Insider Software (http://www.insidersoftware.com) has released FontAgent Pro Server 4, an update of the -- a solution for managing, distributing and synchronizing fonts across creative workgroups in agencies, small businesses and large enterprises. It adds font-usage tracking, live backup, automatic failover server access, Kerberos single-sign-on support and directory-services enhancements.

FontAgent Pro Server 4 now includes what Insider says is the industry's first real-time font-usage manager, which shows who has access to various libraries and fonts as well as when they activate and deactivate them. For deeper analysis, administrators can use their favorite scripting language to save font-usage data in various file formats that can be used by Excel, report scripts, databases, asset and accounting applications. Using these statistics, organizations can ensure compliance with font-license agreements, track font usage by person or project, and avoid the uncertainty and cost of font-license compliance audits.

The new FontAgent Pro Server release includes live backup services of its entire database of fonts, users and groups to ensure that fonts are continuously available to users with no interruption of workflow. Administrators can set the frequency and time of backups and can add font-server archiving into existing backup scripts and processes. The backup manager archives files to any networked or local drive and provides everything needed to restore a server to a previous state.

The new release includes failover services that allow FontAgent Pro clients to automatically connect to alternative servers when their primary font server is unavailable.

FontAgent Pro Server 4 delivers faster Active Directory, Open Directory and LDAP synchronization with improved support for nested groups, standalone users, keychain-based password protection and non-standard directory schemas. Release 4 also includes more flexible user permissions that include group admins and multi-level roles that can control that users can upload fonts, create users and groups, edit licenses, upload and edit sets, upload and edit font libraries, assign fonts and users to groups and view font usage information.

When users connect to FontAgent Pro Server 4, it checks if they have previously validated their log-in via industry-standard Kerberos. If not, FontAgent Pro simply asks them to enter their user name and password,and sign-on occurs automatically with no additional configuration.

FontAgent Pro Server requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later. It supports a range of Macintosh hardware, from dual G4 Macs up to and including Apple's Mac Pro and XServe multi-processor systems. I

FontAgent Pro Server is priced at US$1,695. Each user connecting to the server requires a licensed version of the FontAgent Pro connected client, whose suggested price is $129.95 per seat. Volume license pricing is available on request.