Font Management Solution: Bitstream Font Navigator
Just yesterday, out of sheer desperation, I called out for a font management solution for Windows. One that was fast, easy, and supported OpenType. Today, I found the solution, and to my surprise it’s the program I’ve been using all along!
Bitstream Font Navigator 5
I have used Bitstream Font Navigator 4.0 for ages. It’s worked flawlessly. The left pane shows all your fonts, or allows you to browse, the right pane shows installed fonts. You can drag and drop between the two panes. Bottom left holds font groups, and bottom right holds a preview. Fantastic. So much the more pain that Font Navigator 4 didn’t support OpenType.
I looked on Bitstreams website for updates, but the product had been discontinued. I thought that meant the end of using Font Navigator, so I started looking at other solutions. I tried Font Expert 2004 and Typograf, the latter which was the best of the choices. Neither was nowhere near Font Navigator.
While searching, however, I found that Corel had purchased Font Navigator from Bitstream, and to my joy had continued developing it! Only, it was part of their CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, and had been so since Bitstream sold it to them.
Download
It is ironic, that the best font management solution on the Windows platform, ever, can only be obtained as a secondary sub-product of the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite. Such a product deserves a packshot and a price tag.
Fortunately, a trial download of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite is available, and Font Navigator 5.0 build 118 is included. Even better, the version of Font Navigator 5 that comes along with this trial seems to have no limitations whatsoever. Once downloaded, Bitstream Font Navigator 5 resides in the “Utilities” section of the installer. On the downside, you have to open a free account at Corel, and download a whopping 186 mb trial version of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, only to get 700 K worth of font management. But it is worth it. So go. Go now!
Features of Font Navigator 5
Just to add further incentive to going through this hassle, Bitstream Font Navigator 5 sports the following features.
- Postscript Type 1 & 3, OpenType and TrueType support
- The ability to cycle through fonts for quick preview
- Drag & drop installation / uninstallation of fonts
- Ability to create font groups
- “Find-as-you-type” font list search
- No “Time-Out”—Software will work forever
So is this shebang free? Well, for all I can tell, it certainly seems so. For one, it is officially available in a trial download. Secondly, while the main applications of the trial are definately limited, Font Navigator seems to have no restrictions at all. Too good to be true? Let’s hope not.
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hi i’m trying to get font Navigator 5
is there anyway anyone can email me font navigator 5. i would download the trial but my connection is slow. it’s only a couple of small files. please help.
versuviusx [at] yahoo [dot] com
Hi David, check your mail!
bye
I am trying FontHit right now, and it is pretty nifty for freeware.
I dont see an on/off switch, though. Maybe I’m missing it.
But otherwise, the auto-categories within styles is awesome.
I like the preview of a bunhc of fonts at once, and the ability to choose a preview text, with wildcards for font name.
Nice freeware.
Msg to g
Couple of weeks ago you did a favor for david re font navigator 5. Would you please do me the favor also?
charlietango[at]gmail[dot]com
Thank you.
done Charlie! sent at the address above
bye
A small bug report for those of you using Font Navigator:
Otherwise, you won’t be able to click in the checkboxes next to the drives you want to search.
a thousand blessings to you, I’ve been searching for this fix for years. It works!!!
Hi, FontNavigator is crashing everytime I try to install a font :(
me so sad
Any tips or ideas?
thanks
g said:
Try uninstalling your font navigator, reinstalling, and then update your font database by clicking File > Find Fonts.
If that doesn’t work, then I don’t know what will… has Font Navigator worked for you before ?
JR said:
What a piece of crap. It can’t even delete or move selected fonts! I don’t recomend.
Hi mr Joen, sorry for the late post. I uninstalled font navigator 5, re-installed it and nothing, nada, zero, still crashed. Tried to get it working uninstalling corel but still nothing. The strangest thing is that it worked great for the past year, so I don’t know what happened.
Now I’m trying Extensis Suitcase, and so far so good.
was looking for this old program! thanks for the reminder and sleuthing
i just bought a mac and im trying to use both in my mac and pc only open type fonts to be able to work in one or another the same file, do you have any suggestion on what font manager i’d use.
I have used this tool to convert mac > pc and pc > mac fonts… works very well:
http://fontlab.com/Font-tools/TransType/
Also for the past few months I’ve been using this tool, works very, very well on the PC:
http://www.blacksunsoftware.com/xfonterg.html
Thank you so much for explaining what was going on! I was going through the same thing with wanting to use FN but being frustrated by the lack of Open Type Support. I was trying to find the latest version of it, and luckily stumbled across this article, which explained it all.
And also thanks tebo for uploading the files!!
FYI Font Navigator IS available for purchase from Bitstream. Here is a reply to an email I sent yesterday:
Very impressed with the instructions to get Bitstream Font Navigator working without going through the installation process for CorelDraw.
Fantastic stuff, as I have wanted to have this program working like this for ages.
Many thanks.
As a long time CorelDRAW user, I’ve been using Bitstream Font Navigator for many years, and was thrilled when support for OpenType fonts was added. However, BT Font Navigator still doesn’t work perfectly (at least, not on my system).
I’m running Font Navigator version 5.0.0, build 108, which is the version that shipped with CorelDRAW 12 and CorelDRAW X3 (and I’ve since updated my Corel Suite X3 — which is what I run at the moment — to Service Pack 2, version 13.0.0, build 739).
So I should have the latest version of Font Navigator on my system.
The only problem I’ve encountered with managing OT fonts is that I can’t delete them from a font suitcase (aka font group). I can delete TT and T1 fonts just fine, but the only way I know to delete an OT font from one of my font groups is to delete the entire font group, and build it anew, without the unwanted OT fonts.
I’m in the throes of upgrading my OS from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, reinstalling Font Navigator 5, encountering the exact same problems with deleting OT fonts from a font group, and looking for a better solution.
My present work-around is tedious, and since so many others are raving about Font Navigator, I’m wondering if I’m the only one having this problem???
i should always do a search on your blog before going to google haha
Hi, I can see I’m a long way behind the other posters here but thanks for your information on Bitstream Font Navigator. I tried the instructions a long way into the comments to extract just the Font Navigator bit but I’m afraid it hasn’t worked. I wondered if you’d be able to do as you had for others who posted here, and send the file to my email please?
PS, I see you’re fractal lover too. I’ve tinkered with fractal art programs for years.
Thank you so very much for this discussion about Bitstream Font Navigator.
I’m setting up my new Win 7 machine and Bitstream Font Navigator ver. 2 (which shipped with Word Perfect) would not allow me to install fonts. I couldn’t find version 3, which I have somewhere on another machine.
I downloaded Corel Draw trial version from the link you provided in this thread and the auto-installer allowed me to choose what I wanted to install ( Bitstream Font Navigator only) AND it’s Verson 6.0!
It’s slick and it works fine with my WIN 7 machine. It allows me to install and un-install fonts.
I’d looked all day for an answer to the problem I was having and finally asked Google the right question and came up with your page. Thanks so very much.
I just wanted to let you know that you made a difference!!