Great article! Having a good font management tool such a big time-saver! I use Linotype’s FontExplorer too; another cool one is Suitcase from Extensis, but that one is not free though

Unfortunately, this is only a MAC download at this point. It seems that they have just finished beta testing the Windows version. (See quote from website below)

“Since our testing period has ended, we have removed the free download of the beta Windows version from our website. As soon as the new version is released, free downloading will resume.”

Us PC’ers will have to check back their site often if we want to be as cool as all you MAC’ers

I’ve been checking their website for half a year now and was waiting for the PC download to get online. So I’m quite pessimistic that there will be a pc version soon. I know, it’s freeware…

Hehe, i have the windows beta

But, do you know a way how to make the WYSIWYG View bigger?

Wow, nice. I was looking for something like this!
Thanks!

http://www.warezboard.net

good post…

thanx

I was waiting for this!! Thanks so much!

I’ve been using FontExplorer X for well over a year now, and I have to say that I can’t imagine using anything else. I actually prefer it to Suitcase and Font Agent Pro – and it’s FREE!

@Lauren Robb – Good point about PC being in Beta, I missed that when editing. Thanks.

I’m a big fan of this application, though haven’t taken the time to get to know the app. So, I learned a few things in this article. I’m especially interested in turning sets on and off and then reseting the Photoshop character palette. This is cool and good for workflow, I’ll have to try that. It would be great to have a smaller selection of fonts when looking for specific font types.

Thanks.

OS X FontBook, hands down.

Step 1: Disable all fonts.
Step 2: Enable core fonts for browsing/making applications not mad at you (Helvetica, Arial, Times New Roman, etc. etc.).
Step 3: Enjoy a severely trimmed font list in all your creative apps. Take a few whiffs of this fresh air.
Step 4: Now when you want a style of font, go through your list. Along the way, make new ‘font playlists’ based on a naming convention that makes sense to you — i.e. traditional Serif/Sans/Slab/Script (why all the S’s?), or subjective Punky/Clean/Hard2Read.
Step 5: Enjoy being able to find exactly the font you want in a unique system that you understand entirely and requires 0 effort to learn.

Extremely useful. Thanks!

yeah, bummer for PC users. Can’t wait until they get this out.

here’s a nice tool that i’ve been using for a while now. maybe not quite as convenient, but it does the job:

http://www.stcassociates.com/lab/fontbrowser.html

This program is a big help. I use it and love it!!!

I seriously need some font management! Thanks for the post, I’ll give this a shot.

Wow…. thank you very much for this. As a designer this will be very useful for me.

Thank you

kool app.

I am surprised to learn that such a thing exist. Its always very annoying to sort through that alphabetically arranged one mile list.

Thanks.

realy cool program looking forward to see this in a windows version

Do you know if the “activated font” settings remain when you close FontExplorer? Or do you have to have it running to use that feature?

here an a non-intrusive (and also free) way to quickly and easily browse and text your fonts…

http://www.stcassociates.com/lab/fontbrowser.html

Thanks for the great software tip !

very useful tutorial – thanks for posting

Excellent program! I’ve been using it for a couple of years now. Splendid font control. I’d love to be able to print out a font book for various sets, though. I’m pretty sure Linotype FE doesn’t do this. Any ideas anyone?

lol this feature is already available in OS X, Font Book.

Also message to admins, 1ker’s post is linking to a warez site, this might have some legal implications for you so you might wanna remove it

Cool! ’til today I was using the Font Book that comes with the Mac… just download the Fontexplorer X and it’s much, much better… “compare” Font tool is great!!!

Thanks!!!!

very usefull !!! thnx

Great tips, thanks for sharing!

This is a convenience and a weapon all in one! thanks!

very nice

I use and recommend Font Expert 2007 from Proxima but it is not free.

Thanks for this article. This software looks fantastic. Organizing my fonts using tags is going to be brilliant (initially time-consuming though!). I’m eagerly awaiting the PC release.

UNBELIEVABLEE!!! THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT CAME UP TO MY MIND EARLIER TODAY WOW!!! thankyou tons

That’s a great program, downloading it already =)

as Lauren Robb pointed out, this is only for mac right now. any suggestions on others for PC?

