MegaFont XXL 2.0 - For Your Information

[10kLakes]

Wanting a collection of fonts, I recently bought MegaFont XXL 2.0.

When the product arrived, I loaded the 1st CD and the Font Manager came up. There was no guidance on how to use it - and there was nothing in the Help tab. I looked on the CD for some type of User Guide, but there was nothing there either. Problem 1.

I also expected that the CD would have a utility to install the Font Manager onto the system, but there was nothing for that either. I do not want to load the MegaFont XXL CD every time I need to run the Font Manager (unless I intend to load some fonts onto my machine). Problem 2.

There is a PDF file on the CD that is quite helpful (megafont.pdf). However, it begins with some text in German that I do not understand. Problem 3.

Problem 1 - I went to the SoftMaker web site and to the forums. I searched for MegaFont references and found very little. What was there was actually quite old (the most recent posting being in 2006) with one item back then also addressing the lack of help provided allow one to easily understand and use the Font Manager.

I then searched the website and found that - Products - Font Collections - MegaFont XXL 2.0 - Screenshots - led to a rather nice introductory guide for using the Font Manager. This I printed out. However, having either a User Guide on the CD or a Help file in the Font Manager (or both) is a needed solution.

Problem 2 - To avoid having to load the CD whenever I want to use the Font Manager, I created a Program Files folder into which I placed everything from the CD except for the TTF (font) files, which are rather large, along with an NFO file which appears to simply be a marker for the Font Manager to use to identify which of the two CDs is loaded in the drive. Here's a snapshot of the files on CD1 ---

I then made a Start Program entry to run the Font Manager. This works out quite well for my needs since I can now deal with my installed fonts at any time and, in addition, preview those unloaded fonts that are on the CDs without having to load the CDs. There is one problem however - if I attempt to install a font. I will see the following window ---

This request to load a CD appears to be fine, but Font Manager does not respond to the OK key press once you load the CD. It does not seem to look for the CD drive even though it asked you to load a CD. It apparantly expects the CD information to be present in the folder from which Font Manager was loaded (which is what will be the case if you run the Font Manager from the CD). Here's the Error Message it shows ---

I can get around that problem by running Font Manager from the CD to load the font, but it's clumsy. It would be better if Font Manager were smarter.

Problem 3 - I would appreciate having a translation of the German text at the beginning of the PDF file. By the way, if one does not happen to look in the CD to see what files it contains, one will never be aware that this useful file is even there.

After having used MegaFont XXL for several days now, I can say ---

The font collection is vast and the fonts are quite good. That is why I bought the product in the first place.

After poking around with the Font Manager, I find that it is actually a very nice utility. It's quite powerful, although not as intuitive as some might want to believe. Please fix its quirks and also think about giving the new user the education that he/she needs to run the program effectively right from day 1.

The PDF file, when printed, gives one a compact reference for the font collection. Just add the English translation after the German text at the beginning of the document.

[sven-l]

Wanting a collection of fonts, I recently bought MegaFont XXL 2.0.
When the product arrived, I loaded the 1st CD and the Font Manager came up. There was no guidance on how to use it - and there was nothing in the Help tab. I looked on the CD for some type of User Guide, but there was nothing there either. Problem 1.

Just start the font manager from the CD, select the fonts you need and click on "install". That's all.

I also expected that the CD would have a utility to install the Font Manager onto the system, but there was nothing for that either. I do not want to load the MegaFont XXL CD every time I need to run the Font Manager (unless I intend to load some fonts onto my machine). Problem 2.

If you copy the content of the 2 CDs onto the hard drive you can use the font manager without the CDs.

[10kLakes]

Sven - Thank you for your swift reply.

Your point 1 - To say "...click on 'install'. That's all." does not answer my concern. There is a lot more capability to the Font Manager beyond installing a font, none of which is described anywhere in the product I bought. I did get some information from the web site, but people buying the product should not have to go to the website to learn more about using the product.

Your point 2 - In my post, I said that I wanted the Font Manager but not the fonts loaded onto my system. To load the font files as you suggest would cost me about 700MB of additional disk space - a lot of space to give up to accommodate an action I would not be doing on a frequent basis. In running the Font Manager loaded as described in my post, you can see where the program asks me to load a CD in my drive to get the font. This is exactly what I would expect it to do. However, the program does not look to the drive for the data and this looks like a design flaw to me. If the Font Manager went to the CD drive it would have found the data and there would have been no error to report.

Also, as to the matter of interpreting the German text in the PDF file, the text appears to explain the 'NEW' and 'XXL' tags that appear alongside some of the fonts listed in the file. I would assume that 'NEW' tag refers to fonts that have been added to Version 2.0 of the font collection, but what exactly does the 'XXL' tag stand for?

[Jossi]

The German text says:
“Fonts and font families labeled NEU! have been added in MegaFont XXL 2.0, fonts labeled XXL! have extended character sets (e.g. East European characters, expert symbols, typographical signs, fractions, lines and many more).”

[10kLakes]

Thank you for the translation. I appreciate that.