Font management software

Font management software is utility software that computer users use to browse and preview fonts and typically to install and uninstall fonts. In addition, depending on the individual font management program's capabilities, users can also:

• activate and deactivate fonts (users can do this manually; sometimes programs will do this in conjunction with specific software, such as Adobe's InDesign)
• protect fonts that are required by the system by preventing them from being uninstalled
• organize fonts by groups and libraries
• find and uninstall corrupt fonts
• rename font files
• view fonts that are not currently installed
• print font samples or font books illustrating some or all of the fonts on the system
• sort fonts according to different criteria
• search for fonts meeting specific criteria

Uses

Fonts - and therefore font-management programs - support people in a variety of professions: graphic designers, publishers (such as book publishers and news and periodical publishers), web-site designers, interface designers, illustrators, packaging designers, typeface designers, letterpress printers (using plates made from page layout programs), motion-graphic and film-title designers, advertising agencies, signage and wayfinding (environmental graphic design studios), industrial designers, and architectural firms that have in-house 2D design-staff who work with signs and typography.

These people require fonts as a basic part of their job. They purchase their fonts and typefaces either directly from type foundries large and small, such as Adobe Systems, Monotype Corporation, Carter & Cone, FontBureau, Font Shop, Hoefler & Frere-Jones, Linotype, Paratype, P22, Stone Type Foundry; or from websites specializing in selling fonts. Eventually, they may end up with tens or even hundreds of thousands of fonts; hence the need to manage those fonts. Effective, reliable, and easy-to-use font management can help.

Objectives

Most operating systems come with basic font management abilities, limited to installing or uninstalling; however, people who use many typefaces need font management software with more capabilities.

Ease of Finding and Evaluating Fonts

When there are hundreds or even thousands of fonts on a system, font management software makes it easier to find, organize, and evaluate specific fonts. Using font management software, people can organize their fonts in ways that suit their needs. They can also view specific fonts in a variety of ways, such as by character or size, to better evaluate a font's suitability for a specific purpose.

Once a font is found, a person can view the individual glyphs (letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and other components of a font), and can visually compare two or more fonts with each other.

Font management software often provides details on fonts such as how many glyphs are in the font, whether the font can be embedded (such as in PDFs), and the person or foundry that created the font.

System Stability

One of the valuable uses of font management software is to improve system performance. Keeping thousands of fonts active can slow down many systems. In taking advantage of a font manager's ability to activate fonts when they are needed (either individually or in groups, such as a group of fonts for a specific project), users can reduce the system's font load.

This capability is especially important on older versions of the Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh operating systems, as with those systems, fonts are normally always active and available to all programs that use or display text. However, these operating systems have internal limits on active fonts; beyond that point, you may experience system problems.^[1][2]

Some font management programs can activate one font, several fonts, or a specific group of fonts when a specific application (such as Adobe's Creative Suite series) or document is launched. When the application or document is closed, the font management software can deactivate those same fonts. That way, fonts that are needed only for specific applications or projects can be made available on the fly, then put away when not needed, thereby reducing the load on the operating system.

Linux-based operating systems generally do not pre-load fonts on a system-wide basis. Instead, each application loads them as it needs them, leaving no need for a font management program. However, current Linux desktop environments (such as KDE and Gnome) manage fonts for applications using their internal framework library calls for font display, thus allowing management of fonts centrally and comfortably via the GUI.

Many Linux distributions supply a font server program (such as X Font Server) for distributing fonts over a network.

List of font management software

Note: Surprisingly, information on supported fonts is not readily available from many manufacturers. However, at a minimum most of the major commercial programs support OpenType and TrueType fonts.

References

Further reading

• Dhall, Sachin (25 September 2008). "25+ Font Management Tools Reviewed". Smashing Magazine. Smashing Media GmbH. Retrieved 6 September 2010. 
• Phinney, Thomas (7 October 2007). "Windows Font Management has sucked". Adobe Typblography blog. Adobe Systems. Retrieved 6 September 2010. 
• Rutter, Richard (7 October 2007). "Matrix of fonts bundled with Mac and Windows operating systems, Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite". 24 Ways to Impress Your Friends. Richard Rutter. Retrieved 15 October 2010. 
• "The best font manager". Windows Secrets (WindowsSecrets.com). 18 October 2007. Retrieved 6 September 2010.