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Genre: Font Management

Format: Download

Developer: PrePress Consolidated Color, Inc.

Minimum Requirements: PowerPC, Mac OS 9.0.4 or Mac OS X v10.2, 32MB RAM (with virtual memory), 10MB hard disk space, FHS formatted hard drive

Retail Price: $29.95

Availability: Out now

There was a time—a time not too long ago—when I understood font management. I knew where my fonts went, I knew how to turn them on, and I knew how to view them. I used FontReserve to keep them in line, FontCat to view them, and Type Reunion to keep them organized in program menus. Simple. Clean.

Sadly, those days are gone. In OS X, my fonts are now scattered like wandering cattle across the open planes of my Mac. FontReserve is still able to corral them, but neither FontCat nor TypeReunion have returned to the OS X Ranch, so...

Hey, wait a minute. I see now that just this past Sunday, October 12th, FontCat has shown up for Mac OS X. And in a deluxe version, too. Hmmm...more on this at another time.

And so, in my quest for some new hired hands, I happened across PrePress Consolidated Color, Inc.'s FontCatalog X. First of all, you have to love the idea of a font management program being developed by an actual graphic design firm. They knew what they wanted, they apparently couldn't find it elsewhere, so they made it themselves. The big question, of course, is whether anyone else wants the same thing.

FontCatalog X's greatest strength, in my opinion, is its ability to instantly categorize and display all the fonts currently active on your computer. Each font is displayed in a row, so you can easily compare about a dozen at a time, depending upon your screen size and the point size at which you're viewing the typeface (at 1152x870 and 12pt., I was able to squeeze 13 fonts onto my screen). A slider at the bottom of the window allows the user to easily alter the size of the fonts from 12 to 120pt., and a window at the top allows for customization of the text to be displayed. With these two features, you can easily see almost exactly what the type will look like when you lay it out. My only gripe here is that there should have been a box where you can type in the point size directly. On slower systems, the slider can be very cumbersome as the window redraws itself.

The active fonts are categorized into five basic families: text sans serif, text serif, display, script, and art and pi. I'd like to see one or two more, such as fringe, but perhaps this simpler set is for the best (fringe type is covered in the subclassifications of Display. There's also a "Classify Me!" tab. With this, the user can manually categorize typefaces that aren't predefined, or reclassify fonts that have already been placed elsewhere. A nice feature here would be the ability to create new categories.

Within each category, the user is given the ability to view all of the fonts, or, in turn, just the plain, bold, italic, or bold-italic variations. Very handy. Unfortunately, FontCatalog X is not able to compensate for the dissimilitude in font classifications. For instance, when I asked to see only the plain fonts under the text serif tab, Clarendon condensed, Clarendon bold condensed, Clarendon, Clarendon light, Clarendon bold and Clarendon black all showed up. Within the display, fonts can be categorized alphabetically or (and here's where you can tell the program was designed by people who frequently work with fonts) by width.

Font Catalog takes all of this one step further with the "More..." button. With this, you can scan specific folders on your hard drive to pull in deactivated fonts. FontCatalog will activate the fonts within FontCatalog for a more robust selection, or you can have it activate the fonts for all applications. Unfortunately, this decision has to be made ahead of time; it's a choice in the preference panel, and the software must be restarted in order for a change to take place. I'd like for there to be an easy way to activate and deactivate fonts at will from within the FontCatalog user interface, much like there is in programs such as FontReserve and Suitcase.

That's another issue, actually. FontCatalog doesn't seem to play nicely with other font management programs. It only automatically searches in the "known font sources," so fonts stored outside these areas must be found manually. Worse, the program had a nasty habit of locking up when searching font folders. This is a shame because, in my opinion, the most important feature in a program such as this is the ability to see all the deactivated fonts in order to decide which to activate. In fact, it would also be great if, after scanning in deactived fonts, the program could tell you which fonts were already active throughout the system and which were just activated to FontCatalog. Oddly, the only place in which this is indicated is in the Deactivate Fonts window where user activated fonts are highlighted. Be careful in here, though, as it's possible to deactivate the required Apple System Fonts. Make sure you know what those are. The developrs are aware of this issue, and will hopefully remove this potential for disaster in an upcoming version.

Speed is a concern as well. When the program didn't lock up while pulling in the inactive fonts, it still took quite a long time to do so. FontCatalog also takes a while to launch, but that's expected as it checks your active fonts each time it launches. Recent versions of the program have increased the speed, so I anticipate that future versions will continue to do so.

When it's up and running, FontCatalog does a decent job of helping you manage, view and print your fonts. The trouble with it is that it's not robust enough to replace FontReserve or Suitcase, but it also doesn't play nicely with those programs. Still, there's a lot to like in here. I have yet to see a program that so easily allows the user to see custom text strings in entire font families. What's more, as new typefaces are created, you can download updated ProtoDB databases for instant classification. If typeface hasn't already been classified, the PDF manual that comes with FontCatalog X offers good explanation and examples of the various styles so you can manually classify the typefaces with a strong degree of accuracy.

At $29.95, FontCatalog X is a good deal for what does. It would be a great deal if it did it a bit faster and with a better degree of stability. If you're happy with the capabilities of FontReserve or Suitcase, there's no reason to look here. If you're looking for a smoother, cheaper way of finding and activating fonts by their design, FontCatalog X is the way to go. A 10 run demo is available to help you see how FontCatalog X can help you wrangle your fonts in OS X's system. For understanding that system, however, you're on your own.