Connect Fonts

The time of Extensis software is over. All of their stuff is bloatware that is slow and buggy. Renaming Suitcase to something else won't correct that. Connect Fonts is $108 PER YEAR! Or you could just use FontBook for free, or buy RightFont for a flat fee of $60. Good luck Extensis.

Got this e-mail from Monotype: FontExplorer X by Monotype has provided you with many years of sophisticated font management. But like all software, the product has become more difficult to maintain with its age, and we've decided to prepare FontExplorer X for retirement. Your software will continue to work as usual, but please be aware it will not be updated or supported after June 30th, 2023, and won’t be sold after June 30th, 2022.

The latest version of Suitcase Fusion is 22.04 and MU, you're way behind in your version listing as you are as well in many widely used Mac software. Since your UI change, you've become far less useful as a resource!

This is getting worse and worse FontAgent Leaves this in the dust and works with all the app not just the ones with plugins. It is slow as treacle the beat features deleted and a single window is not working well for the slow scrolling. Have now moved on.

since early 2020, this has become one of the worst font managers out there. i have no idea what they are doing it just gets worse and worse. fonts cant be added / plugins crash / fonts do not activate. now after almost a year dealing with this s**t im sick and tired of it wasting my time. DO NOT BUY.

I bought every version up to 9 in 2019 and have been happily using it, without issue, until a computer and system software upgrade broke the plugin compatibility with Suitcase Fusion 9's typecore. As I refuse to go subscription based I am now looking for a reasonable replacement. Such a shame all these companies are going subscription-based.

RE: Suitcase Fusion 8. I upgraded to this in August 2018, Bad Decision. Many good features were now gone: no font count for found fonts; date added field gone; can't compare as many fonts displayed as before; can't sort found fonts by anything other than name; can't assign my own glyphs to show in ABC123 or Paragraph or Waterfall views; it LOST all my settings for "Favorites" etc. It was so bad that I deleted it & re-installed v. 18.2.4, a waste of $60. 6/28/19: I discovered Monotype's Font Explorer X Pro, & find it to be far better/easier than even Suitcase Fusion 7 (not to mention the horrible update), so I've permanently abandoned suitcase. Check it out, it actually does what Suitcase promised to do years ago (e.g., auto font activation in ALL my apps (even NisusWriter Pro & EazyDraw, etc.).

What the hell happened to this software! I just spent 3hrs trying to figure out why Indesign stopped working. I should have looked at the plugins first, Suitcase plugin was the cause of the problem. I had to uninstall suitcase, remove all preferences, font vault, and all the crap it puts in the system. Since upgrading to version 9 I have had to do this more than a couple of times. Like 8tracker said, the user forums have been removed which was useful when there was a problem or at least vent your frustration. When version 8 came out the forums were bombarded with comments on how much people hated it. I'm guessing they removed it so they won't have to hear their customers and just ignore them. I do not recommend this software until they can at least make it stable. Version 7, in my opinion, was the best version. Please go back to that version and add a feature set to that.

As Extensis recently wiped out the user forums, there’s no central place for users or potential customers to get help from the community or to warn of the perils of upgrading to version 8.

In a nut, it’s terrible. If you’re looking for a font manager, don’t invest in Suitcase Fusion 8.

I have saved this post I made to the Suitcase forum. I hope it helps save somebody from Suitcase…

— — —

A common thread in the forums is the observation that Extensis doesn’t seem to know how the community uses their software. And after months and months of inaction, what other conclusion can be drawn?

Bear with me, I have a lot to get off my chest. Read on…

After reverting back to 7 and keeping a watchful eye on this forum for Extensis to set things right, it appears Suitcase in whole, or as a single-user product, may be coming to the end of its life. We saw the same thing with Extensis’ Portfolio (now strictly an enterprise offering). We’ve seen Adobe abandon Freehand and Fireworks after the Macromedia acquisition. Now they’ve kicked Muse to the curb (not that I care about Muse). And who can forgot the hubris of QarkXpress in the late ’90s? (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/quarkxpress-the-demise-of-a-design-desk-darling/)

I bring up these corporate decisions to kill off, or handicap products to illustrate what happens when a company stops paying attention to its users and, in the end, lose customers to the competition. Or worse, create new competitors these Goliaths never saw coming.

There was a case to be made for dropping Freehand: It was a direct competitor to Illustrator. Those of us in the Freehand community at the time viewed it as an anti-trust thing, as there were really no other viable alternatives to Freehand and Illustrator. And boy were we pissed. But, in the end it was killed off and we had to make due with AI. This is where my contempt for Adobe was born. Like Extensis, the lengths they go to to ignore their user community are superhuman.

