Oh My What A Chore!!!!

[elizabethlmccoy]

Okay for the last couple of days i've taken to organizing my fonts....this is absolutely the biggest pain in the *SS. The thing is I had already started organizing them about 1 year ago and then stopped b/c it was too much....we'll I'm about finished with separating them all and picking out the ones that I'll actually scrap with and discarding the ones that are ugly or look similar to other ones.

Has anyone else tackled this yet????

Those of you who are just starting out be sure to start organizing as you go don't do What i've done and just download download download. YIKES!

How I'm organizing is by foundry first. I'm then able to contact those foundries or look for them online to see if they allow for commerical use then I'm separating between commerical and personal use only. If they don't have a creator I chuck them....I don't have time to waste on non credited fonts.

Does anyone else organize theirs differently??

[Margie]

well i wouldn't call mine organized, but i did thin them. :)
i do keep my fonts approved for dsp to use commercially marked, but that's about it.
i just ripped off the bandaid tho when i had to thin them down. i used fontsmart to look at the ones that are similar and of course i had 5 of the same font, so i deleted 4. then i just went thru each one and said have i ever used this? if not, it went to the trash! if i had, but just once or twice it did too! and you know after deleting hundreds, i've never missed one! and my programs open so much faster! i only keep around 200, and find myself using the same ones over and over!! :)

[Stacey42]

I'm working on that now. I'm trying to remember to categorize them as I download & put them in seperate folders, rather than install all of them.

But I still have 200 fonts already on the pc I need to go through.

[andyapc]

Margie - what is fontsmart? Is that a program you download to see if you've got duplicate fonts on your system?

Liz - how in the world are you finding the foundries? A huge percentage of my fonts don't have readme files and when I just open the font, 90% of the time, I don't see any foundry info listed and when/if I do, then 90% of the time I either can't decipher the gobbledegook that passes for foundry info or I can't find the foundry itself.

And does someone have a Be All - End All list of fonts that cannot be deleted from your computer if you are using Windows??

Thanks for any info!

[Margie]

it's a font manager program that comes from hp products. you can view alphabetically or by appearance, which is so convenient.

here's the list, i should probably start a new thread...

Arial (TrueType)
Arial Bold (TrueType)
Arial Bold Italic (TrueType)
Arial Italic (TrueType)
Avant Garde Book BT (TrueType)
Avant Garde Oblique BT (TrueType)
Avant Garde Medium BT (TrueType)
Avant Garde Medium Oblique BT (TrueType)
Bookshelf Symbols 1-3
Comic Sans and Comic BD
CommonBullets (TrueType)
Courier 10,12,15 (VGA res)
Courier New (TrueType)
Courier New Bold (TrueType)
Courier New Bold Italic (TrueType)
Courier New Italic (TrueType)
FuturaMedcondBT (Corel's # TT0201M.TTF)
Marlett (Windows 95/98)*
Modern (Plotter)
MS Sans Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)
MS Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)
Palisade
Roman (Plotter)
Script (Plotter)
Small fonts (VGA res)
Symbol (TrueType)
Symbol 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)
Swiss921 BT
Tahoma
Times New Roman (TrueType) -
Times New Roman Bold (TrueType)
Times New Roman Bold Italic (TrueType)
Times New Roman Italic (TrueType)
Wingdings (TrueType)

Any font with a red A for its icon.
Any font that begins with the letters MS

[elizabethlmccoy]

Andy,
If I can't find the foundry it goes byebye...If there is no information I really can't use it. Most of the time I have fonts that are similar to the one that doesn't have information so I'm good....but If i don't have one that is similar I just say alittle good bye........and delete! Its sad but I figure if I really need something like that I'll be finding it somewhere and pay for it.


I've found that many people out there have their name somewhere. I have a group of fonts that are made by someone and all they put is their aol email address but searching that led me to information about them and more fonts, so I'll just email him at that address and get more information.


Other times they have a website that I can goto and get information. I also goto the free font sites and try and find either the author or fonts that I have on their sites to see if they are linked to the author's website (fontfreak, 1001fonts, dafont)


Just a thought alot of those fonts that don't have any information are copies or modified versions of someone else's font. If you have any specific fonts you want me to help you look for and find out information on I'll be happy to help

[WyoGal]

There is also a way to see how familiar your fonts are in Window XP. This is how it is set up on my computer...

Click on My Computer then your C drive icon.

Click on your Windows Folder then your Fonts Folder.

Up in your toolbar you will see an Icon with an AB on it. Click on that.

You can then click on any font that is listed and it will show the similarity of any font that you have installed on your computer.

Hope this helps a little :D

[hoskinsjan]

Thanks for this nifty little hint. All of this time and I didn't even know that button existed. Oh god! Now I will have to go through my fonts **sigh**

[raynebair]

I really need to get all my fonts organized. I probably have around 1400 fonts on my computer, but only have about 200 installed. One day I was bored at work and just started downloading fonts that looked cool. So now I have a bunch that I know I'll never use. There really isn't any point in having them, so I guess I need to get mine thinned out.

Fortunately for me, I don't do commercial work, so I don't have to concentrate too hard on foundry and commercial license issues. Most fonts are free for personal use anyway...I pretty much get all my fonts at dafont or free fonts. But it probably would do me some good to slim up my collection. If I need something different from what I have, I can always go download as I need.