Expert: James Fritz - 3/5/2008

Question
QUESTION: Hi James,
I recently installed Creative Suite CS3 on my new Mac Leopard iMac. I would
like
to know how to customize the fonts that InDesign (and/or other applications)
will use. It seems to be grabbing every font on the hard drive (Font Book),
including all the foreign language ones and the disabled ones. If I create a
font
folder with a specific collection of fonts, can InDesign use just those?
Thanks

ANSWER: Hi Susan,

Congrats on our new Mac!

First of all, make sure you are running the lastest version of everything. Go under the apple menu and choose software update, if anything comes up be sure to install it. If you have to restart, run it again until nothing else shows up.

Next run InDesign and go under the help system and choose check for udates. Install any that come up. These two steps are necessary because there are a significant number of bugfixes out there for both ID and Leopard.

Ok, now on to your font problem. First of all, avoid fontbook. It is not what you want to use. It really isn't meant as a professional tool. You should be using a professional font management program. There are a few out there such as extensis suitcase, and font agent pro. Unfortunately, they are not free (about $100). What I would recommend is a another program called font explorer X. This is a free font management program that works just liked itunes, but with your fonts. You will be able to make fonts and have fonts automatically be activated when you need them inside ID. Just search on google for font explorer x.

good luck!

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks for the advice & will probably follow up on font explorer X. But I know
there is something you can click on in InDesign and get specific fonts to use
(that you have created as a new collection) in fontbook. Because I was in the
Apple Store and some experts were talking about it.

Answer
Unfortunately, I am not exactly sure what you are talking about. If you have created a collection of font in font book, you can then activate them inside fontbook and InDesign can then see them. There really is not a specific feature of InDesign that works with fontbook.

I should mention that I am not necessarily an expert on fontbook on the mac os, that is why I am reccomending font explorer x.