News and Events

FontAgent Pro Workgroup Edition Debuts at Macworld Expo

Industry-First Peer-to-Peer Multi-User Font Sharing and Management Solution Eliminates Server Administration Chores

MACWORLD EXPO, San Francisco – January 6, 2004 –   Insider Software announced today the immediate availability of FontAgent® Pro™ Workgroup Edition, the most powerful and full-featured font management and repair utility for workgroups. Also unveiled at Macworld Expo was FontAgent Pro version 2, which shares the same core features as FontAgent Pro WE, minus the multi-user capabilities. Any copy of FontAgent Pro version 2 can be instantly upgraded to full Workgroup Edition status.

The New Face of Font Management and Repair

Font Agent Pro has been dubbed the new face of font management and repair for its innovative approach to font organization, optimization, repair, and management. By providing all of this functionality in a single package, Insider has combined a number of diverse and often daunting tasks into a simple, unified solution that packs tremendous power yet is incredibly simple to use.

With a few clicks, it repairs or eliminates corrupt fonts, partial and unmatched fonts, duplicate fonts, unnecessary point sizes, and builds optimized, organized font libraries. It enables users to build multiple font libraries and cascading font sets, automatically activate fonts, preview fonts in various typefaces, and save system resources and precious time by opening only the fonts required for current projects.  In addition, FontAgent Pro can display fonts in their own typefaces (WYSIWYG mode) and offers a blazingly fast search engine so that any font is just a few keystrokes away. Users can instantly create and print a font book showing different text and styles, and the amazing FontPlayer™ lets users display and preview text in context, even permitting modification of font colors and backgrounds, point sizes, and more.

FontAgent Pro also offers the most extensive array of automatic font activation capabilities of any product on the market. Not only does it automatically activate fonts in Panther-compliant applications, it also offers special plug-in capabilities for Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, QuarkXPress, and Adobe Photoshop.

“Fontez-Vous?”: What Else is New?

FontAgent Pro WE was developed in Cocoa to take full advantage of Mac OS X technologies, including the recent release of Panther. It also demonstrates the incredible power of Rendezvous, Apple’s open, standards-based networking technology that automatically discovers and connects Macs and other electronic devices on a network, allowing them to collaborate over IP without any user configuration. Insider’s Fontez-Vous™ technology enables users to display the fonts that are available on that user’s computer. The font is ready for use by any other Fontez-Vous participant with just a mouse click.

Cascading sets have been added so users can logically organize fonts by client, project, etc. They work the way users are accustomed to, permitting a finder-like hierarchical organization.

An SQL database has been written to provide the sheer power and speed necessary for an industrial strength application. Launch times are incredibly fast and new data algorithms only read data as required, resulting in much lower memory requirements, the ability to handle huge font collections, and crash protection to protect the font database from damage. In addition, users can view essential facts about their fonts and can even add their own comments to the database.

A new activation daemon allows automatic font activation without requiring the user to launch the FontAgent Pro application. FontAgent Pro will track the font activation and deactivation so the application always displays the correct state.

Bob Leeds, Insider Software’s CMO, heralded the new release, stating, “FontAgent Pro WE is the perfect solution for design professionals who need to share their font resources, but don’t want to waste time on server administration, configuration, and maintenance. Our Fontez-Vous technology is based on Apple’s Rendezvous and works simply and smartly, just as one has come to expect from Apple products.”

"Rendezvous uses industry standard networking protocols and zero configuration technology to automatically discover and connect devices over any IP network, including Ethernet and 802.11 wireless networks," said Ron Okamoto, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. "With the support of Rendezvous, Insider Software's FontAgent Pro Workgroup Edition allows users to quickly and easily share fonts with each other."

System Requirements

FontAgent Pro WE requires Mac OS X version 10.2 or later, 3MB of available disk space, and 7MB of memory.

Pricing and Availability

FontAgent Pro 2.0 is priced at a suggested retail of $99.95 for electronic download. Special upgrade pricing is available at: http://www.insidersoftware.com/UP_index.php

FontAgent Pro WE is priced at a suggested retail of $149.95 ($139.95 for electronic download) and is available for immediate download at: http://www.insidersoftware.com/customer/home.php?cat=258

About Insider Software

Insider Software, founded in 1993 and based in Los Gatos, California, creates software for creative professionals and those who support their efforts. Other products include SiteSqueeze, UpdateAgent, and ServerMatic.

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FontAgent, FontAgent Pro, Font Player, FontPlay UpdateAgent, SiteSqueeze, Insider, ServerMatic, Fontez-Vous, and the Insider logo are trademarks of Insider Software. Other products mentioned are trademarks of their respective owners.