Suitcase is font management software for  people who have extensive font collections which need to be managed across different projects and applications. This document describes in brief  preparation, preferences and use of Suitcase XI.

 
Repair and organize fonts
Preparation is key. Fonts need  to be complete (no missing printer or screen fonts) and in good repair. Get rid of duplicate copies of fonts. Corrupt or missing fonts should be restored from the original disk. If Font Doctor came with your copy of Suitcase, use it to help with this process. Organize your fonts in a folder outside of the System font folders. Give it a name, such as ‘My Font Collections,’ and within it create a folder for each font family. OS X can see and activate fonts in subfolders.

Suitcase Preferences

If you do not want to locate and remove unwanted OS X system fonts, Suitcase can be configured to list them, allowing you to choose which should be active. It is a two step process:

1. Allow Suitcase to override System fonts

- Preferences/General

 

2. Manage System fonts

- Tools/Manage System fonts

(moves fonts from the system font folders to managed sets;

  unchecking this option moves them back)

- View managed system fonts  in the Fonts pane:

• User: fonts in the user’s home directory/library/Fonts

• Local: fonts in /Library/Fonts

• System: fonts in /System/Library/Fonts

• Classic: fonts in the Fonts folder in the Classic (OS 9) System Folder.

• Network: fonts on an shared mounted volume

• All: All of the above

            - fonts that are dimmed are required by the system and can not be managed.

If you are using an application which supports auto-activation, such as Quark, you may wish to set this preference. Be sure to confirm that the ‘Suitcase XT6’ Quark Xtension has been installed in your copy of Quark. This should happen when Suitcase is installed.

Auto-activation

            - Preferences/Activation/Auto-activate

Adding and Managing Fonts

You now need to add fonts from your 'My Font Collections' folder and activate them. Although it is unnecessary, you may also create font sets. There is no best way to organize your fonts. Much depends on the nature of your projects and show you work.

1. Add fonts to Suitcase

            - Use the (+) add button,  or

            - File/Add fonts, or

            - Drag and drop folders into the Sets or Fonts Pane (bottom left), or

            - Command/L

 

2. Activating fonts or font sets

            - select font and File/Activate Font, or

            - select in Preview panel and click Activate icon

            - Command and drag and drop (on demand – overrides other fonts of same name)

 

Activation legend:

            - none                  not active

            - yellow dot          active until restart

            - yellow diamond  auto-activated font

            - green dot           permanently active (option/click)

            - gray dot             some fonts in a set are active

            - < ! >                  corrupt font

            - TT                    Active temporary font (overrides other font of same name)

            - OS9, OSX icon  System fonts being managed by Suitcase

 

3. Fonts may be grouped in sets associated with different projects

    Building font sets 

            - Drag and drop folders into Sets pane,  or

            - New Set icon,  or

            - File/New set

            - Select set name and type in new name

            - Drag-and-drop new fonts, folders into set

            - Set activation level

 

4. Fonts may be grouped in sets associated with different applications 

    Building application sets

            - Use finder to navigate to application icon;  drag into Sets pane

            - Add fonts like any other set