Managing a System s Font Collection

Managing a System's Font Collection

Windows XP's font management allows you to

• Add new fonts to the system

• Remove unnecessary fonts, freeing disk space

• View fonts onscreen or print out samples of each font you have

• Display groups of fonts that are similar in style

To perform any of these functions, you need to use the Fonts applet found in the Windows XP control panel. Specifically, open the Control Panel through the Start menu, select Appearance and Themes, and then click the Fonts options located in the See Also pane. This opens the windows shown in Figure 26.1.

Figure 26.1. The Fonts folder displaying icons and names for installed fonts.

Adding Fonts

Some font sets come with an installer. In that case, you can just run it as instructed. The fonts are dumped into the Fonts directory, and the system adds them to the Font Registry, whereupon they can be used from your applications. If no installation program came with your fonts, or if you want to add some fonts to your system that you downloaded from the Internet or otherwise acquired, just follow these steps:

1.	Open the Control Panel as described in the previous section. The resulting folder window appears, looking much like any other folder. All fonts currently installed in the system appear in this folder, with each font style being a separate file.
2.	Choose File, Install New Font. The Add Fonts dialog then appears. Browse to the location of the font files you want to install. Use the Network button if the files are across the LAN. It runs the Map Network Drive Wizard. After you target the source folder, all the fonts in that location are listed in the dialog box. To learn how to map a network drive, p. 630.
3.	Select the fonts you want to install. Note that if you want an entire font family, you have to select all similarly named files. If you try to install a font that's already in your system, the installer won't let you, so don't worry about accidentally loading one you already have.
4.	Choose whether you want the font files copied into the Fonts folder as part of the installation process. They work either way. Copying into the Fonts folder keeps things tidier, though it does make a copy of the file, using up more disk space. I like to copy them into the Fonts folder so that I know where all my fonts are. If you use this approach, you can later erase any duplicate source files to save disk space. (Fonts range from about 80 to 400KB each, averaging about 200KB.) If you choose not to copy the files, shortcut icons appear in your Fonts folder instead of normal font icons. TIP Don't turn off the Copy check box unless you know that the source files will be available when you want to use the font. If the source files are on a CD-ROM, a floppy, or a workstation on the LAN, you'll probably be better off if you copy them onto the local hard disk.
5.	Click OK to finalize the operation. After the installation process is complete, all newly added fonts are added to your font list and are visible in Windows applications that offer font selection.

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You can copy fonts into the system by dragging the font files into the Fonts folder. This one-step process is quick and dirty.

Displaying and Printing Font Examples

You can quickly acquire a large selection of fonts, thus easily forgetting what you have on hand. Several utility programs are available to help you keep track of fonts or show a little example of them in font selection lists within applications and such. Check the Web for such programs, by searching for "font," "font tool," or "font view." A few examples of tools to look for include FontShow, LogotypeMaker, and FontShowcase.

The Fonts folder has a few tricks of its own to make font management a bit easier. For starters, you can view and/or print the characters of a font easily by following these steps:

1.	Open the Fonts folder.
2.	Double-click any icon in the folder. The font then opens in the font viewer (Figure 26.2). Figure 26.2. The Font Viewer displaying Arial.
3.	If you need printouts, just right-click a font and choose Print, or open the font as per above and click the Print button. To print multiple fonts in one fell swoop, select them first, and then choose File, Print. You get a one-page printout for each font.

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The font viewer displays a font's character set regardless of the location of the font. So, if you want to check out the font's look before installing it, just open the floppy disk or other folder containing the font, and double-click it.

Hidden System Fonts

Some fonts are normally hidden because they are required by the system. If a user accidentally deleted them, the system wouldn't work. For example, dialog boxes wouldn't have text in them. Unless you turn on viewing of hidden files via the Folder options in an Explorer window, you won't see these fonts. If you do turn on viewing of hidden files and then view the Fonts folder in Details view, you'll see an H in the Attributes column. Make sure not to delete or move these files.

File viewing options are covered in "Setting Folder Options,"

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Programs that are multilingual-aware automatically use a font that contains multiple character sets. If you are using a program that is not multilingual-aware, such as Notepad, the font might appear as black boxes or lines. To make the text appear correctly, you might need to manually select a font that contains multiple character sets. Both Tahoma and Microsoft Sans Serif fonts support multiple character sets.

Removing Fonts

Fonts consume space on your hard disk. A typical TrueType font consumes between 50 and 200KB of disk space. If you're a font monger, you could easily chew up a gigabyte or two with fonts you end up never using.

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A little-known fact is that even if an italic or bold font has been removed, most word processing applications for Windows, such as Microsoft Word, can still emulate it on-the-fly. It won't look as good as the real thing, but it will work.

If you get on a spring-cleaning jag and decide to remove some fonts, follow these steps:

1.	Open the Fonts folder.
2.	To remove an entire font family (normal, Bold, Italic, and Bold Italic), turn on the View, Hide Variations setting. If you want to remove individual styles, turn off this setting so you can see them.
3.	Select the font or fonts you want to remove.
4.	Press the Del key; choose File, Delete; or right-click one of the selected fonts and choose Delete.
5.	When a dialog box asks you to confirm the removal, choose the Yes button. The font is then moved to the Recycle Bin.

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You also can drag a font file to another folder, but the default is for that operation to create a copy of the font and not remove it from your arsenal of system fonts. If your aim is to organize your seldom-used fonts into folders, the easiest way would be to right-click and drag them into the new folders, and then choose Move from the resulting context menu.