Yep me again. I have now migrated to the new machine I have mentioned in my numerous other posts / complaints. I finally gave up on the other install as the software started crashing every 10 mins or so. Gotta love it. I have not installed any macros or created any nice workspaces yet so im forced to do stuff the hard and long way. (SUX) As yet (one day) I have only had 2 crashes (again, gotta love it) The problems started once I connected Bitstreem to our font lib. Acrobat Distiller is being fought with again. I have tried closing the process in explorer but it automatically reopens after about 1 second or so. does anyone know how to use acrobat distiller? I give up on bitstreem and am about to give up on corel draw too I am begining to have a seething hatred for anything corel. If it cant play nice then I wont either.

Severely disillusioned.

Andy

Andy, why even use BFN if you think that's an issue? Why not buy another 3rd party application to catalog/install fonts (I'm sure you know what they are). Perhaps eliminating BFN will make life better. As for Distiller, do you really need that too? I can understand Acrobat, but why Distiller? 

 Believe me, If it were up to me I would get something else. Unfortunatley I have no say in purchasing.  As far as Distiller is concerned I have installed the Adobe suite 3 times now and have looked to defer distiller. It gets installed as a bundle with the whole lot. Someone said that turning it off once, in the processes of task manager would kill it untill the next reboot. This does not seem to be the case (as far as I can tell).

I tried running Draw without BFN burt the windows version is pretty weak. Its ok for ttf and open type but type 1 fonts present problems.

I have, as recomended, started to rebuild my workspace on the new machine and am wondering if all we get for custom buttons is greyscale images. Do you know if this is the case?

Thanx

Andy

Yes on the tool icons. I'm sure the theory behind this is to keep the icons subdued so they don't interfere with the design, I whole heartedly support. You can make the icons larger to view!

Andy, if you truly think it's BFN that's causing most or even part of the problem... then dammit fight for your right or walk! I've been eyeballing Font Agent Pro as it seems to be a much more robust program, but have had to wait for the Vista version. Doesn't Adobe have it's own font management as well? If so, then maybe you are getting conflicts running both programs. I would uninstall one if that's the case.

 Scott,

Thats interesting as far as the icons go.The workspace that I had imported from 12 had 256 color Icons as buttons. Now with The Workspace being converted to greyscale Im not surprised my workspace was being a problem. Howe incredibly & irresponsible & short sighted of the developers that decided to do this shift to greyscale. Whats next black & white 1 bit  aliased buttons???? Lets go with Braille in x5 LOL

Adobe stopped making the Adobe Type manager software right arouind the time Win2K came out. I think they foresaw the advent of xp managing its own fonts so kicked it to the way side. Too bad coz it workewd really well. Since Im on an xp platform I may well take a look at the Font Agent Pro software you mentioned. Will find out first wether or not Distiller messes with that too. Thanks for the advice.

Best Regards,

 Andy

In general, is not good to use a workspace of an earlier version, and less if they are two generations apartand with customized icons. And about Adobe TypeManager, the reason of its death was not only that XP and OS X can manage TrueType, Type1 and OpenType. Adobe sought to impose that its software was used to manage their own sources, but failed. Extensis Suitcase for Mac, for example, do the same with better results. And, for Windows, only a few people uses TypeManager. So, there's no reason to continue with this old program. FontNavigator is nor perfect, and perhaps is not the best, but can handle Type1, opentype and truetype. The most important aspect is the integration with CorelDRAW, when open a document, and allows to install the missing fonts. Some people have conflicts because install fonts from the controlPanel or use another program, and never refresh the BFN database. And, also, some people install hundred and hundred of fonts.

Originally I looked at replacing BFN with Suitcase, but after reading their forum and the issues that were created with the MS font space I nixed the idea and researched some more. That took me to Font Agent, which appears to have a better relationship with the OS, and had some other options that I really liked. One of which, was the ability to create a pdf catalog of your fonts (this would be an outstanding feature in BFN). In my opinion Bit Font Navigator needs to be brought up to speed, perhaps as a separate software package for profit (that would justify the additional attention). It needs more robust features to manage font libraries (especially when you read what some of the 3rd party companies have).

