Anyone migrated from Linotype Font Explorer?

[sonic_attack]

Just out of curiosity is why I ask. Hopefully Admins won't mind..

Until recently I had always been a mac user, my 9yr old told me my G5's weren't up to it anymore so I took the plunge into PC's. There's nothing in it anymore anyway so apart from an initial fluster of frustration at windows 8.1 things seem to be running smoothly. I am curious about Maintype though seeing I need a type manager. Previously I'd used Linotype Font explorer and previous to that was ATM deluxe. The windows Linotype and High-logic product is fairly well an even match on price so I was curious to know if other Linotype Font Explorer users had switched and picked this Maintype product up? What are the disadvantages/benefits either way? Anything glaringly obvious?

To tell the truth I probably barely touched on the features of Font Explorer anyway - Basically I had all my fonts categorized into groups - Sans, Serif, Grunge, Handwriting, Classic etc just so I could maintain some type of order and an easier way to find what I needed when I needed it.

What I did like about the Linotype product was the plugins for Illustrator / Photoshop. Generally I convert all type to paths anyway but it seems the art I'm supplied no one else knows how to do this so the feature was useful, and on the odd time I'd gotten lazy and forgot.. I notice the trial I got from Linotype (Font explorer X pro 2.5) has plugins for all the major adobe product I use, while the Maintype product only had a plugin for indesign included in the trial. I haven't done any investigation regarding this I figured I'd just come straight here and ask the question of folk who're likely a lot smarter and clued into both font utilities to give some guidance and point out anything obvious and necessary regarding either product.

Either way the roughly $90 for either product isn't a great deal considering the purpose. Obviously I only want to spend $90 once though..

Can anyone give me any points, tips, or highlight what one has over the other? For me it's really only a familiarity to the Linotype product that would be a draw, I mean I understand it because I've used it more than this High-logic product but you know, I'm not scared of change. One thing that might concern me about the Linotype product is I recall it taking a LONG time to release a windows product and it seems like it might be well on the back burner in favour of charging on with the mac variant. Again I haven't done much research (or really any at all) Actually I did a bit of googling and I did run a couple searches on this forum which didn't seem to give me what I was looking for.

I guess to cut a long story short: If there was a UFC bout between Maintype and Font Explorer would one be a crippled bloody weeping mess on the mat while the other stood victoriously over having not a scratch and barely breaking a sweat? Kind of thing...

Thanks,

[Erwin Denissen]

I've never used other font managers, so I can't compare them with MainType.

When we developed our font manager, we focused on the features and functionality as mentioned here:
- Stable (unlike most other font managers; MainType won't crash if you feed it with corrupt fonts)
- Powerful (several customers use MainType to manage over 400,00 fonts)
- Fast, user friendly, and extremely easy to use
- Easy transfer your font library to another computer (backup and restore)
- Unlike most other font managers, you don't need administrator rights to install fonts through MainType
- Character grid with Unicode block navigation (see all characters and glyphs that are included in your fonts)

At the moment plugin support is a bit outdated with the new release of Adobe products. The plugins, if available, will automatically load missing fonts on demand, but MainType and other software do work together even without these plugins. Just install one or more fonts through MainType, and they will become available in your other software.

I'm sure other users can tell you what they (dis-)like most about our font manager, and provide feedback related to other font managers.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

What I like best about MainType is that it is uses a database, so there's really no need to organise your fonts (though you can if you wish). Just type part of the font name in the Quick Search field and all matching fonts appear instantly as you type.

Since I also use FontCreator, I use MainType to uninstall and remove old versions before installing the new ones.

I also use it to create an online Font Catalogue.

[MikeW]

Hello Sonic,

I have only used Lino's FE for a brief comparative period against MT (twice actually, once a few years ago and once just recently). From a font management perspective, pretty similar. While I use Adobe products daily (ID and AI in my case), I haven't used the plug-ins from either application so I have no idea how well either company's plug-ins work.

For me, the main advantage of MT over FE is the speed of MT. FE seems to me like a snail on a freeway. I really wouldn't want to use it daily, at least with how I use a font manager.

Sometimes I get a small job where I have the fonts, they are just not installed. What I choose to do is to only load them within MT, not install them. Then when the job is done, I'll exit MT. Even when I am working on a longer project in ID, I'll install the fonts from within MT, then exit MT. Which obviously leaves them installed. Once the job is over I'll uninstall them. It's all very quickly done within MT. When I am making many changes to AI (or other vector application) jobs through the day, it takes seconds to start MT and install the fonts if needed. With Adobe products, it is often not even needed because of the client's fonts being in the job's Document Fonts folder as the Adobe applications will simply load them automatically—one reason I have never bothered with the plug-ins. All fonts needed in Adobe products are copied to the Documents Folder for future production purposes so any update to the fonts do not cause issues down the road.

Anyway, I settled on using MT and have been pretty happy with the choice.

Take care, mike