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by Sharon Zardetto
Ebook: $20
Tame Your Fonts
$5 off when you buy with Take Control of Font Problems in Mac OS X!
We also published these font ebooks
in Real World Mac
OS X Fonts, now available from Amazon for $27.
Take Control of Fonts in Mac OS X: Tiger Edition
Organize, install, and use fonts with ease in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger!
In this unique ebook, long-time Mac author Sharon Zardetto explains what folders your fonts reside in, why they are there, and what to do about duplication and long Font menus. Once that's under control, you'll learn the ins and outs of different font installation methods, how to use Font Book to manage, validate, and organize fonts; ways of dealing with old fonts; how to make the most of character-rich Unicode fonts; and more. Whether you work in a font-intensive profession, use Unicode fonts for non-Roman languages, or want to wrangle the numerous fonts installed from goodness-knows-where (Microsoft Office, probably), you need this ebook. Bonus: this ebook includes over $80 worth of coupons! Read more...
Looking for Leopard info? Check out Take Control of Fonts in Leopard.
Read this ebook to learn the answers to questions such as:
- What types of fonts can I use with Mac OS X?
- In what order does Mac OS X access fonts from all their possible locations?
- How can I figure out what characters are available in a Unicode font?
- Which fonts can be removed safely?
- How can I minimize font-related trouble when sharing documents across platforms?
Also check out this ebook's companion volume, Take Control of Font Problems in Mac OS X, which focuses on what happens when something related to fonts goes kablooey (save $5 if you buy them together). For a useful preview, download our free Font Troubleshooting Flier!
Book Info
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About the AuthorSharon Zardetto has been writing about the Macintosh professionally since 1984, including nearly a thousand articles in Macintosh magazines and over 20 books. She's best known for writing several editions of The Macintosh Bible, along with The Mac Almanac. |
Book Reviews
Author Interviews
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Table of Contents
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Read Me FirstWelcome to Take Control of Fonts in Mac OS X: Tiger Edition, version 1.0. This ebook tells you everything you need to know (and then some!) about fonts on your Mac: what and where they are, how to organize them, how to access the hidden wealth of characters inside some of them, and how to use the Mac OS X font tools—Font Book, Keyboard Viewer, and Character Palette. It demystifies Unicode, shows you how to deal with old font suitcase files, and explains how to get your font collection under control. This ebook was written by Sharon Zardetto, edited by Tonya Engst, and published by TidBITS Electronic Publishing. |
Coupons
We rounded up a nice collection of coupons to go with this ebook - if you used all of them, you'd save over $80. You'll find them at the back of the ebook:- Free issue of Design Tools Monthly and $50 off a subscription.
- 10% off on the purchase of FontAgent Pro
- Discounted subscription to Layers magazine
- Discount (usually 15%) on fonts purchased from the well-recommended MyFonts.
- $5 off on a purchase of PopChar X
- $5 off any purchase from Small Dog Electronics
- $10 off a purchase of Spell Catcher X
Introduction
It's utterly astonishing that a computer platform whose initial claim to fame was not just its interface but its use of different fonts could celebrate its almost-20th anniversary with a new operating system that totally ignored the importance of fonts, pretending that the difficulty—or total inability—to install and manage fonts didn't matter.
As a Mac fanatic from way back (1984, to be precise), I hate to admit that it took Mac OS X years to get its act together concerning fonts, and that I also totally ignored the issue as long as I could. I know I felt frustrated; I think I also felt insulted.
But Mac OS X has its act together now, even if it's not entirely polished. With the release of Tiger, fonts became manageable (literally, with Font Book 2.0), and their Unicode-inspired wealth of characters and advanced typographical features became more accessible. Every Tiger upgrade improves the situation a little more, with tiny, usually unannounced, changes to Font Book and general font-handling issues. So now we can quit whining about how bad it was and look at how good it is.
You'll find all the basics of font management in this ebook: what font types are supported in Mac OS X, installation, removal, verification of font file integrity, and the Font Book how-to (and why). You'll get the background details you need about Unicode and its ripple effect on almost every font-related thing you do, why document exchanges cause font problems, and how to access foreign- language characters and keyboards. You'll also find information you didn't know you needed, such as how to find a font in a menu, where to find elusive characters hiding in so many fonts, and how to pack a suitcase (of fonts, that is).
