Should You Use a Font Manager?

Fonts play a very important role in the world of print, and print service providers (PSPs) need to be able to work with them on several different levels. But every font, every version, every “type” is essentially a small piece of software in and of itself, and once enough of them are installed on a system, it can get unwieldly and difficult to ensure every client project has the right font at the right time.

That’s where font management software steps in.

Because PSPs often work with fonts both on the creative side—creating pieces for clients and maintaining the files, including artwork and fonts—and on the prepress side—managing client fonts as they come in the door, and ensuring the right versions of the right fonts are attached to the projects so they print correctly—it is important to find a font management solution that can, ideally, fill both roles.

First and foremost, font management is about making fonts easily organized and searchable. On the creative side, especially, this is a key point. “Using font management, the user keeps fonts organized in a collection and can easily and quickly find required font,” noted Alexander Kirichenko the director of Proxima Software, which sells FontExpert. “There are number of ways to find fonts: by browsing font groups or sets, or searching by name or by tags, such as previously assigned keywords. Without a font manager, the fonts are usually distributed on a hard disk in different folders, and sometimes it is not easy to find the one you want.”

“Getting a full overview of all the fonts available on the machine in one place, regardless if they are in the System directories or any user subfolder, puts you in full control of the fonts,” agreed Tobias Meyerhoff, director product management, Font Management Solutions, Monotype GmbH, maker of Font Explorer X Pro. “This saves time that is free for the creative work.”

Another key benefit of font management solutions is that it organizes more than just the font files themselves. It should also keep track of the licencing issues. "One aspect of font management that many people don’t often consider is that fonts are actually little pieces of software. This means that when people license fonts, they are entering into a license agreement much like those for all other pieces of software," noted Jim Kidwell, senior product marketing manager for Font Management at Extensis. "So, users need to ensure that what they are doing with fonts is covered by their license. For example, if working as part of a team, you need to buy enough licenses to cover everyone and not just buy one and give it to everyone. A font server can help users stay safe through the use of license tracking and reporting features, as well as the communication of license rights to everyone on the team."

And it’s not just about organizing the fonts and licenses, but about making sure only the fonts needed right now are active and available. While this saves time and energy for creative work, ensuring only the fonts needed for the current project are displayed, cutting down on long menus to scroll through, it is even more important on the prepress side.

“My background is as a prepress manager,” said Scott Stoel, the director of the Product and Technical division at Insider Software, which sells FontAgent. “My concern was making sure the fonts customer’s used in a project were the same ones used in the production of actual document. We would take in a job, and it would be numbered according to system; we would import the font assets into a font manager—it was FontAgent Pro—and make sure only those specific customer fonts were activated before printing the job.”

"In the prepress world, font managers can be used to temporarily add fonts to a production machine while a job is being processed," said Kidwell. "Temporary fonts override any conflicting fonts already active. This allows the precise fonts delivered with the job to be used for output, and then automatically removed when no longer required. Because prepress shops typically deal with documents from many different sources, using temporary fonts, it’s easy to ensure that the correct fonts are used for the job at hand."

Conflicts are, in fact, are one of the biggest issues prepress managers will face when it comes to fonts. Just because a client uses “Helvetica” in their job, doesn’t mean they used the same “Helvetica” the shop has installed on the prepress machines. And ten different clients submitting jobs could all be using a different version of “Helvetica,” and using the wrong version with a job will mean print errors down the line.

“Prepress wants to make sure they have only the customer fonts needed activated for the current job,” stressed Stoel. “I would prepare sometimes 30 jobs a day, and I would have font duplications in there, or have clients send same font but a different version from each another. I needed to make sure the fonts sent by customer were the exact fonts used, so dumping fonts into a big pool is not what I wanted. I had to be able to activate just those fonts for print and prepress.”

A good font management solution will make activating those fonts simple, as well. Having to manually activate fonts in the management software, and then close and relaunch applications such as Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress, adds time and resources to the process. PSPs should look for solutions that are more seamless in their connection to other programs.

“If you use professional layout and software for graphic design, it’s also important that fonts that are used in a document are automatically activated when needed,” said Meyerhof. “For Adobe and Quark applications, this is only possible via plugins that make the connection between the font management software and the application. A professional font management solution like FontExplorer X Pro has these plugins included. Unfortunately, not all applications support that directly.”

Another feature to keep an eye out for is the ability to clean the font cache. While most font managers do a good job of making sure fonts are completely activated or deactivated depending on the situation, the system can still build up a cache of information that can lead to errors. Regularly wiping this cache clean will eliminate a wide range of problems before they even come up.

“When it comes to choosing the right font management software, it’s also a good idea to look at the additional features that the software provides,” said Meyerhof. “This can avoid additional costs for specialized products. Some of these additional features include things like font cache cleaning, which can help to troubleshoot font related system errors, and printing functionality that can help to print specimen pages or books.”

“Font caches issues are almost like plain text issues, that let apps on your system know which fonts are installed and which aren’t,” explained Stoel. “Those can get corrupted or out of date so you get into a situation where fonts you expect to show up don’t, or remain listed when you try to deactivate them. When this happens, depending on the elegance of the software, it will react in different ways. Sometimes it makes for system instability, sometimes the software expects to have a font and when it’s not there can cause instability; most font management applications handle it pretty gracefully, but they can still crash or you’ll see goofy characters instead of what you expect.”

At the end of the day, the experts all agree that while the basic functionality of font management software is the same, there aren’t all exactly alike, and that could mean the difference between a solution that makes everything run smoother, from creative to prepress, or everything takes a bit longer, and is more prone to errors. The best way to know which solution is right for your shop is to actually give them a try.

“I'd suggest looking for reviews of font managers, then download the 3-5 that seem to be what you are looking for. Have your users try them all, and choose the one that best fits your shop from their point of view,” said Kirichenko.

“Get a trial version, test the software and test every feature – thoroughly,” agreed Meyerhof. He went on to note that ensuring your font management solution of choice is updated regularly is also a major component to consider. “Font management software not only interacts directly with your library of fonts, but it also should interact smoothly with creative workflow apps. This means that as your creative workflow apps get upgraded, you’ll want to look for font management software that offers you an upgrade in a timely fashion to allow you to work with these enhanced apps. It may seem obvious, but you could be left behind if your font management solution is behind the curve when it comes to providing you with an update to its plugin architecture, as an example.”

However, Kidwell noted, updating everything as soon as it's available isn't always going to be the best route. While updating the font manager will ensure it can work with the latest versions of operating systems and other pieces of software, it goes both ways. "Because font managers have become an essential tool for those in the print, publishing and creative professions, the interaction with other professional publishing tools and operating systems is critical. Extensis works hard to ensure that the most recent operating systems from Apple and Microsoft are fully supported. And, because our users rely upon creative tools from Adobe and Quark, we work to quickly to respond with compatible updates as quickly as possible as they are updated. To prevent any issues, we encourage users to check for full compatibility across all products before updating any single piece of software. This can mean holding off on an OS or software update (even if the update is free, or included as part of a subscription) until all necessary software that’s part of your workflow are fully compatible."

“Realize that fonts are a problem,” said Stoel. “They have conflicts and licensing issues, etc., and having a font manager is a way to take control. Having a system font folder is not a way a professional print shop can expect to properly manage fonts.”