Suitcase Fusion 9 for Mac

User Reviews

• costly, complex, hassle to update/install, bad support

  mbanstendigSeptember 30, 2012

  Pros

  I found none. It was always a hassle to install and more so to use. There just was nothing else a decade ago. Now there is.

  Cons

  Pitstop has always been a huge hassle. We have owned this at least a decade, since before version 5.1. The software is enormously expensive, and therefore should work, have easy installation and updates, and especially great support. It has neither and is even worse than that. Years ago, it was the only thing that did what it does with PDFs, so our business needed it. Today, there are many other applications for the Mac and for the PC that do essentially what it does. The latest, version 10, updated, for Mac to version 11, is the worse yet. It demands install logins and passwords, on top of passwords, and activation Keys for the original and updates for the keys for the update, all of which links do not work on their web site. Links do not work. Passwords are not accepted, even after they send them, which is done automatically because Support cannot be reached for direct access.

  Summary

  Such a hassle as this last update, I have never had with any software. Amazing. There is no phone support, which is inexcusable for such a high priced application. Support takes days to respond to their hard to find web forms, and then demands what amounts to the user doing much of their work for them. A horror to deal with. For this already super expensive product, I have 200 dollars worth of latest update that does not install and which stopped the previously installed software from working weeks ago. I have had 6 or 7 communications with sales and support, sending them all the hard to find/get info they took their time asking for, and they still do nothing about it. Avoid this company and its products.

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• still a complete disaster

  torgotom22June 5, 2012

  Pros

  None whatsoever

  Cons

  Incompatible with most modern graphics software, and incompatible with ALL browsers

  Summary

  Not even up to beta quality - a truly awful program that makes every day i use it a bad day. 30 years in this biz, have tried them all, there were many far better but they never got market share. This market-dominating piece of garbage is inexplicable. And a crime.

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• Very expensive for such a number of features!

  ivancucerNovember 10, 2011

  Pros

  Easy to use!

  Cons

  Very expensive for such a number of features! Also it has a lot of bugs, eg. Photoshop CS5.5 -> Save for Web works very slowwwwww if Fusion Core turned on!

  Summary

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• Offers a slight improvement over Fusion 2, so what?

  thinkingmanDotComOctober 13, 2010

  Pros

  Offers a few performance improvements, and makes installing application-specific plugins easier.

  Cons

  Where do I start? The performance improvements aren't quite enough. It causes crashes under Indesign CS5 on export. If there weren't so many bugs, the program would earn more stars, but these are really show-stoppers for me.

  Summary

  If the show-stopping bugs were eliminated, it would be a great font management program.

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• An essential program in my workflow

  ReplyProductionDecember 3, 2009

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I agree on most points of the previous post as there is not much info on the fonts and the occasional hickups of the program locking up to show the spinning ball forever...(which almost always is a problem font stirring up some confusion) However, i worked my way around the way it manages fonts inside folders when i am to delete fonts entirely from the library. As i have a very large font library of 10'000+ fonts collected over many years i've spent a LOT of time sorting them all into some 50-ish folders with the fontstyle as names of the folders. As i have it set up like that many typefaces can fit into several different sortings (a font might be in Heavy, Display and Slab Serif at the same time), and if the program deleted the font entirely from the library if i hit delete in any of those folders i would lose it everywhere - and that would drive me crazy. So what i did was to start making extensive use of keywords, making it possible to add keywords like monospaced AND serif ;) - but more importantly, when i have everything sorted out i just shift mark all folders, select all fonts in the list and add a keyword "Sorted" to every font. After that i create one smart album with the setting to show fonts without the keyword "Sorted". That way, if i want to completely delete fonts i simply untick that keyword for the ones i wanna get rid of and go over to the smart album and delete everything. Because smart folders act differently than regular folders - when you delete from a smart folder its deleted from the entire library and thus all other folders. More over, i have one regular folder called #Unsorted so when i add a lot of fonts i put them in there, go over to the smart folder i mentioned and sort it from there. I drag the fonts i want to keep to the corresponding folders and tick the Sorted keyword to get them out of the list - or just delete the ones i find unusable. That way i don't clutter the library with loose ends, and keep things tidy. I'm impressed by the speed and ease it maneuvers more than 2 Gb of fonts actually. Sure thing i wouldn't mind a bit more info on the typefaces but what i really like is the smooth way of trying out typesettings with those nifty floaters! Not a a perfect program obviously but definitely the best out there as far as i know. I regularly work with creating logotypes, cd covers, posters and brochures so working with type is an essential part of my workflow and this is a must-have in my opinion. It borders on the line of being a bit too expensive for the slight lack of features, but as i use this program every day and rely on it a lot it still makes up for that and i would recommend this despite it's somewhat quirky personality at times.

