[sox]

I've been told that deleting certain fonts that are pre-installed by Panther can be dangerous. So my question is... are there any fonts I can safely delete (or disable) without worrying about it?

[Brass]

Anything that's essential to the system, is stored under the /System directory. In theory, you should be able to delete everything that's not in the /System directory, and Mac OS X will still run okay, at least as root (albeit without any account directories, applications, etc).

So in theory, you should be able to safely delete any fonts that are not stored in /System/Library/Fonts

So you should be able to safely delete anything in /Library/Fonts or ~/Library/Fonts

I haven't actually tried this myself, so don't count on it. But it ought to be okay.

[bradoesch]

If you're just doing this to save some space, please realize that you won't be saving much space (about 10 MB.) My System folder alone is over 1 GB. If not, please ignore this!

[sox]

Actually, I'm not interested in saving HD space at all. I just don't like waiting for my graphics programs to start because it's loading all these fonts that I'll never use. But on the other hand, I don't want to foul up my system because I was trying to get Photoshop to start faster either.

I just wish there was some documentation from Apple on what fonts are not essential for system services so I can safely delete them.

Originally posted by bradoesch:
If you're just doing this to save some space, please realize that you won't be saving much space (about 10 MB.) My System folder alone is over 1 GB. If not, please ignore this!

[Terri]

Yeah they are a nuisance when using a machine in design or prepress.

I've deleted everything except the ones in the System, but I also wish that I knew which ones that I could take out of the system.

Back in 10.2 I tried taking some of them out, but then the machine wouldn't boot. I've never tried under 10.3.

[King Bob On The Cob]

Isn't this what FontBook is for?

[lookmark]

Originally posted by King Bob On The Cob:
Isn't this what FontBook is for?

Theoretically, but FontBook isn't quite ready for professional use yet.

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by sox:
Actually, I'm not interested in saving HD space at all. I just don't like waiting for my graphics programs to start because it's loading all these fonts that I'll never use. But on the other hand, I don't want to foul up my system because I was trying to get Photoshop to start faster either.

I just wish there was some documentation from Apple on what fonts are not essential for system services so I can safely delete them.

From Apple's Font PDF:

Important: It is recommended that you do not remove any font that came with Mac OS X, because it may be required by the system. If you don't think you'll need a particular font, simply disable it. (Some system fonts are protected with file locks and cannot be removed, such as Lucida Grande, Geneva, and other system fonts for different languages.)


From what I understand, it says you can trash all the fonts you want, but if you run into a font required by the system, it won't let you. But the first sentence makes this kinda iffy. Maybe they mean don't used the terminal to circumvent the lock.