While I touch upon font problems in PDFs and on Web pages, you won't find enough information to, say, start creating trouble-free, perfectly encoded Web pages; that's a topic for some other author. And, due to space constraints and timeliness, I don't review font management software or round up the dozens of font-related share-ware utilities; instead, I discuss what to look for in font management beyond Font Book, and I highlight a few especially good shareware utilities in context of related topics.
As for serious troubleshooting: my collection of specific font problems and solutions grew so much as I wrote this ebook that they became a companion volume, Take Control of Font Problems in Mac OS X: Tiger Edition, which includes not only dealing with some very specific problems (such as your font icons going wonky or Font Book repeatedly quitting), but also how to perform basic and special trouble-shoot-ing procedures (such as safe booting, repairing permissions, and setting up a separate user account for testing purposes).
"I read both books and was impressed
by their accuracy and completeness."
-John Collins, MyFonts
The main mission of the this ebook is self-evident, but there are two minor ones I'd also like to accomplish: to pique your interest regard-ing characters buried in many common fonts and to help you achieve a certain comfort level in dealing with Unicode and glyph IDs for characters. To kill both those birds with one stone (and use an awkward metaphor at the same time), where parts of figures need emphasis, I've used characters from different fonts to point, circle, label, or other-wise command your attention. In the figure margin, I identify the character by its font and Unicode or glyph ID (or both).
Quick Start
The material in this ebook is presented with the mild assumption that you'll read it linearly, but that doesn't mean that you have to read it that way. You could, instead, start with font installation techniques, or troubleshooting procedures, or why you can't seamlessly share documents with a PC user.
Beginning at the beginning:
- Whether you're a font minimalist with nary a problem or a font fanatic with nothing but, covering the basics is a good place to start. Check out the Supported Font Types, and the oh-so-many places you can store them, in Mac OS X Fonts folders.
- Explore the Unicode Universe, discover the wealth of characters stored in fonts with The joy of character-rich fonts, get up to speed with the latest font buzzword (and important concepts) in The world according to glyphs, and learn how to Utilize Smart-Font Typography.
- Whether your font collection is a mess or merely a nightmare waiting to happen, get things in order with Organize Your Fonts, and keep them that way with Stay Organized.
Installing and managing fonts:
- If you'd like just a minimum introduction to Font Book, jump to Tour the Interface; if you'd like more than a passing familiarity with this invaluable utility, read Get Acquainted with Font Book. For details on specific functions, check out Validate Fonts, Disable (and Enable) Fonts, Create and Edit Collections, and Use Libraries to Control Your Fonts.
- To learn about installing all types of fonts, with and without Font Book, see Install New Fonts and, of course, Remove Fonts You Don't Want. To keep track of all the additions to your collection, use the tricks in Font-tracking techniques.
- Are duplicates driving you crazy? Deal with Duplicates covers both general and Font Book issues in that area. And if you think that duplicates are... well, duplicates, jump directly to All Duplicates Are Not Created Equal.
- Old fonts? Update Legacy Fonts helps you make use of (most of) them. Old applications? If you still use Classic applications, you can find special advice in Control Your Classic Fonts.
Working with fonts and typing special characters:
- Font menus, never as straightforward as they seemed, have a few added wrinkles in OS X; iron them out with Master Font Menus and Font Formatting.
- As for typing any of the thousands of special characters available in some fonts, start with a survey of "input methods" in Turn On the Tools. If you need to type accented characters, check out Use Keyboard Viewer to Type Accented Characters and Type more accents with the U.S. Extended Keyboard. To learn how to enter (and find!) the zillion other characters in modern fonts, read Find and Enter Characters with Character Palette. (Also note the coupon for $5 off the price of PopChar X, which helps you enter special characters.)
- If you want to type entirely in another language, or in a different "system," like the Dvorak method, read Use Alternate Keyboards for Foreign Languages or Other Special Input.
Going beyond your Mac:
- There's only one sure way to keep fonts in your documents from transmogrifying, and that's to never let them leave your Mac. But when you have to let go, you should know How to Synchronize with the Rest of the World, and especially How to Minimize Document-Exchange Problems.
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