How do I open a font suitcase

Id be interested in a solution to this too. I also work in pre-press and have also had to copy fonts to os 9 macs to extract the font i need because of conflicts. Ive finally got rid of all the os9 macs and rebooting into os9 or running classic just seems mad when you need to do this.

I use Extensis Suitcase to manage fonts and keep the system fonts down to a bare minimum so i always use the fonts customers docs are created with but i still get the occasional conflict that this would help with.

If only everyone could supply print ready PDF's or at least learn how to preflight!

Hello M Rocchio and Andrew,

Rocchio, you don't mention what font manager you're using, but in your case Andrew, Suitcase X1 or Fusion should have come with a bundled copy of Font Doctor. Besides it's normal use to find and repair corrupt fonts, you can also use it to add, move, or remove unwanted fonts from a suitcase.

While orphaned screen fonts shouldn't cause conflicts, it doesn't mean that someone long ago didn't throw other screen fonts, or even Mac TrueType fonts into a Type 1 PostScript suitcase that didn't belong there. Like Garamond fonts in a Helvetica suitcase.

Anyway, when you launch Font Doctor, press Command+D. You'll get a box with two windows to move fonts between. You can also first create an empty suitcase to have somewhere to move the fonts you're removing. The box is self explanatory. Even though screen fonts usually have four or five point sizes per typeface in a suitcase, only one listing for (example) italic will show up in the list. Moving that one to the second window will move all point sizes for that typeface.

It's still nowhere near as easy to do as it was in OS 9 and earlier, but using Font Doctor is far less painful than FontDAMover.

I guess my real gripe is that why? would Apple remove a feature from the OS that was there for more than 15 years...

A very good question. There are a lot of pre OS X features that have slowly worked their way back in, such as spring loaded folders. But why this feature still hasn't reappeared this far into OS X's development is puzzling and frustrating.

I'd never heard of Font Smasher before, so looked it up and downloaded the demo. Being from the same folks who produce Font Agent Pro, it's probably pretty nice software. Rather pricey though at $49 for a single usage application. Especially for someone in your position who would have to purchase more than a few copies in order to spread them around the shop. I'll stick with using Font Doctor for now since I already have it.

But yes, it drives me a bit nuts that we still can't do this as easily as we could in OS 7 - 9. A copyright issue Apple had to conform to? Not very plausible since we could do this up until OS X. About all you can do is give Apple feedback and ask that we get this function back. I'm sure you know as well as I some of the mishmashed suitcases clients send that need to be cleaned up in order to use them.

The need to do able to get into font suitcases will be around for a long time, so it's not a minor thing.

M Rocchio, Kurt is right about Font Doctor. It does a bunch of other stuff a well, but you can also create a new font suitcase and import ONLY the fonts you need, rather than all of them. File/create empty suitcase - after creating an empty suitcase, you need to move the fonts you require into it. file/move fonts - then simply select the ones you require for the job.

Just out of curiousity, what type of RIP/Renderer are you running to make your plates/film? I don't have that problem and we are running an Agfa Apogee X workflow.

Andrew, one solution (we use quite well) is to create a settings file in distiller and send this to your clients before they send you their pdf's. If they don't have distiller, then take screen captures of the settings (they should be able to adjust most of them when they create their PDF's) and make sure they follow your program. You can also send them your icc press profile(s) so they can see what your presses will do and what adjustments they should make on their cmyk photos before they send you final files.

"I guess my real gripe is that why? would Apple remove a feature from the OS that was there for more than 15 years..."

I agree, but the upside is that people can't easily do the stupid and lazy thing you're trying to fix - putting multiple fonts into one suitcase file.
Drives me nuts to this day.

Remember Font/DA Mover? I go back to System 5.0 🙂

Scott

*EDIT - sorry, I replied to the wrong post, but the meaning is intact...