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Q. What is a font manager? Do I really need to buy one, since my Mac came with Font Book?

A. Without a font manager, the Mac OS loads fonts into one of several Fonts folders. All of your fonts are activated all of the time, even ones you seldom use. If you don’t have a lot of fonts, this might not be a problem, but if you're a designer, you may have hundreds, if not thousands, of fonts. When they're all activated all of the time, they slow down your machine and result in very long font menus.

The primary function of all font managers is to preview and activate only the fonts you need at a particular time. A basic font manager such as Font Book, which is included with Mac OS 10.3 and up, can preview, install, search, activate, and deactivate fonts. However, professional font managers can do a lot more.

The three most popular professional font managers are FontAgent Pro 4 ($99.95), Suitcase Fusion 2 ($99.95), and FontExplorer X Pro ($69), all available for both Mac and PC. They're all excellent tools, with different interfaces and varying features that include some or all of the following:

* Auto-activation of fonts upon opening a document.
* Search by name, foundry, format, and other properties.
* Organize, import and export by families, folders, sets, and libraries.
* Find and resolve font conflicts and corruptions.
* Customized text preview capabilities.
* Create and print font books.
* Highlight missing fonts and direct you to an online store to acquire them.
* Smart classification functionality.
* Detailed information about a font.

Which one of these is best depends on your needs, but if you work with fonts on a regular basis, do yourself a favor and use a professional font manager.

Love type? Want to know more? Ilene Strizver conducts her acclaimed Gourmet Typography workshops internationally. For more information on attending one or bringing it to your company, organization, or school, go to her site, call The Type Studio at 203-227-5929, or email Ilene at info@thetypestudio.com. Sign up for her e-newsletter at www.thetypestudio.com.