Good Font Manager for use with Affinity? (was: Artzfartzy)

[Artzfartzy]

Hi, I am just getting started with Photo, Designer & Publishing.  I am a years long user of Adobe Creative Suite, but I will no longer use them because of the monthly fee.  I also use FontAgent Pro, which I will have to purchase an updated version.  Before I do that, is there a font program that works well with Affinity products, or does it not matter?  Thank you.

[CLC]

Hi there @Artzfartzy,
I have quite good experience with the free version of FontBase. It's multi-platform (Win, Mac, Linux), quite lightweight and fast.
Its free version does have all the standard features, the only thing I miss is font auto-activation, that's available only in a subscription-only version.

[Guest]

@Artzfartzy I switched from FontExplorer Pro X (and their plug-ins for the primary Creative Cloud apps) to using Typeface which I'm finding to be fast, simple, light-weight, and a breath of fresh air from many other font managers (primarily Suitcase, and FontExplorer) I've used. There is no store (or collection of stores), web font services (although it will import Adobe and Google fonts if you want), etc. It's designed to work with the fonts you have on your Mac, and I've had no problems activating fonts, resolving conflicts, or managing imports, etc. I use it with all of the Affinity apps, along with Glyphs, Sketch, Pixelmator, Keynote, etc. and have not had any issues.

[MarkPrima]

I'm glad I found this post, I was looking for a font manager (MAC). I think I'll give Typeface a try, I did try out FontBase and found it very confusing but remember it doesn't take much to confuse me.

~ Cheers

[prophet]

Haven't reviewed font management software in quite some time. My older version of Font Explorer X is still chugging along happily enough (no issues with any Affinity apps), but Typeface does look nice. Any advice from @Bryan Rieger for a fellow FEX user? I've got 10k+ fonts from several decades in the biz.

[Guest]

@prophet with Typeface's preference be sure to check 'Collection Priority Mode' otherwise the default action is to preview the font glyphs—which gets REALLY annoying fast. The way it's organized is similar to FontExplorer Pro if you've chosen to retain the location of your imported fonts/folders instead of letting FontExplorer Pro X manage their location for you. One nice thing is when you add a new imported font folder location Typeface will automatically update any changes (additions or removals) within that folder when next launched, and you can also force refresh by right-clicking on the location in the sidebar.

I've greatly pruned my font collection from 10K+ fonts to roughly 3K now. Typeface doesn't miss a beat, and I find the performance much, much better than FontExplorer Pro X. That said, if you use the font discovery options, pairing options, smart sets, font cache management (you can also do it via the command line), font repair, etc features you're best sticking with FontExplorer Pro X. Apparently there is a major Typeface update in the works, but there's currently no ETA. For my needs (basic font management, import, activation, preview, etc) Typeface works brilliantly.

[prophet]

Thanks for the insights. I'll certainly give it a good look.

[Capitaine Pongo]

Font base is good but to expensive... 180 euros... or 3 euros per month. I hate renting software. It is stupid, affinity is cheaper than font manager.

[happy.burrito]

On 11/27/2020 at 8:38 PM, Bryan Rieger said:

@Artzfartzy I switched from FontExplorer Pro X (and their plug-ins for the primary Creative Cloud apps) to using Typeface which I'm finding to be fast, simple, light-weight, and a breath of fresh air from many other font managers (primarily Suitcase, and FontExplorer) I've used. There is no store (or collection of stores), web font services (although it will import Adobe and Google fonts if you want), etc. It's designed to work with the fonts you have on your Mac, and I've had no problems activating fonts, resolving conflicts, or managing imports, etc. I use it with all of the Affinity apps, along with Glyphs, Sketch, Pixelmator, Keynote, etc. and have not had any issues.

Hello! Can someone let me know how i can use Typeface directly inside Affinity?

[PaoloT]

On the Mac, which are the limitations of Font Book that make a third-party software necessary?

Paolo

 

[v_kyr]

For WIN users there is a free one available called "nexusfont" the help doku for that can be accessed here!

[RNKLN]

On 12/17/2021 at 10:36 PM, happy.burrito said:

Hello! Can someone let me know how i can use Typeface directly inside Affinity?

To my knowledge not directly inside Affinity. There's a setting in Typeface though that auto-activates fonts when used in apps (including Affinity).

[Old Bruce]

4 hours ago, PaoloT said:

On the Mac, which are the limitations of Font Book that make a third-party software necessary?

The most important limitation on Mac with Font Book is that all fonts are loaded all the time. A good font utility can enable and disable fonts easily. This is very important if you have close to a thousand or several thousnd fonts on your system. Another Font Book shortcoming is if you need to search for specific glyphs, it is a case of visually scanning through the glyph display. I think that the better font managers make that simpler.