But Fireworks? This is where Extensis really needs to pay attention. When Adobe dropped my beloved web design tool, it forced everyone into Photoshop. PS is terrible for web design, and guess who spotted that? The makers of Sketch (Hey Extensis? Where’s the Sketch plugin?). Now Adobe has dropped Muse, and with Dreamweaver a hot mess, is still trying to birth XD.

The world is moving on from legacy software companies like Adobe and Extensis with a new generation of software developers building tools they want to use (RightFont, Sketch, InVision Studio, Webflow). When you start looking around at the competitors — especially the newer ones — you get a clear picture of what the developers want for themselves, and what Extensis is missing, and what Extensis is emulating, albeit poorly.*

So, in the spirit of moving on, I have done a little bit of looking around at the competition in font management. This is purely from a Mac perspective, and the features I demand from a contemporary font management platform. If anybody spots something wrong or left out, add it in the comments.

As a side note, all other font management platforms I’ve looked at tout speed. They are clearly reacting to the sluggish Suitcase experience we all suffer through day-to-day.

What I want from a font management app in order of importance:
• List View (this would have never been on this list, let alone number one, if not for v.8)
• Tags/Metadata
• Cloud Sharing (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.)
• Family fonts together
• Speed
• Free-form comments
• Auto Activation
• UX observations driving UI decisions (I’m happy to live with an outdated UI for a killer UX)

_As of 04/18_

**Extensis Suitcase Fusion 8**
_Mac/Windows_
https://www.extensis.com
Product Video: Ø
$119.95/59.95
Auto activation for Adobe CC (ID AI PS IC AE) NO QuarkXpress Support!
Cloud syncing to Extensis controlled servers
Typekit & Google Font integration
No List View
Customizable Tags
Claim: “Browse, preview and select fonts easily” (Pfft!)

**FontAgent**
_Mac/Windows_
https://www.insidersoftware.com/font-managers/fontagent-mac/
Product Video: Ø
$99/$59
Auto activation for Adobe CC (ID AI PS FL AE IC), QuarkXpress, Sketch, Microsoft Office, Mac Apps (Keynote, Pages, Numbers), Affinity (Photo & Designer)
Cloud syncing to FontAgnet controlled servers via FontAgent Sync
Typekit, Google and SkyFonts integration
List view – they call it Table View
Metadata! Metadata! Metadata!
Customizable Tags
Free-form Comments (OMG — I’ve wanted this like forever – you can attach comments to fonts like its history, what it pairs with, what project you might have used it on!)
Claims: “Style. Smarts. Speed. More of What You Need.” “Modern, Adjustable Interface.” “Explore Using the Table View.” “Lightning-Fast Font Searches.” “More Metadata = Smarter Searches.” “Free-Form Comments and Tags.”

**FontExplorer X Pro 6**
_Mac/Windows_
https://www.fontexplorerx.com
Product Video: Ø
$99/$49
Auto activation for Adobe CC (ID AI PS IC) and QuarkXpress
Provided Free Adobe CC Plugins for all registered users with last release of Adobe CC (Unlike Extensis)
NO CLOUD SYNCING (Not that I could spot)
Typekit & Google Font integration
List View
Customizable Tags
Integrated Font Stores
Claim: “FontExplorer X® is the simple, speedy way to find and organize all of your fonts.”

**RightFont**
_Mac_
https://rightfontapp.com
Product Video: https://youtu.be/8caPhZqcFfU
$39 (Normally $49)
Syncs with **_any_** cloud drive apps/services such as Dropbox/Google Drive/iCloud/Box/OneDrive/Resilio Sync/Adobe CC/Amazon Drive including local shared folders
Typekit, Google Font, Font Awesome, Ionicons, Material Design inclusion/integration
Auto activation for Adobe CC (ID AI PS FL AE), Sketch, PowerPoint, Keynote, Affinity (Photo & Designer)
No customizable Tags – Plans on adding tags in next release according to an email exchange with RF
There appears to be no list view (But haven’t downloaded to check)
Claim: “3x times performance improved in RightFont 4” with 10,000 fonts activated

**FontBase**
_Mac/Windows/Linux_
https://fontba.se
Product Video: https://youtu.be/XCpqkaTJ49I
Free — Upgradable to “Awesome” unlocking additional features — $3 per month/$28.80 per year/$180 Lifetime
Syncs with Dropbox/Google Drive/iCloud
Doesn’t have font auto activation (at least they didn’t mention it)
There appears to be no list view (But haven’t downloaded to check)
Claim: 4.25s lead-time of FontBase with 60,000 fonts

— — —

That’s all I got. Add your own thoughts to this thread and maybe we can all move on to something better. And again, this is from a Mac perspective. I didn’t cover Windows options such as High Logic’s MainType.

