Our firm is getting more and more demand for magazine design projects. My wife is a graphic designer and does all of the design and layout in Adobe InDesign on her two Macs running Snow Leopard. However, when I try to open the InDesign files on my new Mac running Lion, I get prompted for “Missing Fonts.” How can I get a printout of the fonts installed on my Mac, and how can I install the missing fonts that are present in Mac OS X Snow Leopard, but not in Lion? The font in question is Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk.
You can easily manage your fonts with the Font Book application, which is included on your Mac in the Applications folder. To answer your first question, you can print a list of your fonts by opening Font Book and choosing Edit > Select All, and then choosing File > Print. In the Print dialog, click Show Details, and then choose Waterfall from the Report Type drop-down menu. You can optionally choose the sample sizes to print.
Having a font list on hand can help you keep track of your graphic design work.
You can also export and install fonts through this application. It sounds like the font you’re missing isn’t a system-included font, but it may be stored inside Font Book. To export the font, select it in Font Book and choose File > Export Fonts, then choose the export location.
Exporting and adding fonts is as easy as saving and opening a file.
On the computer missing the font, open Font Book and choose File > Add Fonts, and then browse to the location where you saved the exported font. Click Open to add them to the new Mac.
driverajr
March 30, 2012 at 12:48pm
DISABLED FONTS
Does someone know if it is safe to delete the disabled fonts on Mac Lion?, it typically isn't an erase feature on cleaner applications so one might guess the answer is no. Of course I can always try a test on my virtual Lion install via VMware.
pkopco
March 28, 2012 at 12:39am
Or you could do what most professional inDesign users do when transporting a project to another computer, which is to package the project by choosing File > Package, thereby creating a folder with all assets, including fonts, necessary to open the project remotely.
chirpity
March 27, 2012 at 7:26pm
Jeremy is correct and what's more, the guy asking the question should know that. His wife is a graphics designer, he (we assume) owns InDesign, yet he does not know about font copyrights, NOR about how to install fonts? That is a questionable graphic designer indeed.
JeremyBechtold
March 27, 2012 at 8:09am
for as much as the digital music and movie copyright concerns are presented with the disclaimer: "Do Not Steal" in your magazine and with your best competitor as well, I'm shocked the web editor did not require the same on this article...
in theory, technically, even sharing system fonts from one machine to another is a breach of copyright laws though it's not really hurting anyone, not even Apple. I'm not gonna argue about sharing Apple system fonts and all that, but the person asking clearly states that the font in question is Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk. that font family can cost several hundred dollars, and sharing it is clearly much less of a gray area than bouncing system fonts from 10.6 to 10.7...
at the very least, I would expect you to advise the person asking to make sure they own the fonts in question—not just his wife owning one license for her two computers, but for his as well. sure, this is clearly a case of do as I say not as I do as I bet if I checked my computers I have some fonts that are only supposed to be on just one of them, but I'm not publishing a how-to article on how to do it again.
two things come to mind, first, remind the person about sharing fonts and how it's similar to stealing music or movies (though in music's case I'd rather support the artist directly in concert than be concerned about snagging a track or two that I never listen to anyway). second, why not advise the person to have the designer export a pdf copy with fonts embedded so that they can view it with the proper fonts in place and mark them for revisions digitally on screen or from printing without any font concerns.
sure, it's a good case study for learning some font book tricks, but perhaps weed out the potentially nefarious advise, and/or edit the submission so that it's not even a concern in the first place.
