With Mac OS X, managing fonts has become seemingly more difficult and confusing. Fonts can now be located in many locations on the system which are activated by a specific font hierarchy making it difficult to verify that the correct font is in use.
Several fonts are required for OS X to work properly. Removing these fonts can cause instability of the system.
I would recommend you to use a professional font manager to manage your fonts. One of the first things you can do is to organise your font files into a central location.
The information in this section will give you guidance on how to achieve getting your fonts into this systematic central location. To do this, first create a folder - perhaps call it My Fonts - a good place to locate it is in the /Users/Shared Folder, where it will be accessible to all users of the computer.
Using font management software these fonts can then be activated and de-activated as required.
dFont
The OS X TrueType format.
They come as a single file, which may include several styles.
TrueType
The original OS 9 (or previous) format.
Fonts with the TTF extension are seen as Windows TT fonts regardless of their platform
If you have not installed any other fonts, or any other programmes (such as Adobe programmes) you will only have dFonts and Truetype fonts.
Some of the newer TrueType fonts, such as Apple's dFonts may have extended character sets so may be completely different from older versions even if the font name is the same
At one time it was not advised to use TrueType fonts in layouts intended for commercial printing. In fact Headley Brothers specifications have never disallowed TrueType fonts. They may have caused problems in some older RIPs (Raster Image Processors) about ten years ago, but modern RIPs should not have the same problems. There are, of course, "bad" fonts of all flavours that can cause problems at output. It is advisable to use only quality fonts.
PostScript-based Fonts
There are two major formats: Type 1 and Type 3.
Most modern fonts, including Adobe fonts, are Type 1.
Some very old fonts or graphic fonts may be Type 3. Type 3 fonts do not offer the best quality.
Another variation of Type 1 fonts is Multiple master Fonts. I do not recommend their use. It is best to switch to OpenType fonts.
All PostScript fonts come in two parts: screen fonts and printer fonts; both are required.
Screen fonts styles (plain, bold, italic, etc) are usually combined into a single suitcase. Printer fonts always come as a single file per style.
OpenType
A relatively new font format developed by Adobe and Microsoft. OpenType is cross-platform between Windows and Macintosh computers.
OT fonts come as a single file per style and do not use separate screen fonts
OpenType is a file format, not a font technology - so they can be either modified PostScript fonts or modified TrueType fonts. Adobe's versions are modified PostScript, Microsoft's are usually modified TrueType.
Adobe OpenType Pro fonts can contain advanced character sets (up to 65,536 glyphs). Older programmes may only be able to use the first 256 glyphs (or may not be able to use them at all).
Adobe OpenType Std fonts are converted PostScript fonts and only have the standard 256 glyphs.
System fonts
System fonts may be located in a number of folders.
OS X locations
User folder(s)
~user/Library/Fonts
These fonts are only available to the logged-in user.
All users
/Library/Fonts
These fonts are available to all users.
Network folder (if available)
Network/Library/Fonts
These fonts are available if sharing fonts from an OS X server.
System fonts
System/Library/Fonts
These fonts are only available to the logged-in user.
Classic OS 9
System Folder/Fonts
These fonts are available to all OS 9 and OS X programmes.
Fonts installed with applications
Many programmes may install fonts in a Fonts folder in individual application folders. This is mainly relevant to Adobe and Microsoft applications.
Adobe font locations, OS X
User folder(s)
~user/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Fonts
These fonts are only available to the logged-in user. There may be sub-folders in the Fonts folder.
All users
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Fonts
These fonts are available to all users. There may be sub-folders in the Fonts folder. Do not remove the Reqd folder.
Adobe font locations, OS 9 and Classic
System Folder/Application Support/Adobe/Fonts
There may be sub-folders in the Fonts folder. Do not remove the Reqd folder.
Microsoft
/Applications/Microsoft Office/Office/Fonts
These are used during the first run of MS apps.
If you are going to manually organise your fonts first decide on a strategy for your font library. You should centralise your fonts into one location. Make a new folder in /Users/Shared and call it My Fonts. Within this folder you can implement your chosen strategy.
Here are some suggestions:
Alphabetically by name
This is often the easiest way to find a particular font. If using this method you could add subfolders within the My Fonts folder, for example A-D, E-H, etc.
By classification
This strategy can be used by those experienced in typography. You could set up subfolders such as Serif, Sans Serif, Script, Display, etc.
By Job
Often used in production environments you could create a set of subfolders for each job or magazine title that you are responsible for.
With font management software fonts can be activated and de-activated from this location as they are needed.
Fonts that are stored in the areas described on the Font locations page are typically managed by the operating system and not your font management software, so it is time to tidy up those fonts.
