How to open or install fonts from a .suit file under Lion?

Look. Whatever you think is proper, there are a very significant number of fonts around which are packaged in .suit suitcases. You admit yourself pretty much anything can be packaged in a suitcase.

Now, I know there should not be in your view, and maybe in Apple recommendations over 15 years ago, but in practice, in a pragmatic way, you cannot tell someone who asks if a .suit font is installable in OS X that it cannot be, nor can you say that "there is no such thing as a TrueType .suit". Because in the real world, there is.

No matter how dogmatic you are about your font collection and the requirements you impose on your customers, you have no idea what is inside a .suit suitcase, so the only practical and useful advice must be "double click on it, and if Font Book shows you the install window, it can be installed". Font book will check the font for errors, so if it has been damaged, it is much safer than it was in the Mac OS days.

It is one thing to have been using Mac since 1984 (as I did since the 128 BTW), it is another to try and help fellow users with an open mind.

Look. Whatever you think is proper, there are a very significant number of fonts around which are packaged in .suit suitcases.

Yes, there are. As you noted, older versions of Fontographer automatically output legacy Mac TrueType fonts with a .suit extension. Newer versions did not. The current version being maintained and sold by FontLab, also does not. From page 301 of the manual:

Macintosh TrueType

Also known as: sfnt-based TrueType, TrueType suitcase

File extension: none

Pros: Works on all Macintosh systems, not cross-platform. May contain up

to 65,535 glyphs, supports Unicode.

While there are a lot of such Mac TrueType fonts out there with a .suit extension, it wasn't the norm. The TrueType fonts included with OS 9. See any extensions on them?

Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold

Abadi MT Condensed Light

Andale Mono

Apple Chancery

Arial

Arial Black

Arial Narrow

Arial Rounded Bold

Aristocrat LET Fonts

Baskerville Old Face

Bauhaus 93

Bell MT

Bernard MT Condensed

Bertram LET Fonts

Bickley Script LET Fonts

BlairMdITC TT-Medium

Bodoni Ornaments ITC TT

Bodoni SvtyTwo ITC TT

Bodoni SvtyTwo OS ITC TT

Book Antiqua

Bookman Old Style

Bordeaux Roman Bold LET Fonts

Bradley Hand ITC TT-Bold

Braggadocio

Britannic Bold

Brush Script

Calisto MT

Capitals

Century Schoolbook

Charcoal

Chicago

Colonna

Comic Sans MS

Cooper Black

Courier

Courier New

Desdemona

Engravers MT

Equation Editor Fonts

Eurostile

Footlight Light

Gadget

Garamond

Geneva

Georgia

Gill Sans Ultra Bold

Gloucester MT Extra Condensed

Goudy Old Style

Haettenschweiler

Harrington

Helvetica

Hoefler Text

Humana Serif ITC TT

Impact

Imprint MT Shadow

Jokerman LET Fonts

Kino

Lucida Blackletter

Lucida Bright

Lucida Calligraphy

Lucida Fax

Lucida Grande

Lucida Sans

Lucida Sans Typewriter

LunaITC TT Bold

Machine ITC TT

Matura Script Capitals

Mistral

Modern No. 20

Mona Lisa Solid ITC TT

Monaco

Monotype Corsiva

Monotype Sorts

MT Extra

New York

News Gothic MT

Onyx

Palatino

Party LET Fonts

Perpetua Titling MT

Playbill

PortagoITC TT

Rockwell

Rockwell Extra Bold

Sand

Skia

Stencil

Stone Sans ITC TT

Stone Sans OS ITC TT

Stone Sans SC ITC TT

Symbol

Techno

Textile

Times

Times New Roman

Trebuchet MS

TremorITC TT

Verdana

VT102Font

Wanted LET Fonts

Webdings

Wide Latin

Wingdings

Wingdings 2

Wingdings 3

Microsoft Office used to include many such older style Mac TrueType fonts. Also without any extensions. Lots of other examples can easily be found, as I'm sure you could find plenty of examples the other way.

Does it matter? No, not at all. It's only for the matter of consistency. Long time Mac users expect legacy Mac TrueType fonts not to have a file extension. If there is one, it's automatically presumed to be the screen font suitcase for a Type 1 PostScript set. All for the sake a quick determination simply by looking at the file name.

Though even that doesn't work well. Many, as in virtually all of Adobe's older Type 1 PostScript Font Folio fonts, the screen font suitcase has no extension. So how is that a help to the user to determine at a glance if the file they're looking at is a legacy Mac TrueType font, or one part of a Type 1 PostScript font if neither has a file extension? It of course doesn't, and is just as confusing as it would be if they both have a .suit extension.

You admit yourself pretty much anything can be packaged in a suitcase.

Admit? When did I ever say it couldn't be done? Where are you getting these accusations from? You seem to like to make things up. Most fonts are a suitcase. Any TrueType font (.ttf or .ttc or legacy Mac), including OpenType TrueType is a suitcase. Apple's .dfont format is a suitcase.

nor can you say that "there is no such thing as a TrueType .suit". Because in the real world, there is.

I can only assume you are correct, because I have never seen a single legacy Mac TrueType font saved with a .suit extension in decades of using the Mac platform. And I can't even guess how many thousands of fonts I've worked with.

It is one thing to have been using Mac since 1984…

Sigh. The old, "I've been using Macs forever, therefore I am right." Can't tell you how many times that argument has been thrown out around here. If you want to argue computer experience as being better, I started using computers in 1974 with a dumb terminal in high school that connected to the mainframe in the downtown area. And just as meaningless as your statement.

I see you are less interested in helping other users than being always right.

I apologize for presenting facts.

1) Look at the fonts installed by OS 9 and tell me any of them have a .suit extension, or an extension name of any kind.

2) Look through the fonts that came with Office 2004 and older and point out any legacy Mac TrueType font that has an extension.

3) I agreed with you that older versions of Fontographer did indeed, by default, add .suit to legacy Mac TrueType fonts when generated from that older version of the app. It's right in the manual for version 4.7. I've just never seen one myself. Not having ever seen one isn't the same as saying you're lying. As I said, I've worked with thousands upon thousands of client supplied fonts. No one has ever submitted a legacy Mac TrueType font with an extension on the name.

And you accuse me of not having an open mind. Sheesh!

If you just want to install fonts under Mac OS X :

Double click on what you think is a font file. If you get the same kind of dialog as below, just click "Install Font" in the lower right corner.

Also, in general, in recent versions of OS X like El Capitan, if a font file can be installed, it's icon will show the letters Ag in its style :