🚀 go-pugleaf

Artworker, I've always liked Suitcase, but I absolutely love Suitcase Fusion (though I have not yet upgraded to SF2). I have no experience with FontExplorer or FontAgent Pro.

Yes, you still need both the screen fonts and the printer (outline) fonts for PostScript fonts to work properly. TrueType fonts and the newer Adobe OpenType fonts are the ones that consist of single files. OpenType fonts have many wonderful attributes including complete cross platform compatibility with Windows and MacOS, and the availability of many more glyphs per font than traditional PostScript fonts.

Yes, Suitcase Fusion will let you see and/or edit the contents of font suitcases within the application, though not within the Finder.

Yes, Suitcase Fusion (or more precisely, FontDoctor, which is included with Suitcase Fusion) will identify missing PS screen or printer fonts, as well as reunite them if they are present on your system but in different locations. FontDoctor will also purge font caches, which can become corrupt, sometimes causing font rendering problems or failure of certain applications to see active fonts. (By the way, font cache corruption should not be confused with the garbled text you might sometimes see in Apple applications such as Mail and Safari. This is typically caused by Helvetica PostScript being active. Turn it off, or better yet, remove it, restart your application, and the problem will be resolved.) Use Apple's Helvetica.dfont or, better yet, Adobe's Helvetica OpenType instead, or just load Helvetica Postscript as a temporary font in Suitcase whenever you need it.

Suitcase Fusion also uses a technology that Extensis calls FontSense, which precisely identifies fonts, even those with the same name, to ensure that only the exact font called for is activated.

Suitcase Fusion will give your font library an extra measure of protection from corruption by storing it in its own font cache called the Suitcase Vault.

Suitcase Fusion will manage your System fonts, ensuring that they remain available to the system as needed, but allowing the preferred PostScript or OpenType versions to take priority over Apple's OSX TrueType dfonts.

Extensis cares enough to detail the best practices in font management by regularly updating their free PDF publication, Best Practices for Managing Fonts in Mac OS X, available at <http://www.extensis.com/en/downloads/document_download.jsp?docId=5600039>.

And no, I do not work for Extensis. Rather, I manage and troubleshoot font issues as part of my job, and have never been disappointed with Suitcase Fusion.

I would also agree with Neil's suggestion to download trial versions of various font managers for testing. Best of luck to you in your search for the best font manager for your needs.