Linotype FontExplorer X
Linotype FontExplorer X is a local font manager/viewer and online font selection/shopping application for Mac OS X (Panther and Tiger). Expect to be surprised by this feature rich, free offering from Linotype - it actually works as advertised! Linotype FontExplorer X offers manual and auto font activation/deactivation, sets, smart sets, folders, conflict warning, system and application font cache cleaning and many other features.
I have no affiliation with Linotype, I am just a happy user of their free software. The intent of this short article is to highlight this new free application for OS X users searching for a more productive font management solution than Apple's Font Book. Even if you never purchase a Linotype font through FontExplorer X, you will have access to free professional font management. Note: Linotype also offer a similarly named application "FontExplorer 2.1" which is an interactive font catalogue application that does not manage fonts.
Although Apple's Font Book application is showing signs of future promise at v2, it is far from ideal. Linotype would obviously like you to buy their fonts. With FontExplorer X, Linotype have delivered seamless integration of font shopping with font management - that will likely have the unfortunate side effect of taking sales away from third party font management application developers (Linotype are perhaps hoping to cash in on the Apple iTunes music store success). How this will impact graphics users in the long term is unknown, while in the short term users such as myself are excited to finally have applications such as QuarkXPress 6.5 recognise valid fonts that were available to the system and other applications without having to purchase third party font management software.
August 2006 Update: Linotype recently updated FontExplorer X from version 1.0 to 1.1
FontExplorer X Related Application Crashes
Auto font activation is great for designers who prefer to spend their energy in creative efforts, rather than thinking about where fonts live and remembering to manually activate and deactivate them when moving between clients or projects. That being said, from time to time when using auto font activation, QuarkXpress 6.5 or Adobe CS2 applications on OS X Tiger may crash when opening documents, when FontExplorer X attempts to load the missing document fonts.
This may be overcome by manually activating the required fonts in FontExplorer X before opening the document. The next step is to turn off auto font activation. Finally, if you still experience crashes - quit FontExplorer X and move the application to the trash, without emptying the trash (alternatively, one could .zip archive the application and then delete the original). Next manually load the required fonts or use Apple Font Book (if the fonts are known). As FontExplorer X can no longer be located by the OS, opening the document will no longer cause FontExplorer X to crash the host application (InDesign, Illustrator, Xpress etc). The document should now open as expected. One can load any remaining missing fonts and continue the project at this point without using FontExplorer X, or move FontExplorer X from the trash or archive back to it's original location and continue using it as per normal, once the document is open and the application is no longer crashing. I am still looking at various combinations in the Preferences to overcome this issue, which is infrequent on my set-up.
If applications crash on a regular basis due to the auto font activation features of FontExplorer X, you may wish to stop using auto activation. FontExplorer X still provides excellent manual management of fonts via folder sets (folders can be made into clients, projects, font styles etc). Although less convenient than auto font activation, it is more inconvenient to have applications crashing and failing to open documents. This bug was not resolved in the recent 1.1 update.
Auto activation may not suit production users in service provider settings such as print shops, where it is common to use the client's "foreign" fonts while the project is in progress, and then to trash the fonts and project after the job has been completed.
January 25 2007 Update: Version 1.1.2 released.
Auto activation appears to be refined and applications more stable when fonts are automatically activated.