EXCLUSIVES

Suitcase X1 Carries On the Tradition
Words by Ric Getter
April 2004

Suitcase X1 (Extensis™) is the most recent incarnation of what has to be one of the longest-living third-party enhancements to the Mac OS®. Even though it's not the most substantial upgrade one could have hoped for, it does provide some significant improvements over its predecessor. While the look and feel of the program remain quite familiar, it offers a variety of very useful enhancements. Under the hood, there is significantly tighter integration with the Mac OS; and X1 corrects some of the annoying compatibility issues of its predecessor.

The program's essential function is to help you avoid the clutter, disarray, and potential performance penalties of storing your entire font collection with your operating system. It also provides a way of organizing fonts into manageable sets that can be easily, or even automatically, activated for a given program or project. For the publishing industry, using hundreds of fonts each with numerous faces, the need for a program like Suitcase is obvious. But X1 has added and improved some features that would make it worth the consideration of a wider audience.

As you may have noticed, a lot of programs have taken it upon themselves to install their own collection of freebie fonts into your system. It's often difficult to discern where they came from; what they're needed for; or, in the case of OS X, where they've been installed. One of the most useful new features of Suitcase X1 is the ability to take control over your system fonts. Suitcase is now smart enough to sniff out the various hiding places where X stashes away its fonts. While keeping them safely in their anointed homes, it gives you the ability to decide if they should appear in every font menu in every program you own. This also means that you can override the standard system fonts. For example, if your project calls for a version of Helvetica from a different foundry, you can have Suitcase X1 make the switch automatically without touching your system folders.

However, one thing that confuses some folks who are new to font management tools is the fact these tools don't provide an instant cure if your fonts are scattered all over your system. Frankly, it's a little like expecting a fancy set of organizers to instantly give you a clean closet. There's a fair amount of work to be done before you have the situation under control. Suitcase X1 ships with a copy of FontDoctor for Mac. The program's expertise goes beyond diagnosing and repairing corrupt fonts; and it can collect them and sort them into a single location, flagging duplicates, incomplete screen/printer pairs, and files that are irreparably damaged. During our testing, we discovered that problems could arise if your font storage area is on a different partition than your system. The solution, as recommended in the Extensis knowledgebase, is fairly drastic; so we would recommend keeping your fonts on your system volume or a freshly formatted partition.

Auto-activation is an optional feature that lets Suitcase automatically call up an inactive font if it's needed when you open a document. In the first release of Suitcase X, turning this option on would often cause significant problems with Microsoft® Office applications. We're quite happy to report that this appears to be fixed in X1. A lengthening list of popular applications makes use of what Extensis refers to as "global activation." Included plug-ins for InDesign®, Illustrator®, and Quark® take advantage of Apple®'s sophisticated FontSync technology for even greater accuracy. So far, Suitcase X1 is the only font management tool that makes use of this native capability.

Suitcase's straightforward user interface has always been one of its greatest strengths. It remains a single, multi-panel window and virtually all the features are available with a single mouse-click. X1 takes advantage of some of OS X's nicer interface elements for a couple of very useful new features. The Suitcase window now includes a Search text box that lets you look for fonts by name, style or keyword. The latter is another new feature accessed by a button and slide-out panel that appears to the left of the window. You can select one or more fonts or faces from either of the font panels and assign or remove a keyword. Tabs on the same panel also provide an extensive list of font styles for click-and-go searches. Double-clicking on the style or keyword will display a list of matching fonts

Suitcase X1 remains an excellent font management solution. The newest version sports enough added features and enhancements to make it worth the upgrade. New users who have been holding off on a font management solution should definitely take a look. There is a learning curve involved before you can put the program to its best use. But well-written quick start and users guides help make the process as painless as possible. Remaining one of the most popular font management tools available, venerable Suitcase will remain a keystone of the Mac publishing world for some time to come.

Suitcase X1 > Requires OS X 10.6.2 or higher and 30 MB hard disk space > Price: Full version is $99.95; Upgrading from Suitcase 8, 9, or 10 is $49.95.