Home Forums Software Discussions General Software Topics Keeping track of fonts!!!!!!

  • Keeping track of fonts!!!!!!

    Posted by Alistair Richards on 31 December 2005 at 15:37

    Hi everyone, hope you all had a good Christmas, and have a good new year.

    I’m just wondering of others people methods of tracking what fonts they have used on what jobs.

    Like most people, I’ve got thousands of fonts, but I can’t keep them all in the windows directory, or my sign programs (SignBlazer) directory, because it slows the system down. Therefore, if I use a font not within windows or my sign program I drag it in for use, and then drag it out again when finished with. I try and keep records of which fonts I’m using for what, but sometimes I get too involved in the designing and forget to do this, and often when going back and try to find out your fonts name, you have already converted the writing to a curved vector for manipulating, and you cannot retrieve the fonts name. 🙄

    Any comments 😕

    David Rowland replied 19 years, 9 months ago 8 Members · 16 Replies
  • 16 Replies
  • Hugh Potter

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 16:25

    hi alistair,

    although i keep all my fonts in the windows directory (only about 1500), i often write the name somewhere around the vector / design, so i know what it was,

    Hugh

  • Marekdlux

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 16:28

    I know some programs let you keep “notes” with the file. Depends on what you are using though.
    -Marek

  • John Childs

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 16:32

    We only have a base set installed and use a font managment utility to open and close others as we need them. We have a space on our job sheets to make a note of any non-standard fonts we use.

  • David Rowland

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 16:39

    funny this, I am currently experimenting with Extensis Suitcase, although a much needed utility for the MAC, the Windows version also has some nice bits.

    Finding booting time a little slow but currently going through our fonts to try and control the use. We receive fonts from customers and then they get mixed up, we also have the habit of borrowing fonts from Freeware websites, although some are protected with Shareware agreements.

    I like suitcase a fair bit and once I solve our niggles we will have 7000 fonts under control.

    In the old days, Fonts used to crash computers due to memory allocation, well I just want to remove that possiblity happening.

  • John Childs

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 17:52

    Dave,

    I used Suitcase for many years, but was never very happy with it. I have been using FontAgent Pro for the last three months and find it much better.

  • John Harding

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 18:04

    Hi john

    Where do you get font agent pro then? id like to check it out

    John

  • John Childs

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 18:12

    Here…..

    http://www.insidersoftware.com

    I read a review in MacUser, liked what I read, and bought it.

    It is a lot easier to use than Suitcase, and a lot less flaky. The font auto-activation works much better.

  • John Harding

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 18:19

    Thats just what I need except for pc not mac 😥

    John

  • Nick Minall

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 18:44

    I use Bitstream that comes with corel, it finds all your fonts and you can install and remove them as needed.

  • David Rowland

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 19:01

    Yes the font thing with corel isnt bad, but I was looking for something to suit our network needs.

    Saw the Font Agent thing a few days ago, then saw OSX and that was the end of that… I also was on Letterhead fonts recently they reconmended the Font Thing. http://www.letterheadfonts.com/download … ties.shtml

  • Nick Minall

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 19:14

    Have you tried it yet Dave?

  • David Rowland

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 19:17

    no… just i tried about 3-4 of them and found suitcase is much better.

    A lot of them are ‘over complicated’

  • Kevin.Beck

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 19:18

    I take it the job files are saved.

    If the fonts used in the design are changed to graphics, the job could be opened up even if the font is not on the system anymore.

    sign lab has a note folder, where a reminder of the name could be writen.

  • Carrie Brown

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 19:33

    We do the same as Hugh …. type the name of the font next to the design work …… we have on some ocassions converted everything to text, gone back into the file a few weeks later and have not record of the font … so end up having to waste a few minutes tracking it back down.

    😀 We like to keep things simple!

  • Nick Minall

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 19:43

    Try to work from a copy of the text and keep it on the page so it is always there, you then select what you need to output to the plotter.

    Helps if you forget to wright in down!

  • David Rowland

    Member
    31 December 2005 at 20:20

    An invention in Corel that I stopped using a few version ago was “Save font with TruDoc technology”… it saves the font within the Corel file.

    Clever, but flawed for some uses..

    Situtation from memory:-

    1:Customer sends Corel artwork to us with font embedded..
    2:We open it fine and we may need to center something or add marks
    3:We try and save the file… we save over the top of the file forgetting about the font issue and end up ‘wiping’ out the font (as it cannot find the font file and the tick is missing from the Save As box anyway)

    It can be messy, but I now need to control the font usage, where one of our designers downloads a font for a job, I want to give our designers a good set of good fonts to use now…

    imagine this.

    1: We have a customer who has a eating place in Exeter, we design and put something together but we find a nice font on the web.
    2: Let say the font designer turns out to be local (plymouth)
    3: Font designer walks through Exeter and see’s his/her font on the Eating Place.
    4: You can imagine someone will want paying off!

    The chances of it happening are unlikely, but as we have more home workers looking for things to do and fonts creating could be one of them.

    This is why I was looking for a network sharing font management program and I didn’t find one suitable, but I planning just use Suitcase and configuring each designer with a similar set. It be fine for now.

Log in to reply.