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Taking care of your
font folder
This information
courtesy of About.com
Part 1: Windows Font
Limitations
Sooner or later this is an
issue that every graphics software enthusiast is going to have to face.
Many of the graphics software programs install hundreds of fonts onto your
system. Most of them don't give you the option of which ones you want...
they just dump all their fonts into your Windows FONTS folder. Often the
fonts are visual duplicates of fonts you may already have under a
different name. Add to that all those fun, cool, free fonts we find on the
web and before long your system becomes sluggish and you can't seem to
figure out why.... Chances are, it's font overload.
Most of the information you read about fonts in Windows will say that
Windows can handle as many as 1,000 fonts. This may be true, but you are
going to experience a decline in system performance much earlier than when
you hit this number. The truth of the matter is, Windows does not
"reach its limit" according to the number of installed fonts at
all... it has to do with the length
of the font names and their filenames. Furthermore, if a font resides
in a location other than the FONTS folder or the SYSTEM folder, the entire
path to the font has to be stored in the registry, reducing the number of
fonts you may install.
To further compound the problem, Windows does not tell you when you have
reached the limit of installed fonts and it will continue to let you think
you are adding fonts to your system when in fact, you are not. Let me
explain....
Once you reach that mysterious limit of fonts in Windows, you (or a
program installation) can keep adding fonts to the Windows FONTS folder.
The fonts will appear to be installed because they are in the folder, but
they may not appear in the font menu of your programs. The fonts are
unusable because you have reached your system's limit. When this occurs,
you will find that as you delete fonts, the number of installed fonts that
is indicated in the Status bar when viewing the Windows FONTS folder, does
not change. This is because as you delete fonts, those extra, unusable
fonts are moving up and becoming usable again. When you finally see this
number in the status bar actually begin to decrease, you know you are
making progress.
It's a good idea to keep the number of installed fonts below 400. If you
do this you will find your system and programs will start faster and run
much smoother. Does this mean you have to give up all your favorite fonts?
Not necessarily... There are a few things you can do to have the best of
both worlds. I'll discuss those later; first, I'll explain the safest way
to trim down your font collection.
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Part 2: Trimming your Font Collection
From Windows Explorer, first create a new folder anywhere on your hard
disk. Give it a name something like MyFonts or TTF (the shorter the folder
name, the better; due to registry limitations). Next, point to the
C:/Windows/Fonts folder. Select all the fonts in this folder and copy them
to your new folder. This creates a backup of all your fonts. Never, ever
start deleting fonts without first making backup copies. In the event that
you need to restore one of the deleted fonts, you will have it readily
available. After copying your fonts, go back to C:/Windows/Fonts and start
deleting
any of your less used fonts until you get them down to at least 500 or
less. You may find it helpful to have a printout of all your fonts before
doing this. There are several font viewers available on the Internet that
will do this. Just run a search for "font viewers" in your
favorite search engine.
Now that you have your fonts trimmed down to a more manageable number,
it's up to you to maintain this. Using font management software is one way
of doing this. Font managers ease the routine of installing and
uninstalling fonts when you need them, and allow you to browse your
collection of fonts whether or not they are installed. Many of them have
features such as font grouping that allow you to sort your fonts into
similar groups, which makes finding the perfect font a little easier. My
personal preference for a font manager is Bitstream Font Navigator, but
there are many others. Use your favorite search engine to find more.
What if you choose not use font management software? You can still keep
your FONTS folder clean, but it will take some extra steps when you want
to use fonts that aren't installed. Without a font manager, you will have
to manually install and uninstall extra fonts when you want to use them.
The easiest way to do this that I have found is -- rather than installing
a font and then having to remember which one it was to go back and delete
it later -- instead, you can put a shortcut to the font in your FONTS
folder. The shortcut will make the font available in your programs, but in
the FONTS folder, the icon will appear with the tiny shortcut arrow on it
so it is easier to identify and remove later, when you have finished
working with that font.
Another little known tip about fonts is that if you double-click on a font
file in Windows and leave the FontView window open, as long as the window
remains open, this font will behave as if it is installed. This is very
handy if you are only opening a project to have a quick look, or to print
it, and you don't want to install the font for such a short, simple task.