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• maybe best, but still bad

  rjc70October 25, 2009

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />After using FEX for many years and being frustrated with the bugs, crashes, and slowness of that font management program, I decided to give SF2 a whirl. At first I was pleased with the speed of activation and the clean interface, but the limitations quickly became evident. For small to medium sized font libraries and light usage, it's decent, except for these issues, for which I don't see any reasonable explanation: â?? not as much info on fonts accessible (all you get are the columns in the main window, no copyright info, etc.) â?? can't delete fonts from a set and have them deleted from the library as well (huge issue if you try to manage a large library â?? if you see a font in a set you want to delete, which happens a lot if you're importing fonts into SF2 as it puts them into new sets; you have to remember the name, version, etc., go to the library, find it, *then* delete â?? for large libraries, that's a PITA) â?? can't assign more than one classification to a font (what if you want to find a font that's monospaced AND serif?) â?? as mentioned by a previous reviewer, the library &amp; set management system isn't intuitive If you have a large library of fonts like myself, further problems arise. Sometimes SF2 works quickly, but occasionally it slows to a snail's pace, taking minutes to delete a bunch of fonts. The biggest annoyance is when you have auto-activation on and go to save a file in an Adobe program. Not always, but all too often, there's a long pause when you get the spinning beach ball, then at some point an SF2 progress bar window pops up saying it's finding fonts in the database, then that goes away, then the ball again for a little while. And this is for fonts that were already activatedâ?¦ so why does it need to find them? Again, I'm certain these speed issues won't affect most users, but I'm mentioning them in case another power font user out there is curious. Oh, and the program of course does crash from time to time, but it's not as bad as FEX. Overall, for most users, SF2 would be the best of our current sad choices â?? clean, fast with smaller libraries. But I'm already getting increasingly frustrated as my trial period ends. As I'm not going to pay for another font manager that will annoy me more than help, I'm off to use Font Agent for a month. If that won't work, I'll grudgingly settle back on FEX.

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• So close it hurts...

  Ed StateApril 4, 2009

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I have a bunch of fonts, with different versions of each. And I've put both LinoType's Font Explorer X and OSX's FontBook through their paces. And, in a nutshell, I think that this program, Extensis Suitcase Fusion 2, IS the best font testing, importing and activation tool out there. Hands down. But it is NOT the best font "organization" tool. And that's the problem. In short, the file "system" is broken. Sure, it's simple, and clean (unlike FEX) but it doesn't behave like every other folder system on Earth. For instance, you can make "smart sets" but you can't put those into folders, so your root level is littered with smart sets. And when you import fonts, it automatically makes sets for you... but because of some buggy coding, sometimes you simply can't delete sets. Seriously. And if you make another library, and drag fonts to it, SF2 *copies* the fonts, instead of aliasing them, creating duplicates and enlarging the "vault". Also, although SF2 looks like it's "protecting" system fonts (a big deal in OSX), and even automatically gives them their own folder, those SAME fonts show up in your main library, without indicating that they are "system" fonts. So if you're doing some "duplicate maintenance" you can still delete them! I'm not kidding. I just did that and had to revert back to my old vault. Also, the "font info" you get isn't always what you need. For instance, in the "show glyphs" window, it doesn't tell you the version, or font ID, of the font. So, if you have 5 versions of TT "Times", and want to delete or otherwise organize them, you have to check the glyph count separately for each one, when just providing the more detailed info in that window would be an easy thing to do. There's also not as many "column" info choices as there are in, say, FEX. Overall the interface is "simple-good", and "simple-bad" at the same time. There are still some other dumb things it does, too. But I wont' go into everything... no program's perfect. That said, there's a lot that SF2 does well. And, more importantly, it does these things a lot better than the other choices I've tried. Mainly, the auto-activation is muy bueno. It's quick, and it works in the BACKGROUND. Although ?sometimes? (for huge docs with a ton of fonts) it doesn't turn on all of them on the first try (weirdly). But regardless, it just seems more stable and reliable than the other's I've experienced. Also, the "font filtering" is very strict. VERY strict. Even after you sift everything through Font Doctor (which you should, before importing), SF2 still doesn't import everything, and tells you there were "problems", and then gives you the option of adding them or not. Because if you've ever had a corrupt font, you know how crazy everything gets. And the "duplicate" finding is better, and after you've located the dupes they're easier to keep and organize, or just get rid of. It makes dealing with a decades-old font collection something that seems actually do-able. Whereas with FEX and dupes you just want to kill yourself. I hate to be so hard on SF2, but it's just... so darn close to being the de facto, hands down, bar none choice for font management. All they have to do is address these few, annoying little issues, and they'd have a home run. A no brainer. Also, of course, it's $100. Which raises the bar significantly. Anyway, that's my 3 cents. And I hope it helps :) e PS, they recently released 13.2, but when I tried to upgrade it wouldn't recognize my vault (a common problem, apparently), so I went back to 13.02. Apparently, along w/ Tiger support, 13.1 gives a better explanation of why fonts were "rejected", and another column view option (library). But I don't know if any of these other problems were addressed. PPS, Extensis' support is top-notch, btw. Some of the best I've experienced... even for the demo, which is very respectable.

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• Great upgrade

  goldymanNovember 22, 2008

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Finally, Extensis seems to have gotten it right. Fusion 2 is the definition of seamless. Auto opening of fonts in InDesign CS3 is lightning-quick. At first I thought it didn't work because the progress bar went by in a flash--and this was with a large doc with several different fonts. And unlike v1, the app does not need to be open at all times. I highly recommend this upgrade to anyone using Fusion 1.

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• Fantastic font preview speed now

  GazBradNovember 17, 2008

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I've got to say as a long time Extensis Suitcase user the one thing that really let it down was the multiple font previewing. You'd type in a line you want to see, highlight a folder full of fonts and it'd crawl as it read from the disk. Not any more, this is lightening now, brilliant! Admittedly I have a fast iMac but the old version just never cut the mustard. I can spin through all my fonts in real time now so there must be some caching going on somewhere. At last I can compare with speed. Nice upgrade guys.

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• Save your Money!

  tmccainOctober 21, 2008

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Does not appear to add anything over 12.1.7 except they're trying to make it look like iTunes. The ability to add fonts temporarily by dropping fonts and folders on the dock icon is missing. Also the main view window does not have the ability to toggle between Auto activated, Open, Closed, or Temporary fonts. Unless your having trouble save your money, I should have..

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