Linotype Font Explorer X Review

FontExplorer X is immediately familiar, organizing itself in an iTunes-like interface. The “songs” are individual faces, and below that fonts can be previewed with whatever text you want, whether activated or not. This feature comes in incredibly handy when searching for the perfect font for a particular block of text. To the left is a facsimile of iTunes’ organizational system, in which you can group fonts into sets however you like. I have two grouping systems, one for foundries and one for characteristics like sans serif, pixel, dingbats, UPC, grunge, and so on.

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Client sets is another great way to use this feature, but I tend to get lazy and allow FontExplorer X to open these fonts when I open their files — FontExplorer X comes with plugins for InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop which recognize missing fonts and open a dialog asking if you wish to activate them.

And within FontExplorer X itself, activation and deactivation is a breeze. With the tick of a checkbox, you can open entire sets at a time, a single font family, or a single face within that family. Only need Futura Bold Condensed? You can activate just that.

It’s snappy too. Activating 1,000 fonts took 25 seconds. Activating a dozen at a time, a much more common occurrence, took less than a second. And FontExplorer X’s conflict management ensures that your active fonts won’t be fighting with one another.

Continue to page 2 for a review of how FontExplorer X imports fonts, handles font data, its downsides, and more.