If you are looking for the PC version you can still grab the beta:

http://fex.linotype.com/download/pc/FontExplorerX-0.9.1.2250.exe

With a little poking about I found that the beta file is still on the Linotype servers. They just don’t have it linked on their page anymore. You can find it here: http://fex.linotype.com/download/pc/FontExplorerX-0.9.1.2250.exe

@pat: that’s up to you, actually–by default, any fonts you activate will stay activated, but there is a preference you can enable–”Deactivate all fonts which have been activated during the active session on quit.”

@whoever thinks this is the same as fontbook–NO. No, this is much, much more.

ive had this program since forever, but I never use it, bur now i spent an hour organizing my fonts. I had a lot of nice fonts deactivated

Thanks for the tease Sean! I downloaded the windows beta a while back but lost it due to a Windows overhaul. I’ve been waiting for them to finish the Windows version for well over a year now (it seems) but they don’t seem to be working on it. Anyhow, I use a program called Font Thing. It’s ok, but it’s a memory hog and it doesn’t have a quarter of the features Explorer does.

“Since our testing period has ended, we have removed the free download of the beta Windows version from our website. As soon as the new version is released, free downloading will resume.”

This has been the situation for months and I mean months. I am a linotype newsletter subscriber and there is ‘NO’ sign that they are releasing it for PC

There is a Font MAnagement program offered from High Logic as a free download that looks fine for PC. http://www.high-logic.com/download.html

Nice article, thanks

Great post!

I’m already using FontExplorer X for a while on my Mac and I find it OK to use. It does what it is meant to do.

On my PC I use MainType from High-Logic (http://www.high-logic.com/maintype.html) which I really like. It has some great features: I’m able to brows and preview fonts in ANY folder on my system, load or install fonts, any font I load gets automatically unloaded when I shut down (keeps my font list nice and short) and there are much more nice features. Major downside: It is not free but worth every cent.

Thnx !

useful :], but leopard has something similar

How does this compare to HiLogic MainType (http://www.high-logic.com/maintype.html)? Anybody who used both? I’m using MainType since some years and it has a very good feature set, can activate fonts (instead of installing) and create sets etc. Only problem is that it’s very slow if there are many fonts to browse. Also it’s only for Windows.

What’s a font?

You know what, I just noticed that Fontbook can do pretty much the exact same thing except comparisons.. still good for users using Windows or Tiger.

yeah, it’s a great tool

… i just got one problem, it can’t read dates properly… it doesn’t take the year as first measurement, it starts at the beginning of the actual number… so i have all the first of the months as starters, thats really stupid
anybody any idea?

use it love it

Awesome stuff! But how does it compare to Suitcase Fusion?

@MONSTER – This example should make you understand what a Font is:

Example of a Typeface: Arial
Example of a Font: Arial, 10 point size, bold.

I hope you understood. ^^

This linotype PC download has been in the same “sod PC users” state for at least four months. I subscribed to the newsletter, but there has been no sign whatsoever that anything is happening on the PC version.

Frankly, if it ever gets released I’ll be amazed. They don’t seem to care about you unless you run OSx.

The PC download is unavailable right now. That sucks. I guess I’ll keep checking back on their site.

This program destroyed my computer and made my adobe photoshop cs3 crash in the middle of a project. It made my fonts disappear and refused to reactive them. I spent hours trying to get my computer back to normal. What a waste of time.

@ Colin – Thanks for the link to the online font browser. Very cool indeed. It loads a lot faster than Photoshop.

@ Onske & Crowiko – Thanks for finding that Windows Beta. You guys are awesome. This tutorial should be modified to include that link (w/ a disclaimer of course).

The problem with Apple’s Font Book app is that it doesn’t auto-activate in many apps (InDesign, Illustrator, etc…)

Font Explorer is a great app for the individual designer and very small design shop. I wish they had a Server version for larger companies. We’re stuck using Extensis Suitcase Server at the office, though a new version just started shipping – hopefully it’s much better.

Does the beta version for windows works okay for you guys who is using it currently?

Here’s a great alternative for PC users: The Font Thing

http://www.download.com/The-Font-Thing/3000-2316_4-10038296.html

I’m using it since years, brilliant software. No need for me to switch over to FontExplorer.

Thanks for the heads up. Always wanted a cool application. Right now using Font Fitting Deluxe. Will give this a try.

Thanks again

@ jeffjose , hey man tried it but seems to not work on 64bit xp.

so useful when you have to manage 2000 fonts

PC users: try contacting them using the contact information on the download page. The more of us letting them know we are interested in the PC version, the more worthwhile it is for them to actually follow through.

