Why font management is a good
idea...
If you haven't already, please read the
section on Fonts...
The most common reason for font management
is simple:
The next most common reason is also
simple:
And lastly:
These are only three of the reasons Fonts
Manager exists. There are many more. Let's talk about these one by
one...
"It
takes too long to select a particular font if the list is
long!"
This can be very annoying, especially if
the font you keep selecting is called 'Zapf...'
Scrolling through the entire alphabet is slow and cumbersome, and
most folks don't have the patience (I know I don't).
And I've come across some applications in the past that behaved
strangely with too many fonts in the font menu...
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"I have
too many fonts, and my System won't recognize some of
them!"
This can also be very annoying, because
this situation is hard to recognize, unless you are aware of the
simple rule "No more than 128 suitcases in the Fonts folder".
The 129th suitcase won't be usable to you, although most applications
will list the font in the font menu anyway (which can be very
deceiving).
The rule only applies to suitcases, but it just makes sense to manage
the printer fonts along with the suitcases, so you don't go crazy
wondering why that particular printer font is in the Fonts
folder...
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"I have
too many fonts, and my computer seems slower!"
This is much more subtle, and unless you're
paying very close attention, you may never notice that it takes
longer for your Mac to startup, or certain applications to
launch.
Applications like ClarisWorks and Microsoft Word '98 have WYSIWYG
(What You See Is What You Get) font menus. This menu (which is very
beautiful and extremely useful) must be built when the application
launches, and may take some time if you have just added or removed
fonts to/from the Fonts folder. To shorten this time, keep only the
fonts you need available at any given moment. Balance this idea
against the time it takes you to restart your Mac, so that you won't
become unproductive with too many 'small, specialized' font sets.
You can get quite carried away with font sets, and unless you have at
least 256 fonts, 4 or 5 sets should be plenty. But don't let that
stop you from creating very detailed, very logical sets, as in the
following list:
- the Seasons (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall...)
- Calendar Holidays (4th of July, New Year's...)
- Religious Holidays (Hanukah, Christmas, Passover,
Easter...)
- special Symbols (Maps, Mathematics, Physics,
Electrical, Drafting...)
- that special manuscript...
- that particular client's ready-to-publish work...
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