Expert: LizaL - 11/16/2005

Question
I am using Photoshop CS on an Emac running tiger. My problem is that my entire font collection does not show up in photoshop. The only fonts that show up are the ones that say pro or standard after the name. What are the steps I can take to make sure all the fonts I have show up in photoshop? I am the only user on my computer so, I dont believe it is a matter of turning fonts on for the whole computer or my user library. I am just confused when it limmited my fonts one day in photoshop. I appreciate any help that can be given.

Answer
Hi Max,

I've had that happen too -- and I'm also running Tiger. Font management in OS X is way different than OS 9, but I'm sure you know that already. Long story short, whereas we had only one core place for fonts in OS 9, there are five in OS X! However, if you're not on a network (as in your situation), not all of these locations will be of concern to you.

Let me refer you to this link for some really good, specific information about Font Book and OS X:
http://maczealots.com/tutorials/fonts/#locations

The first one (/System/Library/Fonts) is sort of like the system fonts in OS 9. That's the place where the core system fonts live -- like Monaco and Lucida Grande. This is not a directory we should alter.

The second one (/Library/Fonts) is the top level fonts directory -- and this one can be altered. In other words, you can add fonts to this directory.

The third one (~/Library/Fonts) is the one located in your user library, so this path would actually be (your user account)/Library/Fonts. And you can add fonts to this one, too.

What I do to alleviate the problem you mention is make sure the LAST two font folders contain the same fonts. I do leave the system fonts alone -- although they're small in size and seem harmless, fonts can bring a system to its knees if they're corrupt, or in the wrong place, or missing altogether. So I definitely would heed the author's advice on that Web page, and leave that folder alone.

But I've been successful in matching the contents of the top-level fonts folder, and also the one in my user library, and that's always seemed to rectify the situation of fonts not showing up in some applications.

Also -- and I'm sure you know to do this, but I'll just throw it out there -- make sure you restart Photoshop after you match the contents of those folders. It also wouldn't hurt to restart your machine, either.

I hope this helps, but if it doesn't, please post back and we'll dig a little deeper into your actual fonts. Some versions of fonts just don't display (like some fonts that have 'LE' in their name), or can be corrupt, or limited to specific applications. But I'm sure we can figure something out.

Lisa