Organizing Fonts

[Steve Clarkson]

Is there any system to organize all these fonts in CorelDraw? Whenever I'm looking for a font, it takes me like ten minutes to scroll through all 1,000 or so.....can you somehow set up folders (ie. one for stencil fonts, one for cursive fonts, etc.)?

[Scott Challoner]

Yes Steve. X4 has a font manager. I'm not sure how to use it, but it's there. I watched a tutorial on how to use it but I don't remeber where it came from. Sorry I couldn't be more help, but you already have what your looking for.

[Steve Clarkson]

Scott, you're such a tease.....OK, I'll go pull out my CorelDraw bible and look it up.......

Oh....question number 2: I just downloaded and installed a few new fonts, but in Corel.....they ARE listed, but in parenthesis it says "not found"....any idea why or how to fix this?

Thanks!

[Mike Null]

Steve

The program which comes with Corel is called Font Navigator and I find it to be very useful. Look in your program files under Corel Suite it should be there.

Open it and take a look. I believe somewhere in the customizing Corel under fonts there's an option which will allow this program to identify and substitute fonts.

But once you find the program let it catalog all your fonts then you can drag the ones you use most to the active side then you won't be dealing with thousands. I usually have about 200 active--more than I need.

There is a very good tutorial written by Foster Coburn on font management.

His site is Graphics Unleashed and you'll find a lot of tutorials there.

[Mike Null]

Here's a picture. I was wrong I have only 139 active.

[Steve Clarkson]

Thanks Mike.....I do use Font Navigator, but generally only to install my fonts. I guess I'll take a closer look at it and figure out how I can manage them with it.

Anyone have an answer to my second question?

Thanks!

[onur cakir]

I can advise "Font Xplorer". Its easy to browse fonts with a "sample" word which you type.

I have around 6.000 fonts installed and on new project for first time i try to open type tool it takes a moment to load all the fonts.

[Mike Null]

Sorry, it was past my bedtime when I responded.

Use FN to search your computer for fonts and bring what you want into FN. If you installed them to the font folder the only file you need to search is that folder.

When FN finds them just click on install.

[Doug Bergstrom]

If you want to save yourself headaches purchase Suitcase. Being on a mac I have used font management tools for almost 20 years. Fonts are the biggest cause of crashes and conflicts on computers. As PC's are getting more used in the graphics world font management is needed. We have several thousand fonts in our library. Suitcase will separate, preview and auto activate the fonts you need with many software titles. It will also repair, remove damaged or corrupt fonts and help fix conflicts.
I believe they have a free download on their site as well that you can try for 30 days. Good luck!

[Scott Challoner]

Scott, you're such a tease.....OK, I'll go pull out my CorelDraw bible and look it up.......

Oh....question number 2: I just downloaded and installed a few new fonts, but in Corel.....they ARE listed, but in parenthesis it says "not found"....any idea why or how to fix this?

Sorry. I figured someone who actually knew what they were talking about would be coming along to offer real help.

As far a question 2: More info that may or may not help. Sometimes you have to go into your font folder and right click on the font and go to properties. Read only and Hidden should be unhecked.

Hope this helps (this time)

[Steve Clarkson]

As far as my second question.....the problem was that the font really isn't installed on my computer......it was one of those free fonts I downloaded and I guess it really wasn't there......it was probably just a trojan horse virus.....

Thanks everyone for the advice.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

I found Font Navigator to be very buggy and cause inconsistent results when installing and uninstalling fonts. It was constantly crashing my machines and trashing data. It would install fonts and uninstall fonts at random times even though those fonts had never been selected to be installed/uninstalled. Fonts I selected to install would disappear. (I have not used it since CorelDraw 12, so it may have been improved since then.)

The reason you are finding "not found" in your CorelDraw font list is because that font was installed at some point - whether or not Corel Draw was open at the time. Then while CorelDraw was open the font was uninstalled. Basically Corel is saying "I know I saw that font in the system just a moment ago..." Once you close Corel and re-open it, all those "not found" fonts will be removed from the list. It does not matter if they are freeware fonts or fonts you purchased from font foundries. It does not matter if a program was used to install them or you installed them manually.

I use a program called Font Expert to manage my more then 37,000 fonts. I store my fonts in a main folder, and then create sub-folders based on the font foundry name, or for all the miscellaneous fonts, I use folders named after the font style (script, grunge, blackletter). While it originally took a little time to set up, Font Expert allows me to Group or Tag the fonts. I can then use the Database feature and select the Script Tag and it will display all the script style fonts for me no matter which folder they are located in. There is a viewer section that allows me to type any text I need and I can quickly view what that font looks like as well as a character map to display all the characters. You can install/uninstall fonts while you are viewing them and there are several other useful features in this program. While it's not perfect, this has been a very reliable program for me and I keep it open all the time.

[Mike Null]

I don't agree with your statement. If you have the fonts on your system and catalog and install them in Font Navigator they will stay there.

I've been using FN since version 8 without problems.

[Gary Hair]

I use a program called Font Expert to manage my more then 37,000 fonts.

Holy mackerel, 37K fonts??? I have about 20 or 30 that I use regularly and even that seems to be too many... No wonder you crashed FN!

[John W. Love]

A few years back I worked with a guy who did reverse engineering on Microsoft products (with permission) to modify the programs to work with certain military projects and NASA projects. I remember him telling me one day that having too many fonts "installed" would terrorize Windows. He suggested to me then to use a font manager if I were to be adding fonts. Seems to me like he said a font manager "holds" the fonts in a seperate folder and then does a temporary install then uninstall when you wanted to use them.
I am sitting here trying to remember how we even got on the topic, he was probably just rambling off "old man" advice to the youngsters that would gather around and listen. lol As I have gotten older though that type of advice has been invaluable over the years. Can't count the times I start to do something and realize that it was how my dad or grandad taught me, just by rambling off odd advice at times when we were doing something totally different than what the advice was about.