Installing fonts from non-font-folder locations

[Brother Gabriel-Marie]

Hello all!

Pardon me for so many questions in a row, (I am new here, and I did glance through the forums first) but I believe in a Forum questions should be posted singularly so that the subject remains singular.

If I have a font oh, say, on the desktop or some other folder, and I install that font from within Maintype (instead of dragging it to the font folder), it seems to me that the system is storing the font from the location from which MainType installed it, which means that the system is reading the font from somewhere besides the font folder. I think this because even though I see the font as installed inside of MainType, MainType yet tells me its location. If I delete the font from the desktop (or other folder), then it is deleted normally.

My question is therefore, how can the system read fonts somewhere besides the Fonts Folder? Does MainType install some kind of dll or something?

Thanks!

Brother Gabriel-Marie

[Erwin Denissen]

Each installed font has an entry in the font related part of Windows registry. When you reboot your system, Windows loads all fonts (adds them to the system font table) that have en entry there.

A loaded font (also known as a temporary installed font) is only added to the system font table, but not to the font related part of the registry. Because all fonts in the system font table are available to all applications, loaded fonts (just like installed fonts) are available to all applications. However loaded fonts are no longer available after the system is rebooted.

[tinjaw]

Does this mean that, using MainType, I can move every font out of my C:\WINDOWS\Fonts directory, and as long as they are "Installed", Windows will function correctly after a reboot?

[Erwin Denissen]

You can move almost all fonts. Windows has a couple of fonts, that must always be available. That's why MainType has defined System Fonts.

[Brother Gabriel-Marie]

Now how do we keep Windows (especially Mico$oft Office) from reinstalling the fonts we have moved out of the Fonts folder? If I move them out it is because I don't want them there, but M$ seems to think they ought to be there anyways! Could we include an option in MainType to prevent this?

-BGM

[Dave Crosby]

Now how do we keep Windows (especially Mico$oft Office) from reinstalling the fonts we have moved out of the Fonts folder? If I move them out it is because I don't want them there, but M$ seems to think they ought to be there anyways! Could we include an option in MainType to prevent this?

-BGM

There are reasons why Applications insist on certain fonts being present.

Removing those fonts can cause crashes or make various parts inoperable.

[Brother Gabriel-Marie]

That is understood. But there are reasons why I, the USER, remove them. If I remove a font it is because I don't want it there. If I think a certain program requires that font then I would not remove it. But I want to be the master of my system. For example, I don't like "Ravie" and I don't want it to be one of the 300 fonts I load. When M$ re-installs 50 of the fonts I have removed then it takes that much longer for my programs to load those fonts. That is why I removed them in the first place. In the MainType help, there is a page that lists the fonts that should not be removed - either because they are system fonts or because they are typical web-use fonts.