Font Problems

Once again we have experienced a font issue today. Most specifically, we had a PowerBook that needed “Helvetica Neue Extended Bold.” For some reason, when we tried to load the font into Font Book, it did not seem to load that particular font within the Helvetica Neue family. This is very frustrating since we have been through this same scenario over and over again with the same font. Now, I will not even pretend to be a font expert of any kind, but what I do know is this:

Hulk Like Font Book
Hulk want to CRUSH anything not Font Book
Hulk want to CRUSH puny humans who import fonts from fonts folder by “moving” fonts rather than “copying” fonts.

Here’s what I mean by this. Font Book, to me, seems like the best font management tool that I have ever used. I could write an entire blog entry about why I like Font Book rather than Font Reserve or the many other font utilities… But we will save these for another day.

When using Font Book, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS first go to your preferences and make sure the last box is checked. This box will read “Always copy font files when installing.” This is so important because we are using a common font repository and when we choose to install new fonts for a particular project, we may not experience a successful install of the entire font suitcase because a previous user installed without checking that little magic radio button. If you do not “copy” fonts when installing, these fonts will be moved from the repository onto the machine that is having the fonts installed. This is a problem because it leaves our repository with an incomplete set. The default preferences position for Font Book is to “move” fonts rather than “copy” fonts.

This is my two cents on fonts for the day. If any of you have any comments or suggestions … or if you think I am wrong about how I perceive Font Book works, please let me know.