I have about five to six hundred fonts and have used Apple's Font Book without complaint, except for the specific glyph searches I occasionally have to do.

[PaoloT]

12 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

The most important limitation on Mac with Font Book is that all fonts are loaded all the time. A good font utility can enable and disable fonts easily.

As far as I know, you can groups fonts in collections, and enable/disable collections in Font Book. It's as easy as clicking a button.

As for looking for glyphs, i think the fastest way is to open the system's Symbols floating window, and find them. The name of the fonts in which they are contained are shown under the glyph.

Paolo

 

[Old Bruce]

1 minute ago, PaoloT said:

As for looking for glyphs, i think the fastest way is to open the system's Symbols floating window, and find them. The name of the fonts in which they are contained are shown under the glyph.

Do searches for Old Style or Lining numerals, Proper super and subscript fraction numeral forms. I am not sure if any Font managers make this easier but it would be something I would look for before buying something.

[Paul Martin]

On 11/30/2020 at 8:39 PM, Bryan Rieger said:

@prophet with Typeface's preference be sure to check 'Collection Priority Mode' otherwise the default action is to preview the font glyphs—which gets REALLY annoying fast. The way it's organized is similar to FontExplorer Pro if you've chosen to retain the location of your imported fonts/folders instead of letting FontExplorer Pro X manage their location for you. One nice thing is when you add a new imported font folder location Typeface will automatically update any changes (additions or removals) within that folder when next launched, and you can also force refresh by right-clicking on the location in the sidebar.

I've greatly pruned my font collection from 10K+ fonts to roughly 3K now. Typeface doesn't miss a beat, and I find the performance much, much better than FontExplorer Pro X. That said, if you use the font discovery options, pairing options, smart sets, font cache management (you can also do it via the command line), font repair, etc features you're best sticking with FontExplorer Pro X. Apparently there is a major Typeface update in the works, but there's currently no ETA. For my needs (basic font management, import, activation, preview, etc) Typeface works brilliantly.

No hope for Windows users, I suppose?

[PaoloT]

8 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Do searches for Old Style or Lining numerals, Proper super and subscript fraction numeral forms. I am not sure if any Font managers make this easier but it would be something I would look for before buying something.

I suspect Old Style Numerals are more a matter of having a font that includes them. In any case, a quick search in the Symbols window of my Mac made me visually find a few fonts that have them in my system (Apple Chancery, Big Caslon, Futura Renner, Georgia, and so on):

Real superscript and subscript are immediately shown as sub-categories as soon as you click on one of the searched characters:

For fractions I had to choose the Number category:

 

Looks like the so often dismissed Font Book has some things to say.

Paolo

 

[Old Bruce]

24 minutes ago, PaoloT said:

In any case, a quick search in the Symbols window of my Mac made me visually find a few fonts that have them in my system (Apple Chancery, Big Caslon, Futura Renner, Georgia, and so on):

I would never have thought to look in Emoji and Symbols to find characters. How do I get the search from the Emoji and Symbols over to the Font Book to find a (or all) Font family with 'proper' fraction sized numerals, for example?

[PaoloT]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

I would never have thought to look in Emoji and Symbols to find characters. How do I get the search from the Emoji and Symbols over to the Font Book to find a (or all) Font family with 'proper' fraction sized numerals, for example?

When you find the glyph you are interested to in Emoji and Symbols, you can click the various choices for that glyph, and see the name of the font the selected character pertains.

Paolo

 

[Old Bruce]

Thanks tons. That is going to save me some time.

[ashf]

RightFont hasn't been mentioned.
https://rightfontapp.com/

Also Eagle has font manager though it's basically a DAM.
https://eagle.cool/

[ashf]

MainType for Windows (Free version available)

https://www.high-logic.com/font-manager/maintype

[dcr]

For Mac users, are people still happy with Typeface?

I used FontExplorer Pro X, but as that's no longer maintained, I'm betting it might break with the next OS update, which means I need to switch again.

I used to use Suitcase Fusion which I was happy with until they went to a subscription.  I don't do subscriptions to software.

I initially moved to FontAgent but wasn't completely happy with it and switched to FontExplorer Pro X when I got a new Mac.  Been happy with it but, like I said, I'll be needing a replacement sooner or later.

[firstdefence]

Love Typeface, such a clean easy to use app. Font switching works with Affinity apps and selected text too, drag a font from Typeface to Affinity and the font changes.

[jmwellborn]

5 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Love Typeface, such a clean easy to use app. Font switching works with Affinity apps and selected text too, drag a font from Typeface to Affinity and the font changes.

@dcr  I concur completely.  Typeface is a joy to work with.