Manually cleaning up your System Font and Application Font folders
To achieve the clean up of your System and Application font folders it is necessary to remove all fonts that are not essential for the operation of OS X. You may not use these fonts in your day-to-day work but it is a good idea to save them.
- Create a folder in My Fonts and call it Fonts from System.
- Create a new folder within the Fonts from System folder and name it Library Fonts.
- Move all the fonts from /Library/Fonts to your Library Fonts folder.
- Create a new folder within the Fonts from System folder and name it User Fonts.
- Move all the fonts from /Users/[name]/Library/Fonts to your User Fonts folder.
- If you have a Classic System Folder (it will have an OS 9 icon and can be found at the root level of your main hard disk) and you want these fonts to be managed by your font manager in OS X then you should move these fonts. Once moved, these fonts will no longer be available to OS 9 applications.
Create a folder and call it Classic Fonts within the Fonts from System folder. Move all the fonts in /System Folder/Fonts to your new folder except the following fonts:
- Charcoal
- Chicago
- Geneva
- Monaco
- You must be logged in as a user with Administrator rights to move System Domain Fonts. Create a folder and name it System Fonts in the Fonts from System folder.
Select all the fonts in the /System/Library/Fonts folder except the following essential system fonts:
- AppleGothic.dfont
- AquaKanaBold.otf
- AquaKanaRegular.otf
- Courier.dfont
- Geneva.dfont
- HelveLTMM
- Helvetica LT MM
- Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro W3.otf
- Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro W6.otf
- Hiragino Maru Gothic Pro W4.otf
- Hiragino Mincho Gothic Pro W3.otf
- Hiragino Mincho Gothic Pro W6.otf
- Keyboard.dfont
- LastResort.dfont
- LucidaGrande.dfont
- Osaka.dfont
- OsakaMono.dfont
- Times LT MM
- TimesLTMM
Press Command-Delete to remove the selected files from the System Folder. At the prompt enter your Administrator password and click OK.
Adobe Application Fonts
If you have installed applications from Adobe (which is quite likely) font files will have been placed in a special location. You could leave the fonts here if you wish, but if you want to use them in other non-Adobe programmes and/or are using a font managements programme you can move them. To locate and move these files:
- Create a folder and name it Adobe Application Fonts within the Fonts from System folder.
- Move all the fonts in /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Fonts except the folder named Reqrd and the fonts in this folder.
A note about Helvetica
Helvetica is not an essential system font. However, some applications still require an active version of Helvetica to operate. As soon as you remove Helvetica from your system font folders, be sure to activate a version of Helvetica using your font manager. It doesn't matter which font format you use (PostScript, TrueType, OpenType, etc). For professional publishing and print I recommend using a PostScript version of Helvetica. (See Re-installing fonts and Installing new fonts)
Installing fonts without font management software
It is possible, though perhaps not advisable, to install (activate) fonts without a Font Management Programme. For single users you could copy the fonts into the /Users/[name]/Library/Fonts folder.
You could create an alias to this folder on your desktop or add the folder to the Sidebar. Add fonts when needed, take them out when finished. Fonts can be in a sub-folder for ease of organisation. If you are using an OS prior to 10.4 keep the fonts only one level deep.
Font management programmes
Font Book
Mac OS X 10.3 and higher includes a basic form of font management in the Font Book programme. This programme is easy to use and may be all you need if your font library is small. However, it does not offer auto-activation or any of the commercial utilities.
Before using Font Book set its preferences to install fonts by copying. (Later versions of Font Book install by copying and it is not a selectable preference).
Font Book allows you to preview, install, organise, activate and de-activate fonts. If a font is causing problems Font Book allows you to Validate fonts showing results in a Font Validation window.
For more information see:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304764
Insider Software Font Agent Pro
For more information see:
www.insidersoftware.com
Extensis Suitcase Fusion
The combined product between Suitcase and Font Reserve.
For more information see:
www.extensis.com
Alsoft Master Juggler
For more information see:
www.alsoft.com
LinoType Font Explorer
Free.
For more information see:
www.linotype.com/fontexplorerX
Each of the commercially available font management programmes offer various levels of font installation, activation, de-activation, organising, and verification/validatiion. Most will have trial versions and LinoType Font Explorer is free to download.
If your Adobe programmes quit or get stuck during start-up quit or force quit the programme. Search for any files named adobefnt and delete the files that end in .lst, then restart the programme.
Other programmes, such as Quark XPress may need the OS X font caches cleaned. There are a number of utilities that do this; freeware utilities such as "Onyx" can be found at:
www.versiontracker.com/macosx/
or DTP Types "Font Aware" which will remove the Adobe font cache and the System font cache.
www.dtptypes.com/software.htm
