Test fonts in Adobe applications

Do you have Adobe's Creative Suite (CS) or Creative Cloud (CC) software installed? If you export fonts to specific folders, they can be instantly activated in Adobe applications. This way you can avoid font caching issues. No restarts required, no cache cleared, no reloads required.

Create Adobe Fonts Folder

Okay, so let's create this "specific folder". If you already have this folder, you can of course skip this step and go to the next heading. But if you don't have this folder yet, here's how to create it.

Switch to the Finder, then choose Go > Go to Folder in the menu bar (Cmd-Shift-G), then paste this line in the dialog, with leading and trailing slashes :

/Library/Application Support/Adobe/

The dialog will look like this:

Click the Go button to confirm the dialog. The Finder will take you to Adobe's Application Support folder. Now, within this folder, you need to create a folder called "Fonts". The specific method is: choose "File > New Folder" (Cmd-Shift-N), and type Fonts (uppercase F, lowercase o, n, t, s ), and press Enter. You may be asked to enter a power-on password, because this operation changes the contents of the system repository and requires your permission.

Export to Adobe Fonts Folder

In Glyphs, when you export fonts (Cmd-E) look for the bottom half of the File > Export dialog where it says "Export to Specified Folder":

1. Activate the "Export to specified filefolder" checkbox.

2. Click on the folder path and a save dialog box will appear.

3. In the dialog, go to the Adobe Fonts folder "Fonts" you just created.

   
   

   Tip 1: If you follow my "pro tip" above, you can easily select the "Fonts" folder from the left sidebar.

   Tip 2: Alternatively, you can press Cmd-Shift-G to bring up the Go dialog, enter these in the Go to folder textbox and press Go to confirm: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Fonts/

   
   

4. The Fonts folder is now selected in the dialog. Click the "Open" button in the lower right corner to confirm the dialog.
   

Then, you will return to the "Export" dialog box, where "Export to Specified Folder" should say "Library > Application Support > Adobe > Fonts". Now, just click the "Next" button to export to the Adobe font folder, and: any font saved in this folder will be immediately activated in all running Adobe software, be it Photoshop, Illustrator, Or InDesign, either CS or CC version.

Even better, Glyphs remembers these settings! So, the next time you export, just hit Cmd-E, hit enter, and the fonts are exported to the Adobe folder. very cool.

If you re-export, the original font files in the "Fonts" folder will be overwritten. Changes take effect immediately, so just switch back to the Adobe app, and if you switch fast enough, you might be able to see it update in real time.

Set permissions correctly

If you confirm that the fonts have been exported to the folder you just set up, but the fonts are still not in appears in the Adobe application of your choice, please confirm two things:

1. Make sure you are indeed exporting into the correct Adobe Fonts folder.

2. Make sure you have write access to this folder.

About the first point: You may not know that there are at least three "Library" (Library) with "Application Support" folder inside, you may choose wrong one of them. One is /System/Library/ (also known as "system resource library"), and the other is ~/Library/ (also known as "user library"), and the third is /Library/ (also called "root library"). What you need is the third, the root repository. The best way to not go wrong is to press Cmd-Shift-G (either in the Finder or in the File > Export > OTF target dialog) and paste the path in the resulting Go to Folder dialog /Library/Application Support/Adobe/,then look for the Fonts folder. If that folder doesn't exist, use Cmd-Shift-N to create it.

About the second point: In the Finder, press Cmd-Shift-G or select "Go > Go to Folder...", put the path /Library/Application Support/ Adobe/Fonts/Paste into the dialog box and click the "Go" button.

After navigating to a folder, choose File > Show Info (Cmd-I) to bring up the folder information. In the "Info" window that comes up, find the last section, "Sharing and Permissions", make sure the user labeled (this user) has "Read and Write" Permissions for:

If you cannot find a user marked (this user): Click the lock icon in the lower right corner of the window and you will be asked for a password or use Touch ID, then click the plus button, and in the small dialog box that appears, add yourself to the permission user list and assign yourself the "read and write" permission. Click the lock icon again to confirm the modification.

If a user marked with (this user) exists but shows the wrong permissions ("No Access", "Read Only", or " Write Only"): Click the lock icon in the lower right corner of the window, you will be asked to enter a password or use Touch ID, then click the "Permissions" entry next to the user name, and select "Read and Write" from the pop-up drop-down menu. Click the lock icon again to confirm the modification.

