I recently moved to a new computer. I made a backup on my old computer, and restored the backup on my new computer, so I was able to keep all my sorted groups. However, while all my fonts ARE showing on the new computer, my FONTS folder where I physically have all my fonts stored, is somehow not linked, so it’s showing 0 fonts. How do I relink it, so I can keep Maintype up to date when I add new fonts? Also, is it possible to turn back on the fonts I had activated on my old computer?
Here’s the old one:
I’ve moved to a new computer and upgraded from MainType 2.2 to 13 and am trying to move my font groups to the new installation. I used to just copy the My Font Groups folder and then point to it, but when I tried this none of the groups or fonts show up in the new installation. All of my old groups use linked fonts in them. Because version 2.2 didn’t have the FMSConfig utility, I don’t see any way to export the groups from 2.2. I’ve tried manually adding the backed-up groups, but while the folder shows up, it appears as empty.
I have a huge and very organized set of folders for my groups, so I really don’t want to have to manually recreate all of them!
MainType 2.2 (2006!) stored “groups” as plain Windows folders that held short-cuts (.lnk) to the real font files.
From version 4 onward MainType switched to a database + Vault model, so the new program simply ignores those shortcuts – that’s why the groups look empty.
How to bring the old groups across
Convert the shortcuts to real files
Use any “copy-shortcut-target” tool (there are several free ones—just search) or a quick RoboCopy run (untested, so use at your own risk!): robocopy "My Font Groups" "My Font Groups-real" /SL /COPYALL
This follows each link and writes the actual font file into a mirror of your folder tree.
Let MainType rebuild the groups
In MainType 13 go to Tools → Font Folders → Add… and select the root of that “-real” folder tree and thick Create groups after indexing. MainType will import the fonts and recreate your folder structure as proper database groups.
Clean up
Once indexing is done every font is safely stored in the Vault, so you can archive or delete the temporary folders.
Your carefully organised groups should now appear exactly as before.
Give it a try and let me know if anything’s unclear—happy to help!
Thanks Erwin, nice to hear from you: we corresponded a million years ago when you were first putting out the High-Logic apps.
A couple of follow-up questions before I try your instructions.
Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with “copy-shortcut-target” tools, and all I’ve found are instructions for running a VBScript, which I’ve tried but can’t get to work. I have about 50 groups, each containing between 1 and 100 font shortcuts, so what I want to be able to do (based on your instructions) is create duplicates of each group/directory with all of the actual font files inside. Is that correct? If so, can you point me to a specific tool to get this done?
I’m unclear on how the Vault works and where it’s stored. I created a Font Folder and pointed it at my main Fonts directory, which has about 25,000 fonts in it. Did that copy all of those fonts somewhere? I hope not. The whole point I’m after is to point to my Fonts directory but NOT copy them somewhere else.
Is the only way to add fonts to a Group from the Library to drag-and-drop? This is super inconvenient. I want to be able to navigate between folders in my Fonts directory, but can only do that in the Groups panel, so I have to switch back and forth, or scroll wayyyyyy down to where the Group is displayed in order to drag anything into it. I saw a forum post from 2011 saying you folks were going to add a context menu option for “Add to Group,” but 14 years later there’s still no context menu option?
Is this really the only way to do this? I don’t have any experience with command prompts/scripts, so the Robocopy article doesn’t make much sense to me. I’m sorry to be a pain in the ass here, but all I want to do is keep using MainType as I have for more than a decade, but this transition is causing me headaches when I should be getting work done (but can’t because it involves these font groups working as they were).
** Update:
I finally found a Windows/File Explorer plugin that easily grabs shortcut targets, so I’m running that now to create directories with actual font files. I’ll then attempt to pull those into MainType and report back here. If it all works, I’ll update Erwin’s instructions in case others encounter this situation.
**
Update:
I used “ShortcutsToClipboard” to pull copies of the actual font files into each of my group folders (that were filled with shortcuts), then loaded that Font Folder into MainType, turning on “Create groups after indexing” as you indicated, and, sure enough, there are my groups. I then deleted the unneeded Font Folder that I’d used to bring in the groups (which are just redundant copies of what’s already in my Library), and I now have the groups I need. Thanks so much Erwin.
But! It would be great to have a right-click context option to add fonts to groups!
Also, if drag-n-drop is the only method to add to a group, is there a way to split the Groups panel so I can see the directory structure of my main Fonts folder and my groups in two different panels? Navigating back and forth is cumbersome and frustrating.
Hi again — glad the ShortcutToClipboard trick did the job and your groups are up!
1 Try Tags alongside (or instead of) Groups
With groups you might like have a font in exactly one group, while a font can belong to any number of tags.
Tags are instantly searchable: open the Tag Search panel (View → Panels) and tick multiple tags at once to combine filters. You can include and exclude specific tags.
Make custom views out of your favourite Tags Search combinations.
Many long-time group users find that tags cover most of their “organise and find” needs with far less dragging.
2 Keep folders and groups visible side-by-side
You can not split a panel, but every panel (except the main Font View panel) in MainType can be undocked: drag its title bar until a blue frame shows where it will snap.
Move them to a place that fits your your specific needs, and optionally save this layout so you can easily switch beween layouts.
3 “Add to Group” context command
You’re not the only one who misses it. The request is still on our roadmap and I’ve nudged the ticket with your feedback.
