Font Issues / Cleanup - HELP!

[clintob]

Hello all,

I've been having some issues lately, and have determined that the problem is my font library (which is VERY large... well into the thousands). I know there are a number of duplicate fonts, and there are likely many corrupt files as well that have accrued over the years. So my question is this...

I want to completely clear out all the fonts on my system, replace them with the originals from the OS X DVD, and then reinstall my old library. But before I do that, and end up right where I started, I need a way to go through all the font files, get rid of unnecessary duplicates, erase anything that's causing conflicts or issues, etc.

I don't know much about font management so if someone could give me some direction about how to do this, that would be awesome. I tinkered a little with Extensis Suitcase but it didn't seem to be of any help, as the issues persisted and the program crashed or hung quite a bit.

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[TheAnswer]

If I recall correctly, Fontbook can show you the corrupt files. As for the duplicates, it depends how your fonts are organized...do you have them organized in folders (say by foundry or postscript vs. opentype) in any way?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Hello all,

I've been having some issues lately, and have determined that the problem is my font library (which is VERY large... well into the thousands). I know there are a number of duplicate fonts, and there are likely many corrupt files as well that have accrued over the years. So my question is this...

I want to completely clear out all the fonts on my system, replace them with the originals from the OS X DVD, and then reinstall my old library. But before I do that, and end up right where I started, I need a way to go through all the font files, get rid of unnecessary duplicates, erase anything that's causing conflicts or issues, etc.

I don't know much about font management so if someone could give me some direction about how to do this, that would be awesome. I tinkered a little with Extensis Suitcase but it didn't seem to be of any help, as the issues persisted and the program crashed or hung quite a bit.

Any help would be much appreciated!

The Font Book program that comes with Mac OS X v10.4 is a good place to start with managing your fonts. Remember that fonts in Mac OS X are stored in 3 places: (your user folder)/Library/Fonts, (your hard drive)/Library/Fonts, and (your hard drive)/System/Library/Fonts (this third location is reserved for use by Mac OS X, and should never be modified by you).

 

[clintob]

Unfortunately, the fonts aren't really orgainzed into any reasonable structure (obviously my fault there). I tried to use FontBook to clean things up, but it too seemed to hang up and/or crash quite a bit. It also doesn't seem to be reading or recognizing all the fonts that used to be there.

As I mentioned above, let's say I clear out all the fonts (obviously back them up somewhere), and reinstall the system fonts from the OS X DVD (or even do a fresh install of the whole OS). What is the best way from there to ensure that the fonts I install are (a) organized properly, (b) not corrupted or causing conflicts, and (c) not duplicates?

Should I be installing them 20 or 30 at a time, or using any particular piece of software to go through and check the files for errors, etc? It seems that just dumping all the files into the Hard Drive > Library > Fonts folder isn't the most efficient and fool proof way to go about it.

 

[TheAnswer]

First off, try keeping your Fonts in the User/Library/Fonts folder and not a the Hard Disk/Library/Font level.

I'd take all of the fonts out and put them in, say 50 at a time and have Font Book validate them first...then take swap those out for another 50 until you go through the validation process. Put the validated ones in a folder that says they are ok. Then view that folder in list mode and try to weed out any duplicates. As for which fonts go where on install, hopefully someone with a fresh system can come in here and list them for you.

 

[TheAnswer]

Just to clarify...some fonts have to be at the Hard Drive/Library/Fonts level...although it looks like all the ones I have there were put there when I installed Pages. Your User/Library/Font folder is empty until you put fonts in it. That's why it's best to store your fonts there, so you don't have to worry about taking out a font that some app feels it must have in order to place nice.

Once you weed out the dupes and the corrupt ones...check out this thread for organization ideas.

 

[clintob]

Okay, I'll give it a whirl!

Thanks for the help - I'm on the phone with Apple tech right now to find out the best/safest way to clear out and reinstall the system fonts. Once I get everything stable again, I'll go ahead and try what you've suggested.