Hi, wondering if anyone can shed some light on any changes/improvements on font management under Snow Leopard... specifically, the mandatory fonts and swapped for PostScript fonts likes Helvetica, Helvetic Neue, Symbol and Times. I want to be able to activate my entire family of fonts with Suitcase, but 10.5 has these fonts locked - you can't deactivate them with FontBook nor can you remove them from the System folder as you could with previous versions of the OS. So I end up with incomplete sets opening. In fact, Time won't even load into Suitcase - looks like it is scared of the TT version! I want to be able to control all fonts on my system and not have my InDesign layouts/Illustrator graphics/PhotoShop images use TrueType fonts at all. Hoping I can get rid of them. Thanks in advance.

The system fonts are locked for a reason -- they are needed by the system and the system will not function properly without them. Years ago I accidentally removed one (can't recall which one now) to replace it with the PS version, and suddenly windows could not be drawn properly!! That mess was a real challenge to clean up, I might add.

So no, you can't "get rid of them." But you can have PS versions of the same fonts as well.

Sounds like you need a "serious" font manager like Font Agent Pro, something that will let you create a work set and activate it upon opening your given design app.

As for making sure a TT font didn't "sneak in" to your work, that's what preflighting is for.

I am in a similar situation. It looks like we have to allow the System fonts to be and add a small subset that we know to be Type 1. Not the best of solutions but what can we do? Nothing - learn to live with the way it is. I am planning to upgrade to SL in the Xmas break and will set up and get to love SL. The font issue is a PITA it seems as Apple is hanging out the graphic professionals out to dry.

Hi there,

Actually, I finally did have a few hours to play with the fonts on my iMac with 10.5.8 and found I can actually make adjustments to the font installation and have it the way I want. I am still curious to know what SnowLeopard users are encountering with regards to these mandatory fonts.

The key to this is - I need my Adobe CS4 apps to reference the PostScript versions of Helvetica, Helvetica Neue, Symbol and Times, etc.

Now that Apple has them set as locked system fonts, placing the PS versions of these fonts in any of the other font folders, or by using a font management utility, will not work. You will be presented with the font conflict issue in Suitcase [and likely others] and also have the app itself tell you there is a conflict when it gets Suitcase to auto-open the fonts. This drove me nuts for the past 4-5 months, I tried to live with it, but always feared a prepress PDF created in InDesign would come back to haunt me.

So.... here is the answer to all of our problems [with 10.5.8 at least]...

[disclaimer - this has worked for me *this weekend* but I cannot vouch that it will work for everyone on all System levels - I am using 10.5.8 at this time]


You *can* put the PS versions of the same fonts in the System level folder and it does work - InDesign no longer shows the TrueType versions of these fonts. This is exactly what I want for all of my documents - no referencing of TrueType fonts at all.


WOOHOO!! - THIS IS THE ANSWER TO MY MAIN PROBLEM AND I AM RELIEVED TO SEE IT IS POSSIBLE TO DO THIS.


Here is some further info on font management that I have been assembling, much of it I started doing back as far as OS 10.2 [I didn't mess with the fonts in OS X prior to that]. If you want to master the fonts on your Mac - this is the most detailed outline I have ever seen on the subject. Having said that, I am open to hearing from others to expand and improve on this as much as possible.


On your desktop, create a folder called "FONTS"

In that folder, create a folder called "REMOVED"

Go to each location on your Mac in which fonts are stored:

System->Library->Fonts
User->Library->Fonts
Hard Drive->Library->Fonts
Hard Drive->Library->Adobe->Fonts [if you have any Adobe apps or suites installed]
Hard Drive->Library->Fonts->Microsoft [if you have Office installed]

and create aliases of all of these folders and put them in the FONTS folder on your desktop - naming them "Fonts - System", "Fonts - User", etc so you know what each is. You should have aliases such as:

Fonts - Applications
Fonts - Library
Fonts - System
Fonts - User

and a folder titled "REMOVED"

You now have access to all of the locations quickly and can get a quick snapshot of what is where very easily.

You can also put your own font libraries from your various sources within this folder for quick access.


Organizing...

I removed all fonts from the System except the mandatory ones like Lucida, Keyboard, Last Resort and a handful of Truetype fonts for the web - Arial, Georgia, Tahoma, Verdana - icky web-only fonts ;-)

I removed all fonts from the other folders with the exception of the Adobe folder - leaving just Myriad in the folder called REQD.

This way, I can manage all fonts system-wide, from the one main depository of fonts I have created.

Please note - by installing PS version of Helvetica, Times, etc at the System Level, InDesign now no longer displays the TrueType version, which was my goal in this exercise. However, Illustrator and PhotoShop now display both the PS and TT versions. I can live with this, I just could not live with InDesign NOT showing the PS versions.

Would love to hear from others on this - let us know what worked, what didn't work, for the various applications you are using so I can update this on an ongoing basis.

Hope this helps others out there - would love to hear from you.

Thanks.

If you'd like additional information about cleaning out your system font folders, and using preferred font types, we've published a free font management best practices guide that will help you whip your fonts into shape.

Download the free PDF from our website:

Best Practices for Managing Fonts in Mac OS X - 6th Edition (updated: Oct. 2009) (http://www.extensis.com/fmbpg)

Regards,

Jim Kidwell
Extensis
blog.extensis.com
twitter.com/extensis