Font Fatigue: Font Locations in Mac OS X

1

Mac OS X is designed to be a multi-user system; each individual user can have his or her very own settings, preferences, and even fonts. That’s one reason there are multiple font locations. Another reason is that the system is very particular about having its own, never-changing set of fonts. Still another reason is that, in some environments, client workstations are booting directly off of a Mac OS X server, and resources such as fonts are located on the server.

In any event, here are the font locations in Mac OS X:

1. An application’s own Fonts folder. Some applications, particularly those from Adobe, have their own private font folders. These are located either inside the application’s folder, or in the Application Support folder in the common Library folder. Adobe applications generally look in these folders first.

• /Users/<your username>/Library/Fonts. This is the fonts folder in your one personal Library folder. If you’re the only one who uses the system, and you’re not using a font manager, this is the place you should put all your fonts. But don’t put them here if you also run Classic applications that want to see the fonts; use #6, below.
• /Library/Fonts. This is the system-wide font Library. Only a user with an administrator login can add or delete fonts from this folder. If you’re in a multi-user environment, and you’re not using a font manager, put your fonts here. That way, they’ll be a shared resource for all users.
• /Network/Library/Fonts. This location only appears if you’re running a Mac OS X Server. It’s actually a network location on a Mac OS X server running NetInfo, where a “universal” set of fonts for all Macs that boot from that server could be located. Ignore this if you’re not booting from a Mac OS X Server.
• /System/Library/Fonts. All fonts used by Mac OS X system software are placed here. Don’t put any of your fonts here. You can’t modify this folder unless you’re the “root” user (if you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it).
• /System Folder/Fonts. This is the fonts folder for the Classic environment. If you’re running applications in both Classic and Mac OS X, and you’re not using a font manager, this is the place to put your fonts. This way, both Classic and Mac OS X applications can use them. Classic applications can’t see fonts in any of the other font folders above (except for Adobe Classic applications, which will look in the Adobe folder inside the Application Support folder of Classic’s System Folder).When a Mac OS X application asks the operating system to find a font, the system looks in the locations in the order listed above, and the first match it finds is the one it uses. However, Adobe applications use their own core font technology to build font menus, and they don’t follow this order. In fact, if more than one font with the same name is installed on your system, you may see different fonts listed in the menus of Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. Remarkable!