If you’ve shopped for fonts you know the there is a virtual smorgasbord of beautiful fonts to choose from. The right font can really help your page speak to the memories it’s preserving. The tricky part comes when you start collecting dozens (or hundreds) of fonts, and your computer goes “Gasp!” because it doesn’t like being bogged down with all of the typographical deliciousness. The good news is there are easy ways to go about organizing fonts to help you and your computer.
Don’t Install Everything
I know it’s hard not to just dump all your font into your font folder, but that will make your computer stutter along like an embarrassed teenager. Your best bet is to keep the fonts that are already installed in the main font folder there. But if you have too many, find the ones that don’t have to be in the main font folder, and move them to another folder. In the links below, you can find a list of the fonts that have to be in that folder:
Windows: http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/aboutgraphics/a/fontoverload_3.htm
Mac: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2337629
I have a folder of fonts on my computer that are NOT installed, and I work with them in a different way. I know that some people organize their font by type – serif fonts, script fonts, sans serif fonts, artistic fonts, etc., separating fonts into folders for ease of searching. I have found a way that I prefer that makes it fast and easy to search through my fonts.
Font Organizer
There are lots of programs – even free ones – that will help you organize, preview, install, and load your fonts so that they do not bog down your computer. If you search “font manager,” you’ll come up with lots of different programs and systems. I personally use FontExplorer, which works great with my Windows 7 operating system. The things that I really like about this program is that I can search for fonts anywhere on my computer; it shows me the fonts I already have installed in one area, and then I can go to my folder of fonts that are not installed, and FontExplorer will load them for me – which means that it will temporarily install the font, but when I shut down my program (such as Photoshop), the font will no longer be installed. I love this function, because then I can try out fonts, but know that I won’t be overloading my font folder.
Now that you know more about organizing fonts, go explore! Find some fun fonts in the SG Design Shop that speak to the feel of your pages and memories, and use them with more freedom, knowing that you’re in no danger of overloading your computer!