There are two utilities I install on every new Mac I use, the same two I’ve been installing before anything else since the mid-to-late 90s. Default Folder, and Extensis Suitcase.

Upgrades over the years have added new features, but their core functionality hasn’t changed much—other than they just keep working better with age. And that’s why I like them so much.

Extensis Suitcase Fusion started out as a simple font activation tool, but over the years it has grown into a complete font management system. While competing font managers struggle to add “me-too” features, Suitcase Fusion has built upon its core font activation tools with features that professionals with large font collections and a love for typography can truly use and appreciate. And rather than just throw frivolous features against the wall to see what sticks, Extensis has worked hard to only add the best ones, the most useful ones—and make sure they work as advertised.

Suitcase Fusion 6 continues down the path of slow-and-steady wins the race. At first glance, existing users will likely only see a slight interface update to look more at home with Mac OS X Yosemite. But there is a little more than meets the eye.

What’s New?

The only real ‘new’ feature (other than the interface upgrade mentioned above) is the Font Vault Archive and Restore. Because you (have the option to) store all your fonts in a single database file called the Vault, it’s easy to backup to an external drive. Extensis understands that many designers work on a desktop and laptop, they’ve made it easy to backup your font Vault to Dropbox or Google Drive and restore it to another computer—thus making sure you have all your fonts wherever you need them.

While you’ve been able to do this manually for a long time, it was cumbersome, so this feature is handy. Unfortunately, due to a variety of reasons, this Vault file in the cloud is not a ‘synced’ Vault. It’s truly just a backup file—adding a font on one machine does not automatically get sent to the other. It would be great if it were a ‘live’ Vault, but I don’t see that happening any time soon.

The second feature isn’t new, but it has been upgraded. The Fontspiration panel offers you a look at inspiring works of typography from a Extensis’ Pinterest board in a panel along the side of the Fusion window. The Fontspiration panel works much faster and smoother than the previous version.

Everything Else

The core function of Suitcase Fusion is to manage and auto-activate fonts. Suitcase Fusion 6 has been updated to be fully compatible with Adobe Creative Cloud (it still works with Creative Suite 5 and higher as well), Quark XPress 9 and 10, and Mac OS X Yosemite. The built-in Font Sense technology makes sure the exact font used in your document is the one that gets activated—even when you have multiple versions of the same font (I’m looking at you, Helvetica!)

Suitcase Fusion 6 has been fully optimized for Retina Macs, and the overall speed of font activation and font preview rendering has been improved.
QuickComp lets you preview your fonts in generic layouts, just to give you an idea of how your font combinations will look in a page full of text. And if you’re working on a website design, you can preview font combinations on a live web page with the built-in browser.

Speaking of fonts on the web, Suitcase Fusion allows you to integrate Google Fonts into your collection. For Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers, Adobe TypeKit fonts are also integrated.

And while we’re talking about integration, Fusion adds its own panel to Adobe Creative Cloud apps that list all the fonts in your library, whether they’re activated or not—saving you a trip to the Fusion app completely.

QuickMatch is, for me, the best feature of all. It allows you to select a font from your library and see all list of similar looking fonts you have. You can adjust a slider to make the list more or less strict when comparing. QuickMatch is one of those things you just have to see to believe, and quickly becomes a go-to tool.

Fusion also offers healthcare for your fonts, constantly checking for corruption and repairing them when they come down with a bad case of the flu. You can also clean your font caches

The Last Word

To be honest, the GUI is the only complaint I have about Suitcase. Despite the newly-muted icon colors in the toolbar to make it more at home with Yosemite, the app still has old beveled/gradient buttons left over from the pre-Lion days in other parts of the interface.

I still feel like the entire interface is clunky, utilitarian and un-inspiring in appearance. Part of me wants a complete overhaul of the GUI so that it has a WOW factor that makes me want to spend more time in the app. The reality is though, if Suitcase does its job properly, you’re spending very little time in it. In the end, it’s clear and simple to use, and in the end that’s all I care about.

Suitcase Fusion 6 ($119.95 full version, $59.95 upgrade) is available for the Mac and Windows, and demo is available.

I’ve briefly tried other font managers in the past, and I’ve always come home to Suitcase Fusion because it’s the only font manager I trust. Extensis is constantly fixing any bugs they find, updating the app for new OS versions, and making sure the auto-activation plugins work with new versions of Adobe Creative Cloud and Quark XPress apps as soon as they’re released.