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| The Truth About Font Management | | Date Created: 30 Oct, 2004, 02:35 PM |
 Most people think that font management means that they should buy a piece of software from Extensis, Alsoft, or Insider Software. As if purchasing one of these programs, and then installing it on your computer will rid you, so the myth goes, of all font-related problems - allowing you to stay blissfully unaware of these complicated little digital assets that you take for granted and that you count on for so much. This idea is certainly perpetuated by the font management software companies, all of them competing with each other to get you to believe that their product is the one thing that will straighten out your font-related problems. However, before we blame them for a barrage of propaganda that has worked a little too well, we need to take a little responsibility ourselves. We want to believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and a program that will bring our fonts, after years of neglect, into complete harmony. |
 It's not all your fault of course. Apple is also partly responsible. In earlier versions of OS X, Apple proudly proclaimed that there was no limit to the number of fonts that the OS could support, boldly inviting you to dump hundreds -- if not thousands -- of fonts into any of three different system font folders. Without stating it, Apple was telling it's users that font management was not necessary in OS X. The fact that programs such as Adobe Illustrator or Microsoft Word crashed on start-up trying to cache all these fonts, or that the system itself was unstable, did not seem sufficient for Apple to acknowledge the problem. |
 Eventually this supposed complete lack of a need for font management in Apple's OS X gave rise to Font Book, a utility made by Apple and included in Apple's third generation of OS X (Panther): it's purpose to help you manage those same fonts that Apple thought didn't need managing. Font Book really doesn't work that well, but that is a subject that I'll leave for another article. |
 Where does this leave you? If you can't count on Apple to give you a complete solution, and you can't necessarily trust the propaganda of the font management companies, how are you supposed to deal with your font related problems? Well, the fact that you're reading this article (and have perhaps sought out similar articles on other websites), means that you are on the right track. It is in places like this that you will find more truth than you will from the companies with their own agendas.
Let's talk about the reality of font management. The first thing you need to know is that--brace yourselves!--there isn't a silver bullet that will take care of all of our font related problems. If you hear or read any claim to the contrary, you should consider it as marketing and not necessarily useful, or even true. Please don't misunderstand me: you should purchase a professional font management program because it's the cornerstone of font management. Just don't believe all the hype. A font management program is not the whole solution. Font management is a process. Once you understand that, you're most of the way clear of your problems. |
 The thing that makes a good or even mediocre font management program work is an understanding of your font-related problems as well as an understanding of your end needs. If your workflow requires that you share complex graphic documents with other users, then your understanding of fonts needs to be better than if you are just trying to publish your family newsletter. Because of this, you need to educate yourself. You should know the difference between a Type 1 and a TrueType font. (You can read a primer on fonts and font types in the Resources section of Font Geek.)
Part of this process is to understand which fonts you cannot do without. Make a list of the 20 to 50 (or even 100) fonts that you must have to make your documents work. Open your documents and check your font usage. Take your time and consider this list carefully. Your font list must be, at the beginning, your main priority. After everything else is done, you need to ask yourself if you still have these fonts (in your list) available to you. |
 The next thing you need to do is to get your fonts all together. You won't be able to deal with your fonts if you don't know where they are. Some fonts need to be stored in one of the System's font folders, and some fonts don't. (You can read more about where fonts "live" on your system in the OS X issues section of Font Geek.) A simple rule to follow is to leave those fonts alone that the OS has installed in any one of the System fonts folders unless you have a reason to move them. You can let the System continue to activate those fonts as it sees the need. The rest of your collected fonts can then be cleaned up and managed by third party software. Once you have all of your fonts together, back them up. You're going to be working with them and if you make a mistake, you're going to be glad you have a copy to which to revert. Note: You can read my reviews of the various font managers to learn what I think of the offerings from Extensis, Alsoft, and Insider Software in the Font Management section of Font Geek. I encourage you to read them all and then make up your own mind. |
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Before you manage your fonts. You need to clean them up. This is a difficult process to explain because there are different levels of "clean." Also, cleaning means different things depending on the problems that your fonts might have. In the old days I was a fan of running fonts through an OS 9 version of ATM Deluxe to start that process. Currently I favor a 50/50 combination of manual sorting and the application of a diagnostic utility. You can read more about such utilities in the Cleaning Your Fonts article in the Resources section of Font Geek.
Once you're done cleaning, you need to test your most critical fonts. Go back to your list and run sample text from your major applications, and then print those tests (on a postscript printer) to make sure that they work. It's important the fonts display correctly, but it's more important that the fonts print correctly. And you should be aware that some programs have problems with some kinds of fonts. (For more information about application-specific font problems, refer to articles in the Application Issues section of Font Geek). If your fonts fail in all your applications, then they need to be checked again and possibly replaced from your back-up. If they still fail, then they need to be replaced with a new version. You read correctly: you may have to purchase fonts to replace some of your fonts that don't make it through critical testing. Fonts can be regenerated using a program such as Macromedia's Fontographer or Pyrus' FontLab, but it's takes a good deal of time, and considerable expertise. |
 I do realize that these last few steps -- gathering and cleaning your fonts -- are very involved. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that some of this work is subjective, and can be greatly assisted by someone who knows what they are doing. Having said that, here is a last piece of advice: don't be a hot dog! Don't try to do it all yourself. There are guys -- like me -- you can hire to clean and manage your fonts. Bringing in someone with more expertise than you have may also be a part of the font management process. Yes it's an expense, but properly done, it's usually a one-time expense that may make an enormous difference in how well your documents, applications, and even your computer works. If you have a local service provider that deals with this kind of thing, talk to them about it. If your local service provider can't help you, you should consider a new provider. And if no one else can help you (here comes a shameless "plug") you can always contact me.
As you can tell from this article there's a little more to this font management thing than you've probably been lead to believe. However, if you want the promise implicit in all the propaganda you've been reading, then a healthy combination of font management software, a little education, some planning, and perhaps a little outside expertise will be in order. And that, my friends, is as close as I can get to the real truth about font management. |
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