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I WAS the One · Feb 9, 2004, 08:53 AM

When I make the upgrade from Jaguar to Panther, I was thrill to try the new Apple Application called Fontbook, Then I insert my cds with tons of fonts and something weird happen... I make like 6 font sets and I was entering all the fonts I could for every set, when I finished I check for the sets and guess what? I only haved two sets working and all the other sets were empty ... and when I get to my home fonts folder, every font that I enter was IN there, now when I want to start up I have to wait like a couple of minutes, until the 2600 fonts load. why this thing happen? Do Font book have a font limit, somebody explain me how this app work, because now I erased all of my fonts and Im working with the system ones, until I get a solution around here... I will apreciate your help.

thanxs

mishap · Feb 9, 2004, 09:07 AM

yes. this is a big issue. a few people i worked with have the same problem. dumped 2k+ fonts into font book... and their boot times went from 2 minutes to 20 minutes.

basically, install what you need when you need it. right now... i have about 250 fonts installed....that is all i need to do work on a daily bases. If i need a font i just add it.

Hopefully this will be better in 10.3.5 or 10.4

Moonray · Feb 9, 2004, 12:31 PM

This might help:

Move your fonts manually to your Fonts folder and arrange them in subfolders so that there aren't huge file counts in one folder. Then open Fontbook and organize your fonts there.

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Mediaman_12 · Feb 9, 2004, 04:17 PM

Also remember never to quit FontBook. If you do all of the fonts managed by it become active (the exact opposite way most font management apps have worked in the past). This is possibly why using it for large numbers of fonts increases boot time so dramatically, the fonts all get activated during boot and only when FontBook gets started up do they become inactive.

barbarian · Feb 9, 2004, 04:51 PM

FontBook is completely unsuited for anything more than elementary font management.

I've tried Suitcase, Font Reserve, and Font Agent Pro and have settled on Font Agent Pro as the best solution. It has it's quirks, but overall is the best solution here (we have thousands of fonts and need them on servers)..

For the average home user Suitcase is probably best as it is the speediest...

I haven't tried the current version of Font Reserver but the previous version had serious problems. I will note that the old version of Font Agent Pro was also problematic (version 2.0 is lightyears faster)

ashishn · Oct 28, 2004, 06:37 AM

I am facing a problem in Fontbook where I cant see my User font collection and it is disabled.

I cant enable it also.

Ashish

Big Mac · Apr 12, 2005, 11:02 PM

Okay, so the major question is, has Apple improved the Tiger version of Font Book in any substantial way?

bluesloth · Apr 12, 2005, 11:29 PM

Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
Also remember never to quit FontBook. If you do all of the fonts managed by it become active (the exact opposite way most font management apps have worked in the past). This is possibly why using it for large numbers of fonts increases boot time so dramatically, the fonts all get activated during boot and only when FontBook gets started up do they become inactive.

????

This never happens to me. I always quite it after using it. It always keeps the activated fonts activated and the unactivated fonts likewise.

Randman · Apr 12, 2005, 11:53 PM

1) Yes, FontBook has been greatly improved in Tiger.

2) Never heard of the never close FontBook. That doesn't sound right. Care to post a link to where you found that nugget?

larkost · Apr 13, 2005, 07:00 AM

Also... one of the biggest changes in the new FontBook is that they have put a font checker in it. I would bet that a large number of the 2600 fonts are bad and the OS is chocking on them. *hint* 1001 fonts for $10 usually means that no quality fontforge was involved.

JMII · Apr 13, 2005, 09:30 AM

Originally posted by barbarian:
[B]FontBook is completely unsuited for anything...

Sad but true!

Font Book is a complete MESS... I strongly suggest avoiding it at all costs cause it's so screwy

Personally I use Suitcase both at home and at work (doing Pre-Press for a commerical printer) and it works great. Every now and then you'll get a corrupt font that causes it to hang but force quit solves that

Don Pickett · Apr 13, 2005, 10:01 AM

Originally posted by JMII:
Sad but true!

Font Book is a complete MESS... I strongly suggest avoiding it at all costs cause it's so screwy

Personally I use Suitcase both at home and at work (doing Pre-Press for a commerical printer) and it works great. Every now and then you'll get a corrupt font that causes it to hang but force quit solves that

I second this. Avoid Font Book like the plague. I use Suitcase as well.

Big Mac · Apr 13, 2005, 12:55 PM

Originally posted by larkost:
Also... one of the biggest changes in the new FontBook is that they have put a font checker in it. I would bet that a large number of the 2600 fonts are bad and the OS is chocking on them. *hint* 1001 fonts for $10 usually means that no quality fontforge was involved.

I was really hoping for a font checker of some sort. I was quite disappointed to learn that we can no longer open and inspect font suitcases in the Finder, but if we get a decent checker Font Book should finally compensate for that deficiency.