[X Newbies] adding fonts

[Florin Alexander Neumann]

On Thursday, Jul 24, 2003, at 08:50 Canada/Eastern, Vincent Cayenne 
wrote:

> Perhaps more clarification is in order: There are four places where 
> fonts may exist and be recognised in OS X.

This is only partially correct.

But first another issue.

On Wednesday, Jul 23, 2003, at 17:35 Canada/Eastern, TheMacintoshLady 
wrote:

> Why not tell them how to do it? Is it that difficult?

My first comments were terse, because the original question reflected 
-- IMHO -- intellectual sloth. Of course, we were all newbies at one 
point, of course newbies should be encouraged to ask questions -- but 
they should not be encouraged to be lazy. When you start with a new OS, 
isn't the first thing you should do read the manual? Apple used to have 
some of the best manuals in the business. Those days are, alas, gone 
forever, but there are plenty of books around (to name but one of many, 
David Pogue's "Mac OS X, The Missing Manual"). OK, so, although you 
could afford a Mac and an ISP account, you can't afford buying a book. 
If you know enough to send an e-mail, you know enough to go to Finder, 
choose Help, and look for "fonts". Surprise, surprise, the second item 
is "Installing fonts" and the fourth "Where are my fonts kept?" So, 
sure, do ask questions -- but have the courtesy to check first 
resources available at your own fingertips. There are plenty of things 
not documented or poorly documented or just plain old buggy that we can 
talk about.

Now, about where fonts are stored. Mac OS X v10.2 provides the 
following font locations:

- the application's own Font folder (applications may -- but not must 
-- have their own font folders; fonts stored there take precedence, but 
are available only in the respective application);

- ~/Library/Fonts (fonts which are available only for the respective 
user);

- /Library/Fonts (the "main" font collection -- fonts available to all 
users, accessible for modification only with admin account);

- /Network/Library/Fonts (the network font folder -- fonts actually 
stored on a server on the network, available to network clients as 
decided by the network administrator);

- /System/Library/Fonts (System fonts -- as a rule, this shouldn't be 
modified except by people who really know what they're doing);

- /System Folder/Fonts (the OS 9 font location -- this is the only 
location available to applications running in Classic, but it is 
available to all OS X applications; if you're still using Classic apps, 
this is probably the best place to add fonts to);

For more information on this subject check the horse's mouth at 
<http://www.apple.com/creative/fonts/UsingFontsinMacOSX_L25032B.pdf>.

Two caveats. First, since there is no law against it (there ought to 
be), some applications do not adhere entirely to this scheme. The chief 
culprits are Adobe applications (e.g., InDesign, Acrobat, etc.). In 
addition to the OS X font locations, they also use fonts at locations 
in /Library/Application Support/Adobe and ~/Library/Application 
Support/Adobe folders. Second, if a font manager such as Suitcase or 
FontReserve is installed, the OS X scheme may no longer be valid. IMHO, 
only professionals should think of using such font managers.

f