When utilizing a creative application, it’s important to have a solid game plan in mind around how your fonts will be managed. For macOS users, this is as simple as opening the Font Book application. Windows, however, is a different story. If you’ve been seeking a Font Book equivalent for Windows, you’ve likely realized that it simply doesn’t exist.
While Windows 10 includes more robust font management tools than prior versions of Microsoft’s ubiquitous operating system — which even allow for simple drag-and-drop installation — they still pale in comparison to the functionality found inherently on Apple’s machines. This feature gulf may not impact casual users, but for professional creatives and large organizations this creates challenges in finding and activating the right font, at the time it’s needed.
With Extensis’ font manager — Suitcase Fusion — you can organize, tag, and keep track of all the great typefaces available to you on your Windows PC, including all of your system fonts, Adobe Fonts, Google Fonts, and fonts you’ve downloaded. End result? Your team spends less time searching for and managing fonts, and more time focused on critical tasks.
Here are just a few of the things Suitcase Fusion can do to help you manage your fonts on Windows.
- Allows you to control what appears in the font menu. Tired of seeing Comic Sans? Simply use Suitcase Fusion to deactivate the font and it will no longer appear as an option in the menu. This can make it much easier to find the fonts you need — and only the fonts you need — when creating great designs or developing a new website.
- You get to decide how to organize your font collection in a way that makes sense for you and your workflow. Instead of placing all your fonts in the Windows font directory, you can instead add those fonts to Suitcase Fusion. This lets you organize the fonts into libraries that make sense to you. Only need a font for a single project? You can add that font temporarily to Suitcase Fusion so that it is automatically removed when you reboot your computer.
By trimming out excess fonts installed in the Windows Font directory, you reduce the time it takes for your system to start up and accelerate application launches.
Here’s five things you should be sure to check out when trying Suitcase Fusion
Tip 1: Font Adding and Activation
Even better than having a font management utility for Windows, by utilizing Suitcase Fusion, you can be assured your font collection will always be available whenever and wherever you need it. By storing your fonts in the Suitcase Fusion vault, all your fonts will be scanned to make sure they are not damaged. When it comes time to add new fonts, it’s as simple as adding them to a library within Suitcase Fusion. You have the ability to organize your fonts in a way that makes the most sense to you, either by customer, client, or activity.
Tip 2: Font Previewing
With Suitcase Fusion, you can easily preview a font without the need to activate it or use it in a document. Suitcase Fusion supports a number of different preview modes that allow you to view a font quickly and easily. With QuickMatch, you also can preview a font against other fonts in your collection to find similar typefaces. This is especially handy if you want to try something new for a design, and already have an idea of where to start, but just need some inspiration.
Tip 3: Automatic Font Activation
Suitcase Fusion provides you the ability to automatically activate fonts within your documents. When using apps like Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, or Illustrator, you can rely on the auto-activation feature within Suitcase Fusion to accurately and quickly activate the exact font used in the document. When you add fonts to Suitcase Fusion, we generate a unique identifier known as a Font Sense ID for that font that will allow Suitcase Fusion to activate the right font every time.
Tip 4: Duplicate Fonts
With hundreds of thousands of fonts in existence there are bound to be duplicates. Fonts with the same PostScript name are considered to be duplicate fonts by the operating system. With Suitcase Fusion, you can add and manage your duplicate fonts, so if multiple projects use different versions of Helvetica, you can be sure you’re activating the font you need when you need it.
Tip 5: Font Troubleshooting
Like any other kind of file on a computer, your fonts can become damaged. When adding fonts to Suitcase Fusion, it will scan and detect any fonts that have become corrupted and no longer function correctly.
Windows Font Management
Interested in more best practices? Grab a copy of our Windows Font Management Best Practices Guide, which provides detailed information on getting the most from your fonts in Windows.
