Active Fonts

In MainType a font is considered active when it is either installed or loaded.

An installed font is both added to the system font table and to the font related part of the registry. All fonts in the system font table are available to all applications. Due to the entry in the registry an installed font is always available even after a reboot.

An installed font is available somewhere on your file system. When you open Windows file explorer and go to Windows fonts folder, it will show all installed fonts. This suggests all those fonts actually reside in that folder, but that is not necessary true. To see the actual location, click the font in MainType and inspect the Resources section in the Information panel.

A loaded font (also known as a temporarily installed font) is added to the system font table, but not to the font related part of the registry. Because all fonts in the system font table are available to all applications, loaded fonts (just like installed fonts) are available to all applications. However loaded fonts are no longer available after the system is rebooted.

Install, Load, or Uninstall Fonts

To install, load, or uninstall fonts, select one or more fonts from the fonts panel and then select the appropriate item from the File menu or press one of the toolbar buttons on the fonts panel. A font operation popup is shown while the software is processing the font tasks. This is useful for several reasons:

1.Installing fonts can take some time, especially when you are installing multiple fonts at once.

2.Some fonts might fail to install.

3.System fonts are protected by MainType and cannot be uninstalled or unloaded.

 

If any of the font operations fail, a warning icon will appear in the right corner of the statusbar: when you click on the text a dialog will show why the operation(s) failed:

 

 

When you uninstall an installed or loaded font, it will be removed from both the system font table and the registry. As a result, the font is no longer available. In case the font is used in an application, it will most likely show a substitute font. In case the font file(s) reside in a Windows fonts folder, those files will be deleted. If “Warn when uninstalling fonts” is checked in the Warnings tab of the Options dialog, a warning dialogue will be shown. You can turn off this warning if you wish. Since MainType holds a copy of all indexed fonts inside the Vault, you can always load and install fonts and export fonts to your file system.

 

The performance of your system is affected by the number of active fonts. We recommend that you have no more than 500 fonts installed. To ensure that you can use as many fonts as you like, organize your fonts into groups and load, install, or uninstall them when needed.