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Removing excess fonts
Authored by: dano on May 07, '04 12:41:01PM

One aspect of Mac OS X font management that seems to be overlooked is concept of location hierarchy. For example, if you have two fonts of the same name, the font used will be based upon it's location in the hierarchy. Apple has a useful document called "Using and Managing Fonts in Mac OS X" which explains this concept. Bases upon this, it is easy to predict which font would be used in the case of duplicates. My suggestion would be to reduce the number of font locations (if practical). One may also replace the .dfonts with postscript versions (if available). Lucida Grande and Helvetica are essential system fonts.



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Removing excess fonts
Authored by: montalvd on May 14, '04 01:33:38PM

the idea is to manage fonts through your font management program. an earlier post hit the nail on the head...each version of each font is different...so the goal MUST be to have complete control over what fonts are loaded.

in order to do this, you MUST trim down the number of absolutely necessary fonts. all the workstations we rollout at all the graphics/design/bureau shops we support have the following:

/System/Library/Fonts:
Geneva.dfont
Monaco.dfont
LucidaGrande.dfont
LastResort.dfont
Keyboard.dfont

/Library/Fonts:
...flushed clean...

~/Library/Fonts:
...flushed clean...

/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Fonts:
...flushed clean EXCEPT for the "Reqd" folder

we then load Helvetica.dfont and HelveticaNeue.dfont through Suitcase/FontReserve. before you get uptight about that...remember...you can enable/disable fonts ONLY through a font management program. so...if you need your own Helvetica, simply disable Helvetica.dfont and enable Helvetica (yours).

font management in osx is only different in that there are 7 necessary fonts (instead of four in os9)...out of which 5 MUST be in /System/Library/Fonts (where they CAN NOT) be managed...and of which 2 MUST be managed through your font management program (where you can enable/disable at will).

it's really not the big deal a lot of people on this forum are making it out to be. keep those 5 fonts in the right folder and manage the rest through Suitcase/FontReserve and move on with life...

;)
don montalvo, nyc

---
Don, NYC



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