One of the more fun aspects of computers, word-processing, AND graphics, is the ability to use Fonts (pretty alphabet styles)

Computers come with a large number of Fonts pre-loaded and many of us find Fonts online and add them to our systems. In fact, just last week I pointed one of my Coaching clients to a package of 10,00 fonts available for either personal or commercial use. What a treasure trove!

Oddly enough, this abundance of available Fonts can lead to problems if you use Fonts to promote your business.

You may have run into one of the following problems:

• You have used a specific Font to match a logo or brand, and then tried unsuccessfully to coordinate that Font usage with someone else, such as a printer or graphic designer.
• You used a Font in one project and then, months later, you want to use the same Font… but can’t find it!
• You see a Font in use that you like. You ask the person using it what it is called… she gives you the name of the Font, but when you look online, the Fonts you can find with that name don’t look like the one you want…

Now, needless to say, these are not life threatening disasters, but they can be major time wasters and / or frustrations!

Part of the problem arises because there are literally millions of Fonts in existence, and, to further complicate matters, many of them have similar names and similar appearances.

Think about college girls in Mississippi named Chelsea… you are trying to locate one specific Chelsea in Mississippi!

You know that she is a blonde and which college she is attending.

Does this find the RIGHT Chelsea? Not necessarily! Even knowing which dorm she lives in may not be enough information. My niece, Chelsea, had two other Chelseas living on her dorm floor!

In order to find the RIGHT Chelsea you will need more information about her.

Fonts are the same way! Just knowing the Font name and the Font’s general appearance – serif, san serif, art deco, moderne, or whatever – won’t necessarily locate the RIGHT Font!

Remember, many Fonts have similar names and similar appearances. Sometimes this isn’t a big issue and sometimes it is!

In any event, keeping track of your Fonts can make life much easier.

There are two basic challenges when disaster-proofing Fonts:

1) Protecting the Fonts installed on your operating system

2) Keeping track of Fonts used in specific instances

Let’s tackle these issues one at a time

Strategies to Protect the Fonts Installed on Your Operating System

WINDOWS Systems

In Windows, in order for a Font to be active within the system (in order for you to use it) the Font must be installed. While it is tempting to try to install thousands of Fonts, doing so can cause problems.

Windows 7 – There doesn’t seem to be a limitation. However, you might find a difference when you try to select a Font on a Document because the Document will pull the entire list of installed Fonts.

Windows NT, 2000 or XP – These have no limitation on the number of Fonts which can be installed, but the boot time WILL be increased due to the need to read the information for all those Fonts while the system is starting up.

Windows 95/98/Me – You can install a maximum of approximately 1000 TrueType Fonts in Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Millennium. The exact number of TrueType Fonts you can install varies, and depends on the length of the TrueType Font names and file names.

Windows 7 – I was not able to find the Font Limit in Windows 7, however there is a Windows 7 Font manager. It includes the ability to group, install, uninstall, preview and hide fonts.

Backing up Fonts in Windows

My current operating system is Windows XP, and the installed Fonts live in the Windows/Fonts folder.

Periodically, I copy the contents of the Windows/Fonts folder into another folder on a different hard drive. I also make sure that the backup Fonts folder is included on my backup strategies.

Recently, I had to have Windows reinstalled. I simply accessed the Backup Font folder from within Windows and installed the Fonts from there into Windows. This was a relatively quick and extremely painless rebuild. I didn’t have all of the Fonts but I was only missing one or two. I consider it pretty effective Disaster-proofing! LOL

MAC Systems

For Macs, how many Fonts is too many? According to APPLE -

Mac OS versions prior to Mac OS 9 placed a limit of 128 fonts (files) in the system’s Fonts folder.

Mac OS 9 allows up to 512 fonts (files) in the Fonts folder.

For our purposes, “Files” include Font suitcases and individual Font files such as bitmapped (screen) or TrueType Fonts. In this case, the file limits do not include PostScript (or printer) Fonts.

Multiple Font families can be included in each Suitcase. The maximum size of a Suitcase is 16 MB. It maybe that you have more files in the Fonts folder than is permitted by your MAc OS. If that is the case, you can place TrueType Font files or individual bitmap files into the suitcases, or merge multiple suitcases.

To create a suitcase – duplicate an existing suitcase and then delete its contents, creating an empty suitcase.

Simply drag an existing suitcase file onto another suitcase file in order to merge suitcases,.

In order for a font to be accessible to the Mac OS, the files must be stored directly in the Fonts folder, not in folders.

If you find that your Fonts are disappearing, check the file size of your Font folder. You have probably reached the limit.

Memory or RAM is also a factor. There is only so much memory available for loading and keeping track of active Fonts. But “too many” is more than just a limitation of the operating system. Do you really want to scroll through a huge list of Fonts from within your software applications?

For best performance and ease of use, you’d do well to limit active Fonts to only the ones you absolutely must have and use a Font manager to manage the rest.

Backing up Fonts in Macs

There is always that Font that you used in that PSD that you cannot find anymore and the whole thing just backfires on you. So just backup your Fonts before you lose them to the wind.

Chances are that you have Fonts strung about all over your system. The best way is to launch Font Book, select all of your Fonts, and select Export Fonts.

Strategies to Keeping Track of Fonts Used in Specific Instances

This can be one of the most challenging aspects of protecting your Fonts! I utilize a couple of different methods.

METHOD ONE

First off, it is important to identify WHICH Font you used in a particular instance… and NO, you won’t remember. I can pretty much guarantee this! *smile*

I do this by creating a plain text file (using the .txt extension) and keeping that text file with the project in question,. This works whether my project is a drawing project, a photo type project, a word-processing project, or anything else.

If I have a large number of smaller projects grouped together, I might run just one plain text file and list the Fonts associated with the individual projects.

The plain text file contains TWO pieces of information for each Font:

• The NAME of the Font
• The LOCATION of the Font
  NOTE – this would be a COPY of the Font file and would be included in my Backup Strategies. I wouldn’t use the installed location of the Font because it is too vulnerable to a computer or operating system crash.

METHOD TWO

With my REALLY IMPORTANT Font usage, such as the cover designs for my Alphabet books, I keep the Fonts that I used in a clearly identified folder. This Fonts folder contains ACTUAL copies of the Font Files themselves and is stored INSIDE of the actual project folder.

This means that when I backup that project folder, I am also backing up the Font files themselves, in one swell foop!

Since I backup my important project folders in multiple places – on a backup system hard drive, on an external hard drive, on DVDs, and with an online backup service – this insures that I have the actual Font files wherever and whenever I need them!