First-time user of font management software, I recently found NexusFont and am playing around with it. The font organization features are fabulous, and is the main reason I finally downloaded software. It took me a long time to find something that would allow me to tag the fonts with keywords. (And is free.))
My question though has to do with installing/uninstalling fonts through the software to make better use of my system resources. Until now, all my font files are stored in / installed in Windows/Fonts, system fonts and fancy fonts alike. Should I move the non-system font files to a different folder? If I uninstall a font through the management software, will the font file still be stored in Windows/Fonts? Can I uninstall system fonts for any period of time? What are best practices for using the software?
Basically, how does this part of the software work, and how do I best take advantage of it? I do have close to 850 fonts, so I’m sure that deactivating all but the ones I need would improve my system quite a bit.
You cannot separate fonts out of the Windows\Fonts folder. It’s not an ordinary folder. It’s the folder where any installed font goes. Moving a file there is how you actually install fonts.
The program most likely removes fonts from the fonts folder when disabling them, saving them somewhere else. No font can be uninstalled if it is in use. You can uninstall some fonts that came with Windows, but websites and software will often assume you have them, and break. It’s probably not a good idea.
It’s also unlikely that uninstalling fonts will speed anything up, but, since you have the software, you can try it out. Disable the fonts you don’t need, and see if any programs start up faster. That’s the only possible increase in speed here–programs that read a list of all fonts upon startup.
For instance, Windows 7 on a relatively small SSD.
But in this case, I don’t expect a few fonts in the Windows directory hierarchy to be a problem, compared to multiple gigabytes of “temporary files” in assorted cache directories for half a dozen different users. :mad:
NexusFont is capable of virtualising fonts in Windows - that is, they reside elsewhere (in folders or collections) and only appear to be installed when NexusFont is running - it’s not secretly moving the file, it’s just making Windows think they are installed, transparently.
This is particularly useful for people who use a large variety of very complex decorative fonts - as these can definitely affect performance - either of Windows itself, or of the font picker dialog in many applications - you can create a folder of fonts that you want to use in conjunction with a specific project, and have the software make them available when required, but not creating clutter when they are done with.
It can also manage the permanent (i.e. non-virtualised) installation/uninstallation of fonts - so you can use the software to manage a big catalogue of fonts in a more elegant fashion than just dragging files around.
Even on a fast system, if you install a lot of these (or any font that contains a lot of small detail per character), it will slow things down.
Windows loads the font cache on boot (so huge numbers of fonts will slow boot times) - and for complex fonts (like those above), any font selection dropdown or dialog that renders a preview may stall momentarily while it draws the complex font.
In any case, if you have vast catalogues of fonts (as some creative folks do), it’s simply impractical to have them all installed at once - because it makes the routine task of changing fonts more of a hunt.