About face

Posted on 24 Oct 2002 at 14:46

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Mac OS X's new font management system takes a little getting used to, even for professionals. Here's how to find your way around it.

Mac OS X scares the pants off most designers for a number of reasons. Apart from such problems as trying to run QuarkXPress smoothly in Classic mode, the entire way that fonts are handled has been revised. Things haven't changed this much since the launch of System 7 in 1991, when Font/DA Mover bit the dust. Not only has Adobe Type Manager Deluxe, the mainstay of those with big font collections, been discontinued, even the places fonts can be stored has been revised.

Now, instead of a single Fonts folder tucked away inside the System Folder, there are four separate places where fonts are stored - five including the Fonts folder inside the Network directory's Library, and that's before looking at the various application-specific font folders used by the latest programs from Adobe.

Nightmare? Well, not really. Some of those folders aren't meant for end users to play with, and the ones that are have specific roles that help define when they should and shouldn't be used. But it does need to be explained a little.
The font folders
If you use Classic applications a lot, you should stick with the traditional Fonts folder tucked away inside the System Folder used by the Classic environment, or System Folder/Fonts/ in OS X terminology. (Don't confuse the OS X 'System' folder with the Mac OS 9 'System Folder'.) Typefaces placed in that Fonts folder will be available to all applications, whether they are Classic or native, and even when Classic is not running. These are called Classic fonts.

Unfortunately, Classic applications don't get to use the new font formats that OS X can handle. The data fork fonts and Windows TrueType fonts that OS X applications get to play with are invisible to Classic software, so there's no point putting them into the old Fonts folder.

The Fonts folder inside System/Library/ (the Library folder inside the OS X System folder on your hard disk) is off-limits to the user - this is where essential fonts, things required by the OS and its helper software, are kept. These fonts are called System fonts. It is possible to play around with the contents of this folder by using the command line, however, there is no need for most people to do so. The best thing to do is leave this one alone, even forget it's there.

The next Fonts folder to consider is the one inside the Library folder at the top level of your hard disk. Unlike the System/Library/Fonts/ folder, this is ready for you to modify. Any fonts placed in here are available to anyone that logs on to the Mac, and are referred to as Local fonts. This can be very useful in open-access situations, such as college settings. If you are the only user setup on your Mac, this is of no direct relevance, but it is still a valid place for installing fonts.

For more personal font installation - for example, if you want to use certain fonts but you don't want anyone else to see what fonts you have - look in the Fonts folder found in the Library folder inside your User folder. In OS X speak this is Users/[yourusername]/Library/Fonts/, or ~/Library/Fonts/ for short. This is your own personal Fonts folder; any typefaces put in there are ready for you to use when you're logged in, but they are not available at all when a different user is logged in. These are called User fonts. As your ~/Library/ folder can't even be opened unless you're logged in, people can't even see the fonts to copy them out.