As for the colorless icons, again I think this is a real plus. It's like trying to look at a design color, let's say turquoise and the underlying page is yet instead of white. That secondary color is going to interfere with your judgement. You don't want your tools fighting with your design! And be careful when you make slams (braille). That comment doesn't show your sensitive side very well! I suspect all the issues can't be blamed on importing an old workspace, but it appears they aren't helping.

Just out of interest...

With 1464 fonts installed I know foresure I've reached the limit of XP.

Remember that fat guy on Month Python's the Meaning of Life...

"Just one more mint Sir?"

Well I hit that yesterday. All of a sudden fonts I was using in a document became, "This font is not installed".

So there you go if you really want to push it don't go past 1460 fonts. ;)

More than 1460 fonts? what a crazy idea? Windows can't handle more than 720, but maximun is normally up to 400 fonts. And the ideal amount is less to 100 font. Really, nobody never use more than 100 fonts at the same time.

Look at the Macintosh. Mac users boast and boast that their hardware and operating system is superior. But on the Mac there's never more than 40 fonts. When you do a job, only are activated the necessary fonts, with Extensis Suitcase for example, and upon completion will be deactivated. Usually, all are turned off when you restart. Why on Windows are installed hundreds and hundreds, sometimes thousands?

Pretty funny ah.

http://www.styopkin.com/articles/fonts_limit.html

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-142411.php

I've had zero issue until I reached about 1460.

Start up times are hopeless under Windows with or without a heap of fonts loaded.

If I had another 1,000 I'd load them to see what happens.

The limit pre XP was the max size of a registry key. 64kb.

What the current limit is I've not been able to find. Can't spot anything on the net on what the current size of keys is but many of the limits have been removed.

Yani:

Pretty funny ah.

http://www.styopkin.com/articles/fonts_limit.html

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-142411.php

I've had zero issue until I reached about 1460.

Start up times are hopeless under Windows with or without a heap of fonts loaded.

If I had another 1,000 I'd load them to see what happens.

The limit pre XP was the max size of a registry key. 64kb.

What the current limit is I've not been able to find. Can't spot anything on the net on what the current size of keys is but many of the limits have been removed.

 

The first article is not true. I remember when some programs like PageMaker ran on Windows 95 and 98, if you have more than 720 fonts, the programs were not working. If you uninstalled some fonts, all programs worked well. Wndows XP and 2000 supports more fonts installed, in theory, but in the reality is the same.

I've been in reality (hang on I better check, yes I'm alive) for years at +1,000 fonts.

"The Zen of font management" - I won't be applying. ;)

Scott;

Thanks for the tips on alternative software.

stodare:

As for the colorless icons, again I think this is a real plus. It's like trying to look at a design color, let's say turquoise and the underlying page is yet instead of white. That secondary color is going to interfere with your judgement. You don't want your tools fighting with your design!

F9 if your workspace gets in your way when making design judgement.

stodare:

And be careful when you make slams (braille). That comment doesn't show your sensitive side very well!

Yes you are right. Im insensitve. Also frustrated and a tad bit angry. Ive been working on ADA signage and way finding too long. Its not too complex for a design app to process. (unless BFN and ACROBAT DISTILLER get involved together.)

stodare:

I suspect all the issues can't be blamed on importing an old workspace, but it appears they aren't helping.

I took the advice, migrated to the other box, fresh and the only problems Ive had so far are a couple of crashes caused by DISTILLER and layers renaming themselves because of necessary backsaving. BTW it takes a while to migrate ones workspace into vba with forms instead of buttons but if one makes the forms modal, they can come and go as needed. quite refreshing. A plus is the buttons can be as colorful as needed and big enough to fit a paragraph of text inside if necessary. I dont think I will use the customize workspace for anything but quick keys anymore. Do those get corrupted too when migrating?

Regards,

 Andy

here is a free font management prog and it seems to work pretty good. Still messing around yet might work for you

linotype.com/fontexplorerX?PHPSESSID=8e911021108d6b668620f1258c903516