Mac Font Book as a production font management tool

[Colorblind]

Hi everybody, recently our Studio got upgraded with brand new iMacs and our IT department decided not to install Suitcase Fusion to manage fonts (looks like an attempt to save a few bucks) and told the designers that Apple's Font Book would do the job perfectly. Of course, our designers are complaining because they're used to Suitcase. So here's my question: is Mac Font Book a reliable tool from a production perspective?

[Shawn]

FontBook can be used, and I've seen places where it works fine with a limited font set, but in my experience it gets a little flaky when you throw a lot of fonts at it. If they're looking for a free, robust font manager why not try Linotype Font Explorer. You can still download the non-pro (free) version and its worked great for us.

http://fex.linotype.com/FontExplorerX123.dmg

Shawn

[Colorblind]

Thanks Shawn.

[prepressguru]

Better yet do no use any font manager at all. Just use the user folder/font folder. But an alias in the dock and just put copies of fonts in there when you need them. No conflicts, cache issue, etc. Works like a charm.

p

[DavidMa]

the User font folder, because it doesn't resolve conflicts, can be a dangerous tool in the Prepress environment. Especially if you change fonts continually throughout the course of a day.
Your best bet, and I have used it myself since it was released, is FEX, as noted in a post by Shawn.
It works great in OS X (10.4 through 10.6).
and it works with Quark 8! A very special bonus!