“How do I manage my fonts with Font Book?”

Font issues are often at the top of the list for prepress problems. However, few of us outside of the prepress department know how to manage our fonts. For those who are Mac users, font management is a necessary and simple exercise using Font Book, an application that is already included in the OS.

So why does font management matter? Poor font management can bog down your computer. The more fonts you have, the more important it becomes. A Mac computer comes equipped with 40 TrueType fonts and every application you add increases the number of fonts on your computer. By just installing Microsoft office (over 50 TrueType fonts) and Adobe Creative Suite (130 OpenType Fonts), you will have over 200 fonts on your computer. Furthermore, since we are faced with explaining font issues to customers so often, being able to understand them ourselves is important to providing good quality service.

So, let’s start with the basics of what you really need to know to manage all those fonts on your computer. One of the most important things to be aware of is the font folders and what they do to the fonts placed in them. There are two main folders that you need to pay attention to: the public folder, which can be accessed by all users at anytime and can be located at HD>Library>Fonts, and the user folder, which holds fonts only accessible by a given user and can be located at HD>Users>”username”>Library>Fonts.

These two folders can determine the accessibility of different fonts. A second key point to remember is that there are some fonts you just do not touch as they are used in running and the displays for computers. For a Mac, these include Lucida Grande (the system won’t start without it) and Geneva Monaco as well as Helvetica.

Now that you know where your fonts exist and which ones to be careful with, we can talk about installing them. At the very basic level, a font is one file. Different font types will have different file extensions. For example, .ttf is used for TrueType fonts, while .otf is used for OpenType fonts.

Font Book makes installing a font simple. Because it is the default font application on a Mac, it is launched when you double-click on a font file. Now for the install, you can always go for the traditional Mac drag-and-drop method either into the desired font folder or directly into Font Book, or you can use Font Book’s install feature that helps direct the location of the save. It can even copy at the same time. Once you have mastered installing new fonts, there a two more important uses of Font Book you should be aware of: organizing those installed fonts as well as dealing with font issues.

Organizing your fonts is easy using the Collections feature. The main reasons for font management are organization and system performance, namely speed. Thus, you can choose to group your fonts in Collections. These let you separate and organize your fonts into easy-to-find categories, such as fixed width, block fonts, city fonts, particular client fonts or any other one that tickles your fancy. The benefit of doing this is the ability to quickly see what you have, as well as being able to turn off a group of fonts with the click of a button.

You may have noticed that sometimes when you try to open an application, you’re stuck waiting, while the application is going through lists and lists of fonts in small type on the screen. Turning off some of the fonts you don’t need for a particular project can decrease that waiting time. This is done using the Edit>Disable “collection_name” menu. When you disable those fonts, the word OFF will appear next to them to separate them from the working fonts. You can create collections by simply dragging font names in within Font Book. Best of all, when you no longer need the collection (let’s say a project is finished), you can delete it, and the original fonts will remain in the core folders.

The second important use of Font Book is to troubleshoot font issues. One tool to use when installing new fonts is to use the Validate Font function, which will ensure that the font is in full working order. It can also be used when a font you’re using appears damaged in some way. The second tool is Font Book’s ability to resolve duplicate fonts. Font Book will mark duplicates all on its own with a dot beside the name. The specific font duplicate with the dot next to it has been made inactive, however, you still run the chance of the font sometimes switching midway through a project causing reflows and all kinds of formatting and design issues. Your best tactic is to go into Font Book and use the resolve duplicates to find and mark all of them, and then either delete or disable the fonts yourself to ensure there are no problems.

Lastly, perhaps less technical in nature, one of Font Book’s most charming features is the preview function that lets you look at the fonts in three different ways. The first is “setup,” which will show all upper and lower letters and 0-9 in any size; the second is “repertoire,” which shows all the characters available in a font; and finally, my personal favourite, “custom preview,” which allows you to type any sentence you desire at the size you desire. One last handy trick is to preview a downloaded font in Font Book before installing with any of the above preview options to be sure it is what you want.

Now that you understand a bit about font management using Font Book, I hope you are better able to answer customer questions and troubleshoot potential issues. Employing these tools will get you well on your way to managing all the fonts on your computer. Have fun!