Fonts—and Font Book

Mac OS X delivers type that is all smooth, all the time. Fonts in Mac OS X's formats— called TrueType, PostScript Type 1, and OpenType—always look smooth onscreen and in printouts, no matter what the point size.

Mac OS X also comes with a program that's just for installing, removing, inspecting, and organizing fonts. It's called Font Book (Figure 14-11), it's in your Applications folder, and it's been much improved in Leopard.

Each account holder can have a separate set of fonts; your set is represented by the User icon. You can drag fonts and font families between the various Fonts folders represented here— from your User account folder to the Computer icon, for example, making it available to all account holders.

Figure 14-11. Each account holder can have a separate set of fonts; your set is represented by the User icon. You can drag fonts and font families between the various Fonts folders represented here— from your User account folder to the Computer icon, for example, making it available to all account holders.

Where Fonts Live

Brace yourself. In Mac OS X, there are three Fonts folders. The fonts you actually see listed in the Fonts menus and Font panels of your programs are combinations of these Fonts folders' contents.

They include:

  • Your private fonts (your Home folder→Library→Fonts). This Fonts folder sits right inside your own Home folder. You're free to add your own custom fonts to this folder. Go wild—it's your font collection and yours alone. Nobody else who uses the Mac can use these fonts; they'll never even know that you have them.

  • Main font collection (Library→Fonts). Any fonts in this folder are available to everyone to use in every program. ...

Get Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial