# Asking For Trouble???



## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

So been trimming Fonts in Snow Leopard. So far so Good. But some of those obnoxious foreign fonts are located in the System/Library/Fonts folder. Would love to get rid of the following but am not sure which if any are really used by the OS and which are there so that someone in Japan or China or Israel can do an ARD to my desktop in their own language.

Offensive Fonts are: Geeza Pro, Heiti SC, Heiti TC, Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN, 
Hiragino Mincho ProN, ST Heiti, Thonburi

Obviously I can do this in the Sandbox and simply rebuild it if there is a problem but thought someone may have already given this a go and might know which if any are safe to remove.


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## jamesB (Jan 28, 2007)

I've got excellent bootable backups so I went ahead and found and deleted all that you listed using 'FindAnyfile'.
I'll let you know if there are any undesirable results from this.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Thanks. Should be interesting. My back-up is rock solid as well. Was just trying to avoid rebuilding my test environment while I am still evaluating various apps.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Removed Geeza then Thronburi with no issues.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

They're only fonts, Bob, just drag them out of the System/Library/Fonts folder and put them in a new temporary folder on your desktop or anywhere else you may wish. If you develop issues, which I don't believe you will, just drag them back into the appropriate Fonts folder. If as I believe you'll have no issues, move the temp folder into the trash or back it up someplace.


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## MacToTheBone (Oct 27, 2006)

Better yet, use Font Book (an Apple application included with the OS for years). Select the fonts you want to dump and disable them (right click, from the menu or command-shift-D). If you want them back, reverse the process and enable them again.

When fonts are disable in this manner, the system moves them from a font folder to a folder called disabled fonts which you can do from the Finder if you know your way about the system files and don't mind tinkering under the hood.

If everything runs smoothly, no applications are effected negatively and any of your documents that have used fonts other than your basic Helvetica/Times kind of things still look correct, then you can safely delete the fonts.

Bear in mind that whenever messing about with fonts, a reboot is always a good idea as the system reads the fonts on start-up (as do applications) and the font caches should be cleared in the process so you'll get a cleaner picture.


As a PS, you can also use Font Book to trouble-shoot font problems which can have a negative effect on system and application performance. (Office fonts can be persistent culprits.) Select all fonts and click Validate. It will show duplicates, damaged fonts, etc. You should be careful if you make changes but all changes made in Font Book can be reversed and you can always reinstall fonts from the OS installer file or from the OS disks for the older ones.


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## JAMG (Apr 1, 2003)

Kurt Lang has been keeping a white paper on Font Management for years. He is very thorough and keeps up to date. It can be long winded but if you want to know what OS X is doing with fonts, this is where you should go.

Font Management in OS X


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Was looking to remove some of the more obnoxious fonts that Font Book wont move. Unfortunately project is on hold. Used computer is running just fine but refurbished NEC monitor is now so flakey as to make messing with system downright dangerous. A replacement is supposedly on its way but not expecting to see it for a few more days.


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

Hmmm.. but I guess your thread subject sums it up pretty well, but I'm curious as to *why*.

I find 'Monolingual' safely cleans out 99% of unnecessary fonts for me and SL, and maybe check out some Apple kb articles as well:

Mac OS X: Font locations and their purposes

Mac OS X v10.6: Fonts list

OS X Mountain Lion: Font list

But I think their ML article comment it a bit stronger than it has been with previous articles, and may be good advice to follow:
"Note: /System/Library/Fonts should never be disabled because they are used by the operating system, and other integral applications."

Like why for those few that you listed, as they sure aren't taking up much HD space. Hmmm...?

But I can sure see your reason for wanting to delete them, as I sure won't ever be using them. And maybe time to do some extra purging that should keep them from showing in any 'font' dropdown or window. Hmm... maybe yes, time for them to go.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

pm-r said:


> Hmmm.. but I guess your thread subject sums it up pretty well, but I'm curious as to *why*.
> 
> I find 'Monolingual' safely cleans out 99% of unnecessary fonts for me and SL, and maybe check out some Apple kb articles as well:
> 
> ...


Has more to do with obscenely long font menus. Bad enough when they're in English worse when in Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese etc.

Anyways working in a sand box the worst that can happen is I have to re-image. Roughly 7 minutes from a disk image.


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

I thought MacToTheBone's suggestion would work, but not for me, neither did using the 'validate' font and the check box to disable or remove method.

They stay solidly in the /System/Library/Fonts folder and show up again even after a restart. So I guess I'll try kps' method. And a good current clone backup is on standby, just in case.

Maybe jamesB can post back with his method and any possible bad results.

I guess System and Root really are the owners and bosses of our OS X Mac, and I do appreciate the fact that they actually let me use mine as a user. 

And I don't think I want to mess around with, or change any System Library folders permissions - if I was even allowed to do so.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

I removed fonts from the sandbox/system/library/fonts while booted from the main system. This worked with no difficulty, but I was being careful limiting it to Geeza and Thronburi fonts. Have two more to remove but with the monitor being on again off again from minute to minute that will have to wait for the replacement to arrive.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Remove the garbage it is. Just cleared the fonts cache and all those disabled fonts jumped back to life. This time they get catalogued, removed, archived to a disk image and if they are ever needed again I will know where to find them and where to put them.

BTW no ill effects to date caused by removing Geeza pro and Thonburi.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Did some research and it appears that Keyboard Viewer not allowing you to select a specific font is a bug in OS 10.6 on. At least it saved me doing a fresh install.

Since the old Jaguar font viewer does not work either, does anyone know of a third party solution, for those that want to be able to discover what modifier keys do in various fonts using something other than a hunt and peck approach?

I am amazed some graphics designer hasn't gone berserk during a Cupertino visit. If I was doing this for a living having to build a keyboard map for every font would drive me bonkers.


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

eMacMan said:


> ... ... ....
> 
> Since the old Jaguar font viewer does not work either, does anyone know of a third party solution, for those that want to be able to discover what modifier keys do in various fonts using something other than a hunt and peck approach?
> ... ... ...


"PopChar X" without question.

Download PopChar X for Mac - Floating window shows available font characters. MacUpdate.com

Or for a few dollars more, get it with the bundle:

MacUpdate December 2012 Bundle - 12 Apps for only $49.99


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