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QUESTION: Here’s one that should have strong general application. I do editorial work using XP, and have built up a useful stable of fonts. I just got a new computer using Windows 7, and want to move the fonts over to it, but can’t make anything work. Is there a way to do this?

PC CLUB: Before we get to the punch line, let’s start with some font facts:

• Windows 7 ships with 235 fonts, versus 191 in Vista and 133 in Windows XP. PrePressure.com offers a handy  list of typefaces that ship with Windows 7 (link: bit.ly/windows7fonts).
• The more fonts that you install, the more computer memory (or RAM) is used. Your system must load all fonts at boot-up and this may extend your boot time. This is not as critical with newer PCs since they have faster processors and more RAM but it’s something to keep an eye on.
• There are a lot of font managers available, some are free, but not many of them are compatible with Windows 7. Windows 7 has improved font management making it easier to manage fonts without a third party program.
• Programs such as Extensis Suitcase, available at www.extensis.com for $99, MainType, available at www.high-logic.com/maintype.html for $49, and Font Expert, at www.proximasoftware.com for $59, are all good programs that function with Windows 7.
• Never delete any fonts unless you are very experienced. Deleting the wrong font can render your PC useless.

Most of us end up with quite a few fonts after using our PC for a while. For example, installing Microsoft Office 2007 adds 217 fonts and installing Adobe CS4 adds another 87. Most fonts reside in the folder C:\windows\fonts but not all.

If you open the Control Panel in Windows 7 and select fonts, you are likely to see several fonts with a shortcut arrow. If you right click the font and select Properties, you will see the path. Some fonts may appear to be dimmed which indicates that they are hidden. If you select a font, you will see an option to Show or Hide a font. This will make very little difference in most cases since Microsoft Office ignores this setting and shows all fonts.

The fonts Control Panel in some versions of Windows allows you to see how many fonts you have installed. In Windows 7, however, only font groups or families are shown rather than individual fonts. Therefore, the number shown at the bottom is the number of font groups.  If you double click the Arial font, for example, you will see 9 individual fonts including Regular, Bold, Italic, etc., as pictured below:

If you select Font settings on the left, you will see several options for managing your fonts. One of them is to allow fonts to be installed using a shortcut. This allows you to keep some fonts on second or external hard drives and install them from there without placing them in the C:\windows\fonts folder. This is not recommended unless you’re a PC guru.

In my particular case I have 312 font groups installed according to Windows 7. If you examine your PC with several font managers, you will get differing results as to how many fonts are installed. This is due to the fact that not all programs count the same way. There are such categories as hidden fonts, system fonts, individual fonts versus families of fonts, to name a few. Some programs just examine the System Registry and get a count from there. Fonts are not an easy resource to manage but fortunately, this issue can be ignored by most users and everything will continue to work just fine.

If you plan to move fonts from an XP or Vista PC to a Windows 7 PC, here is what you do:

1. The first step is to copy the fonts from the old PC to an external drive skipping all of the fonts with a .fon file extension.

2. Back up your existing font folder in case of trouble down the road. I would also create a Restore Point within Windows (see how to do this in Windows 7 at bit.ly/restorepoint).

3. Once the fonts are copied to the external drive, disconnect the drive and connect it to your Windows 7 PC.

4. Navigate to the folder on the external drive containing the fonts and right click one or several fonts and select Install. That’s it.

~Ed Schwartz, NOCCC member. View his Web site at www.edwardns.com.

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