DiamondSoft has announced that Font Reserve 2.5 is shipping, and the package includes Action WYSIWYG from Power On Software. The combination of these two products brings a formidable package for managing fonts to the Mac OS. According to DiamondSoft:
Font Reserve 2.5 now ships with Action WYSIWYG from Power On Software, Inc., a new application font menu manager announced and shipped recently by Power On Software. Action WYSIWYG allows users to organize their application font menus by grouping fonts together by family, display the fonts in their actual typefaces in the font menus, display an icon showing whether the font is a PostScript, TrueType or Bitmap font, and display their fonts in a unique multicolumn format. This special version of Action WYSIWYG has been customized for Font Reserve.
In addition to the inclusion of Action WYSIWYG, Font Reserve 2.5 also ships with a new Adobe Illustrator Plug-in and an updated version of the Font Reserve XTension for QuarkXPress. These plug-ins now both support the new Font Sense technology announced by DiamondSoft at Seybold Seminars in San Francisco in September 1999.
FONT RESERVE
Font Reserve was developed to solve font management and usability problems that have been frustrating graphic designers and production people since the Macintosh was introduced. Font Reserve is the world's first and only font manager to physically manage fonts for you, and to manage font data via a true relational database with an intuitive Finder-like Browser interface.
NEW IN VERSION 2.5: SELECTED FEATURES
Enhanced for Mac OS 9 - Font Reserve 2.5 is fully compatible with the just released Mac OS 9 from Apple and takes advantage of the new features and technologies within Mac OS 9. For example, Font Reserve 2.5 supports Mac OS 9's Multiple Users, allowing each user who logs on to the Mac to have their own private Font Reserve database with their own fonts and their own configuration. Font Reserve 2.5 also takes advantage of Mac OS 9's ability to activate up to 512 font suitcases, allowing you to activate a large number of fonts in Font Reserve much faster then previously.
Faster font activation - Font Reserve 2.5 employs a new method for resolving font ID and name conflicts when activating fonts, resulting in significantly faster font activation.
Improved Specimen Book Features - Font Reserve's specimen book feature, which allows users to print out samples of all or some of their fonts, has been significantly improved. Printing of specimen books is now more then twice as fast and supports more devices more reliably then previously. Font Reserve 2.5 now also ships with twenty different specimen templates to select from, twice as many as previously shipped, giving users more options in customizing their specimen books.
Enhanced AppleScript support -- Font Reserve 2.5 builds on the AppleScript support from its previous version by adding additional functionality including "whose-clause resolution" which allows users to search for fonts by any attribute within the Font Reserve database, enhanced error reporting, and the addition of many new sample AppleScripts.
Font Reserve 2.5 is available in electronic format for US$89.95, and on CD for US$119.95. Previous owners of Font Reserve can upgrade for US$39.95. You can find more information at the Font Reserve web site.