Try again now.

Application-specific fonts folder

If you don't want to mess with exported test fonts A list of fonts for all Adobe software, you can choose to use them only in InDesign for testing. In this case, simply export the fonts to the Fonts folder of your InDesign application:

When you open it for the first time, only InDesign comes with this folder. In practice, though, this trick works with most Adobe applications. You only need to create a folder named "Fonts" in the corresponding application folder (access through the right-click menu "Show Package Contents"), and export the fonts to it. Also, if you create folders while the app is running, you'll need to restart the app once, but after that, it's all handy.

Finding Problems

Still, you may run into problems. Especially after you export to the Adobe font folder, the fonts in the software are not updated. In this case, switch to InDesign and choose Type > Find Fonts…. In the dialog that appears, select the font that's giving you headaches and click the "Show in Finder" button. You'll be taken to the location in the Finder where you're using the font. This way, you can determine if the font you are using is indeed the one you just exported, or a previous version, or a conflicting font installed into one of the system fonts folders.

Unfortunately, other Adobe applications like Illustrator don't offer this button in their "Type > Find Font..." dialog, so you'll have to call InDesign to figure it out. Also, if you're having trouble in Illustrator, you'll want to check out Illustrator's application-specific "Fonts" folder.

If this doesn't help you, try emptying the temporary folder called "Temp": In Glyphs, choose Scripts > Open Scripts Folder (Cmd-Shift-Y) , you will be taken to the Glyphs "Application Support" folder. Next to the "Scripts" folder, you'll see a "Temp" folder. Open it, select all files in it (Cmd-A), and move the selection to the Trash (Cmd-Delete). Then, go back to Glyphs and export again (Cmd-E). An item's outdated files in the "Temp" folder may affect the export process.

Adobe application refreshes slowly

Have you ever noticed that after you export fonts from Glyphs and switch to InDesign or Illustrator, the application seems to freeze or "hang" for a few seconds? It might even take 10-15 seconds for the Adobe application to wake up and refresh its windows.

The possible cause is simple: too many fonts in the Adobe fonts folder. So, every once in a while, check the folder to see if there are too many font files in it. Files in subfolders are also counted. We've seen performance drop significantly with even just a few dozen font files. Switch to the Finder, go to the Adobe Fonts folder, select all files (Cmd-A), move them to the Trash (Cmd-Delete).

Second possible cause: Application-specific font folders and system-wide Adobe font folders coexist. My suggestion: Get rid of the application-specific folder. Cmd-click the dock icon for Illustrator, Photoshop, or InDesign, and the containing application folder opens in the Finder. Move the "Fonts" folder inside to the Trash, and restart the application.

The third possible cause is a font conflict. Possibly even within the Fonts folder: fonts with different filenames can co-exist in the same folder and they can still have the same family name and style name. Font conflicts can confuse Adobe applications as to which font to activate and display in the font menu. This will also cause a delay every time you switch back to an Adobe application. The good news is: if you followed the advice in the previous two paragraphs, then the problem has been fixed.

However, if you find that the fonts in the Adobe font folder conflict with the fonts installed in the system, in order to solve the problem, you may have to restart the operating system twice: press the Shift key during the first restart, Let the system enter "safe mode", delete and rebuild the cache, which also includes the font cache; the second normal restart does not enter "safe mode", and resumes normal operation. NOTE: After the second reboot, rebuilding the cache may take several minutes, slowing down the system for a while.

Do not install directly from the Adobe Fonts folder

So, you thought you were done testing your fonts in the Adobe Fonts folder and your fonts were ready for prime time? Then there should be no problem installing fonts in the operating system. But one more thing: In versions of macOS prior to High Sierra 10.13.6, you couldn't install fonts from the Adobe Fonts folder. When you double-click a font file, or right-click and select "Open With > Font Book", Font Book complains like this:

Don't worry, your font files are fine. This error message is just misleading, the real reason is that the font book does not accept fonts from outside the repository. The solution is simple: move the font to the desktop, then install it. Da da, so this font can be installed smoothly, haha. Or upgrade macOS to 10.13.6 or newer.

by Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer

Chinese translation by Willie Liu (刘玉丽) from 3type (三言).