Could your fonts be corrupted? Go to the C:\Windows\fonts folder and view
details. Sort the view by file size and check for any fonts with a zero
byte size. If you find any, delete them; the fonts are corrupted.
Additionally, something should be mentioned about those free fonts you
find on the Web. There are a lot of fun and unique fonts out there, but
you should be aware that you open yourself up to the chance of getting a
font file that is corrupted. It's very difficult to identify a corrupted
font file, and when you do encounter one, chances are your system will
completely lock up, and you run the risk of losing what you were working
on. The problem usually does not occur immediately after using or viewing
the corrupted fonts, which makes them extremely difficult to identify...
so, remember to use caution when using any free fonts downloaded off the
Web.
Whether you use a font manager or not, it's up to you to keep the Windows
Fonts folder free from extra fonts that get added when you install
software. It's important to regularly check the FONTS folder and move out
any fonts that aren't necessary, especially after installing any new
software. To ease this task, you might find it helpful to create one
separate folder for your own "core fonts". Put any fonts that
you always want to have installed in this folder. Periodically, you can
completely empty the Windows FONTS folder, and only replace the fonts that
you keep in your core fonts folder.
Font management is admittedly one of the more mundane chores for graphics
software and font fanatics, but if regularly attended to, it is something
that will pay off in improved system performance, and fewer font-related
problems.
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Part 3: Windows Fonts That Should Not Be Deleted. Also see the Font
Table for more information.
Do not delete the following fonts:
Arial (TrueType)
Arial Bold (TrueType)
Arial Bold Italic (TrueType)
Arial Italic (TrueType)
Courier 10,12,15 (VGA res)
Courier New (TrueType)
Courier New Bold (TrueType)
Courier New Bold Italic (TrueType)
Courier New Italic (TrueType)
Marlett (Windows 95/98)*
Modern (Plotter)
MS Sans Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)
MS Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)
Roman (Plotter)
Script (Plotter)
Small fonts (VGA res)
Symbol (TrueType)
Symbol 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)
Times New Roman (TrueType) -
Times New Roman Bold (TrueType)
Times New Roman Bold Italic (TrueType)
Times New Roman Italic (TrueType)
Wingdings (TrueType)
Any font with a red A for its icon.
Any font that begins with the letters MS.
*Marlett is a hidden system file and it will not show up in a search,
however, it may show up in your program font lists.
Additionally, some programs have fonts that are required for that program
to display properly. Those fonts that are not listed above are listed here
along with the program:
CorelDRAW
Avant Garde Book BT (TrueType)
Avant Garde Oblique BT (TrueType)
Avant Garde Medium BT (TrueType)
Avant Garde Medium Oblique BT (TrueType)
CommonBullets (TrueType)
FuturaMedcondBT (Corel's # TT0201M.TTF)
Print Artist
Palisade
Windows Draw
Swiss921 BT
(Also see page 4 of the manual for Windows Draw 6 Print Studio, and page
27 of the manual for Complete Publisher '99 for a list of fonts that must
be installed for the text styles and templates to appear properly.)
Creatacard
Swiss721 BT
(Creatacard also has fonts that begin with CAC - these can be removed,
however, some of the included projects may not display correctly.)
Internet Web Browsers
Webdings
Office 97 (including Outlook 98)
Tahoma
Quickbooks
Four fonts that all start with "Quicktype"
MS Bookshelf
Three fonts called Bookshelf Symbols 1-3
Picture It
Comic Sans and Comic BD
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“It's too late!”
What can you do if you've already deleted some of the required fonts?
Don't panic. You can easily restore essential fonts by reinstalling
Windows. Running Windows Setup over your current installation will not
harm your computer or installed software and it will restore any missing
files, including fonts. Be sure to go back to the first part of this
article and review the font management tips so you can prevent this
situation in the future.
Finding Fonts
If you find yourself in need of a font that you've lost or deleted, About's
Desktop Publishing site offers tips for finding specific fonts. Type
"fonts" (without the quotes) in the search window at about.com
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