you find something you like.

It's not great for categorization/browsing if you just load all your fonts into one library, you have to go through and separate your fonts into categories yourself and have separate libraries for different categories, I don't know of any that will do that automatically. That being said, it's a PITA and we just load all our fonts into a main library. The benefit is that if you have a ton of fonts, you can run into issues where you need to unload them or clean your font caches to prevent issues when the system tries to render a font and it turns into nonsense. But again this is mainly on Mac.

I wish there was one that would categorize like Adobe Typekit but by analyzing all your fonts through the software.

 

[bannertime]

I had used a program for years, but switched to Nexus recently. I spent time and put fonts into categories. It's been nice because I can ask someone what type of font and then visit the category and find something I hadn't used in awhile. If you're willing to put in the effort to organize, then a front program like Nexus will be great. If you aren't, then sign up for Adobe Typekit or the Monotype subscription.

 

[shoresigns]

I find it much easier to just browse Adobe Fonts and MyFonts to find what I'm looking for. Between those two subscriptions we rarely have to buy fonts.

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

For CorelDraw, I use the included Font Navigator software. It's super handy at replacing missing fonts and for installing/uninstalling fonts.

 

[Johnny Best]

We use Suitcase Fusion and have for years, works great but we only use it on Macs. The previews are good if you have a good knowledge of your fonts and just use it for a quick reference, but not scrolling through until you find something you like.

It's not great for categorization/browsing if you just load all your fonts into one library, you have to go through and separate your fonts into categories yourself and have separate libraries for different categories, I don't know of any that will do that automatically. That being said, it's a PITA and we just load all our fonts into a main library. The benefit is that if you have a ton of fonts, you can run into issues where you need to unload them or clean your font caches to prevent issues when the system tries to render a font and it turns into nonsense. But again this is mainly on Mac.

I wish there was one that would categorize like Adobe Typekit but by analyzing all your fonts through the software.

I use Macs also and for years used Suitcase for fonts but when Apple put Font Book on the system and it works better than Suitcase. I just use Font Book now and WYSIWYG works great in all my programs.

 

[Dan360]

I use Macs also and for years used Suitcase for fonts but when Apple put Font Book on the system and it works better than Suitcase. I just use Font Book now and WYSIWYG works great in all my programs.

Never even knew that was there, could be an option. The only thing I notice is the preview isn't as quick since you have to select a font before it will show it. I like how in fusion I can search for "Script" and it'll instantly list a preview of all the different script fonts. Do you know if there is any way to customize it? I'm not seeing much in that department.

 

[Bobby H]

Corel's Font Navigator program is pretty decent for CorelDRAW. I have pretty large collection of typefaces. The nice thing about using Font Navigator with CorelDRAW is you don't have to mess with manually installing or uninstalling fonts like crazy. You organize your collection within Font Navigator. Then you can use the filter settings within CorelDRAW to show or hide various fonts. If you have an entire collection visible in the scroll list it slows CorelDRAW down to a crawl while you're looking for a certain typeface. I've had CorelDRAW 2018 crash on me a few times doing this too. I usually leave the filter set to show only Installed Fonts and Protected System Fonts. When I need something I rarely use I'll un-check those options and then go scrolling through the font list.

Adobe Fonts (aka Typekit) is a different animal. I think it's one of the biggest perks to using Adobe Creative Cloud. There's a lot of new & valuable commercial typefaces available for use there. You just toggle on/off the fonts you want to use. There used to be a 100 font limit but Adobe removed that recently.

Windows 10 received an update to its own font management tool. The new Fonts tool is under Personalization in Windows Settings. The nice thing about it is you can actually uninstall some fonts without Windows saying the font is currently in use. That was the thing that infuriated me with the old tool.

 

[Johnny Best]

Never even knew that was there, could be an option. The only thing I notice is the preview isn't as quick since you have to select a font before it will show it. I like how in fusion I can search for "Script" and it'll instantly list a preview of all the different script fonts. Do you know if there is any way to customize it? I'm not seeing much in that department.

You can name a folder "script" and when installing make sure your fonts that are scrpt goes in that folder. When you open FontBook go to script folder click on a font and it shows up as big or as small as you want it. Pretty simple and it handles fonts without all the problems.

 

[Pippin Decals]

Nexus font is free, Type in what you want and see it > i use it all the time... http://www.xiles.net/

 

[bold_will_hold]

I am using windows 7. I mostly use flexi for design. Photoshop for raster and Corel for some vector functions. So the adobe and corel specific font managers may not work best.
I decided to try out nexus font now I have the daunting task of trying to organize 5000 fonts.
I began making "collections" for font styles
the only issue I have ran into so far is I am trying to organize from the "installed" fonts
when I add a certain font to a collection there is no indication it is sorted.
Would be nice if in the installed folder that shows all fonts there was some sort of indicator that the font was put in a collection
would make sorting less of a headache.

 

[mmblarg]

(Not an answer) I'd be interested in this as well. We use Flexi 10.5 and just scrolling through the list of fonts is daunting. It would 100% be awesome if there was a flexi add-on or some type of font manager that could categorize all our downloaded fonts for easier reference.

 

[The Vector Doctor]

I use Font Explorer X for my mac. As I add fonts I place them into my own categories that are easier to find in my workflow

 

[jimbug72]

Nexus is free and always worked decently for me once I got my libraries established and categorized to make it easier for to chose fonts based on the style of the design . Problem for me was when I upgraded my computers the libraries won't transfer. I would have to manually go through 2k+ fonts and categorize them again. After doing this twice, I decided to move to a different font management tool (Suitcase Fusion) that would allow me to export all of that to other machines.

2 computer upgrades since then and I haven't regretted the decision.