On type & fonts

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Installing bundled fonts in OSX

4 December 2011

Some applications, like Creative Suite or Office for Mac earlier than the 2011 version, place bundled fonts right in the /Library/Fonts folder. This makes it impossible, after installing a couple of applications, to decide which fonts were bundled with which application.

OSX, however, allows to create sub-folders inside of the /Library/Fonts folder. An application that ships with its own set of fonts could create its own sub-folder, named after the application's vendor & name & version, and place its fonts there.[1] I would go so far as to to suggest that Apple too place their fonts, like those shipping with OSX, in according sub-folders, e.g. /Library/Fonts/Apple OSX 10.7.[2]

Since the 2011 version, Office for Mac places its fonts in a /Library/Fonts/Microsoft sub-folder and moves duplicate fonts into a /Library/Fonts Disabled folder. To me, this looks like a good first step.

[1] A good application installer would check if a font is already present in any /Library/Fonts sub-folder, and if so, either keep the version already installed or choose the more recent version, depending on whether the user prefers to stay backward compatible with existing documents or prefers to be up to date. In any case, the installer would create a /Library/Fonts Disabled folder, as Office for Mac does, and move duplicate fonts there. Unlike Office, though, it would reproduce the /Library/Fonts sub-folder structure, and place either the deinstalled font or the not-installed font in the according sub-folder – so even here it is obvious to which application a font belongs.

[2] This does not apply to OSX fonts which are relevant to the system. They are located in /System/Library/Fonts and should continue to be.

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