_And…_ if there were anyone who could craft an Export/Import font tags/styles/foundries/metadata thingy that allowed users to jump to new platforms with ease, that would rule the world.

**PS:** To Extensis: I spend my days at a medium size Ad/Web agency working for the biggest REDACTED on the planet (among other big REDACTED companies). We deliver bug fixes and site enhancements DAILY to the e-comm platform we built and maintain for them. What’s your deal? Is it that your lead developer spends half his day on Twitter losing his mind over politics? Or is it a leadership team with no skin in the creative services game? Maybe it’s your board of directors, driving pure profit as the only metric of success, and bleeding all value from Extensis? Maybe it’s all these things and the absence of the early, entrepreneurial, founder-driven spirit that pervades our startup culture? Maybe everybody’s just phoning it in, with the wealth of product insights found on this forum never getting to the C-suite?

*It’s crystal clear Extensis sees a combination of FontAgent and the new upstarts RightFont and FontBase as their competition — or at least inspiration for the lousy UI of Suitcase. RightFont and FontBase appear to be geared more towards product design teams who typically don’t need access to the number of font alternatives visual designers need.

Awful. Just awful. Extensis did this once before in a previous version where it shoved previews down the users throat whether they want them or not. It was so unpopular they brought it back! This company simply doesn't listen to its customers. No list view. Just shameful.

No Support for Quark Express 2018

Terrible update. It takes me twice as long to do almost everything.

Sorry you guys, I moved back to Font Agent (after a couple of years using Suitcase.. which cannot handle my huge font library, takes ages to scroll through collection, do searches etc.. for some reason FontAgent these days is pretty snappy. Suticase's UI etc is just fine.. my only gripe but a huge one.. speed.. or lack thereof.

All dinosaurs must die at some point. Too bad this one took it's own life :p

This update completely breaks my workflow. The new UI is terrible, looking through thousands of fonts is painstaking, and is buggy as hell. Stick with Adobe CC 2017 so you can stay with Suitcase 7.

Suitcase Fusion 8 v 19.0.1.13

The UI of the new Suitcase Fusion 8 is great! It was simplified and the whole ballast (taging etc.) isn't visible anymore on the "front page". Now you have a button called Edit Attributes (or you can right-click on a font and there you go), where you can see and modify, whatever you want).

The whole UI has the best and most logical build until this date or in any versions of Suitcase Fusion and it reminds me of the good old simple, two columns font managers. And finally they managed to speed up the application.

I also tried the Windows version and it works great!

BTW: how is, that MacRumors doesn't have the newest version?

Mac version:
http://bin.extensis.com/SuitcaseFusion8-M-19-0-1.dmg

Windows version:
http://bin.extensis.com/SuitcaseFusion8-W-19-0-1.zip

iOS version:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/suitcase-fusion-your-font/id1147717419?ls=1&mt=8

Suitcase Fusion 8 Uninstaller (Mac):
http://bin.extensis.com/Suitcase_Fusion_8_Uninstaller.zip

The new licensing scheme requiring you to log in to Extensis in order to be able to use the product, has created significant problems for our shop, since we purchased upgrades but NONE of the new licenses are linked ANY existing account dating back more than ten years. Therefore the 3 new licenses we purchased are absolutely useless. Thanks for nothing Extensis. Thanks for wasting our valuable time. Thanks for taking our money and giving us a mystery license.

Yay! A much better icon!

I used to use Suitcase Religiously but got so pissed off when they wanted upgrade money every year and this version although it works with Sierra none of the Extensions for Adobe Apps are being updated with new versions of Adobe CC I got SO PISSED! So I uninstalled every trace of it and Adobe Apps work faster & smoother withtout it and with Sierra. Font Book is no Suitcase but it has improved somewhat and I'll take my chances... at least my system boots faster and runs better without Suitcase and With Latest Adobe Updates. They can go to hell as I remember how they Efed us over when they bought out Font Reserve which was the best ever with free updates year after year. With Adobe's Type Kit along with Google Fonts you don't need anything else.

I love Suitcase. Been using it professionally for a very long time. But I have to ask... what's up with that silly icon? It's really dumb!