Does this work on windows machine?

http://fex.linotype.com/download/pc/FontExplorerX-0.9.1.2250.exe Windows beta! enjoy! I’ve been using this since may with out fuss.

Very nice article! i will wait for the windows version, or buy a mac is another good option! =D

thank you patrick!

Thanks for this great post! I’ve been drowning in my fonts for ages – this is the perfect cure. One more happy designer in the world

Thank you so much for posting the link to the beta. I have been looking for the beta of this program for PC forever.

Great app this is, everyone needs it but… I hate having too much fonts, I get confused even with this great application

Just got this reply back from Linotype in response to my email asking what’s up with the Windows version:

“There is no official release date yet, but we are still developing the final version. We hope to be ready soon, we will then put it up on our website and publish it in our newsletter.”

It would be nice to have a little more info, but the fact that they are even replying to questions about the Windows version as well as the fact that they don’t seem to have abandoned it entirely are hopefully good signs.

I cannot believe I’ve been limping along with Font Book for all this time and this great tool was out there – for FREE. Thanks for pointing this out!

Extremely useful. Thanks!

I know from experience that many people are confused when they install FontExplorer X. Last year I wrote some instructions on how to install it. Some might find it useful: http://font.is/?p=38

It’s not much of a tutorial. Tutorials tell you how to do something, not just tell you it can be done.

For example, it’s nice to know that sets are useful. Why doesn’t the tutorial tell you how to add fonts to a set? A set isn’t much good without fonts.

It’s too bad the beta is no longer available.

Hi, my Suitcase trial version recently ran out, and I’ve started using Font Explorer instead. I really prefer this program, but I have a question I’m hoping to get some help with…I have about 5,000 fonts loaded on my computer, and I would like to organize them more so then is standard with font xplorer. For example, is there a way to create a folder of all of my sans serif fonts automatically through the program. I really don’t want to spend the hours it would take to organize them manually. Any help with this question is much appreciated. Thank you!

Thanks for the link to FontExplorer Beta for PC, I too am disppointed that they have yet to release the official version after such a loooooong wait.

One problem with the beta version, I go through the wizard and then once it’s done sorting all the fonts it gets to the welcome screen then nothing the program shuts itself down.

Anybody have any ideas on how to actually get the beta version working?

The mac version of FontExplorer isn’t free any more. Not sure if they’ll ever get around to putting together a windows version out there either.

I have the same problem as Suzybee, just did a fresh windows install, x32 sp3, installed the app fine, runs through the analyzing, but doesn’t open up, the process is terminated in the task manager for no apparent reason. Anyone else have a similar problem with the beta? any solutions?

While the new version is no longer free, the older version (for Mac) is still available here: http://www.linotype.com/2631/freedownloadmac.html

Gutted overhaul on windows made me lose everything ! and was so annoyed to not be able to get it from the site anymore.
Cheers for those that had the link on here. Just hoping it still works.
Im on dial up (i no shocking )
so waiting my millions of minutes to get it

Grr tried it it installed but ….. it wont actually open past the analyze fonts part

I canNOT get any new fonts to activate. I have them stored on hardrive/fonts folder and those original fonts imported fine, but any new ones I put in those folders view, allow me to highlight and import, but do not show up for me to activate. Wha … ?

I guess its just me then…

At work and now at home when I try to use FontExplorer X Pro it doesn’t load fonts. So we clean the Application Cache file, THEN the system cache file and at the moment I still can’t get it to load fonts!!! It shows it checked and says its activated, but when I open my old Illustrator file with the font–it says is not found. Very frustrating. I love Suitcase, because it makes fonts instantly available. What am I missing here?
Thanks!

Oh man. Thanks to the guys who found a link for the Windows beta, I’ve been looking for this for ages. Font Explorer X is the best font manager I’ve tried, hands down. I use it every day on my Mac at work but I lost the Windows beta when I installed 7. I hope they’re serious about continuing development on the full Windows version, as I’d gladly pay for it.

Hi!
I have a problem with Lino, i have these fonts activated for example, a newsletter i’ve made in InDesign.. the next day when i open the .indd document it requests the fonts, like they were deactivated! But i didnt deactivated them! Weird… I checked Preferences and can’t see the origin of this problem.. can anyone help?