Font Deployment

[#1]

Anyone out there deploying fonts in Casper? I've had trouble deploying fonts for use with Fontbook because of the font book database and undocumented ATServer.

Lately I've been baking them into the base image but for 10.6 I'm going with a real base image and using packages and scripts to modify it, so when new versions come out there is minimal modification required. I'm just looking for a way to package the fonts and have them available in a collection for the users in Font Book.

Thanks

Ryan Harter
UW - Stevens Point
Workstation Developer
715.346.2716

[dderusha]

ryan-

we deploy a repository of fonts in the /Shared directory.
This way they are available for all users. They can copy them to /Users/~/Library/Fonts for activation in fontbook.
when they are done using that set, they can remove the set and run with the base system fonts.

Dan

[#3]

That sounds like a decent solutions, but since Font Book allows activation and deactivation of fonts, couldn't we just install all of them in one location (meaning no dups) and let users activate them and deactivate them at will.

I ask this because we have Adobe Font Folio...so like 3000 fonts. We used to use FontAgent Pro but the college of fine arts doesn't want to pay for it. When we used that we had lazy students that would just go in and activate them all. I know they still can, but I fear them copying all of the fonts into they're ~/Library/Fonts directory and then I've got a bazillion fonts duplicated in everyone's folder.

What I've done with the baked in image is get about 200 commonly used fonts, as reported by the graphic design profs, and have those installed in everyones Font Book, centrally, then just putting up instructions to add fonts through font book from the /User/Shared folder.

Now that I think as I type, your solution could work. I don't like telling people to copy stuff in and out of their Library folders because of the dicey nature of other things in there, but I could make a package of the 200 included fonts in /Library/Fonts, then allow the users to add the others from the shared location through Font Book. I guess I was trying to keep them separate from system fonts in /Library/Fonts, but why?

Thanks for helping me through this Dan.

Ryan Harter
UW - Stevens Point
Workstation Developer
715.346.2716

[dderusha]

Ryan-

glad I could be your shoulder :)

in the event that a user decides to be lazy and loads all fonts, we have a application that goes and removes all the unnecessary fonts and requires the user to reboot.
I'm sure a little script could purge the users font directory. Maybe even serve it up over Self Service.
Our app also combs the /Library/Fonts and /System/Library/Fonts ....just incase we install something that slips a font into one of these directories.

If apps or files are acting up, Run the clean up application and reboot.

I don't need aspirin anymore

Dan

[#5]

That sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks, Dan.

Do you run that cleanup script regularly as a policy or just as needed?

Also, how do you determine "unnecessary fonts"?

Thanks again

Ryan Harter
UW - Stevens Point
Workstation Developer
715.346.2716

[donmontalvo]

Hi Ryan,
Ryan Harter <Ryan.Harter at uwsp.edu> wrote:

Just curious, since the Adobe Font Library cost isn't exactly low, why does the university not want to pay for a font management application? There are other issues to consider, like font corruption, compliance, etc., that a central management solution can easily handle.

We're partial to Extensis Universal Type Server (UTS). Your fonts are stored on the UTS, and clients can be set to cache the entire library (or a subset by group), or cache N number of recent fonts. The more users you have, the more you'll want to centrally manage fonts.

http://www.extensis.com/en/products/universaltypeserver2pro/overview.jsp

PS, I realize schools don't always spend the money needed for these kinds of things, but wondered if an ROI might help?

Don

[#7]

That's a good point Don. Part of the reason they don't want to spend money on a central solution, which I've suggested in the past, or even a local management solution like FAP is because IT used to pay for FAP but since only the graphic design department uses it anymore the beaurocrats decided that if they wanted to continue it the Art and Design Department would have to take over paying for maintenance.

The Fonts themselves were purchased years ago, we don't have maintenance and don't update them, so they don't have to pay for that anymore.

Really it's just because it would be on the graphic design department to pay for it and I don't think they have the money. They tend to think that I can always find a way to make anything work for them, which I try to, but they don't care how they're done, or how much of a pain in the butt they are to do.

I don't handle any of the money, but I will be sure to talk to see if anyone is interested in paying for it.

Thanks for the input.

Ryan Harter
UW - Stevens Point
Workstation Developer
715.346.2716

[dderusha]

On Dec 15, 2009, at 3:56 PM, Harter, Ryan wrote: That sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks, Dan. Do you run that cleanup script regularly as a policy or just as needed? Also, how do you determine "unnecessary fonts"? Thanks again Ryan Harter UW - Stevens Point Workstation Developer 715.346.2716 Ryan.Harter at uwsp.edu<mailto:Ryan.Harter at uwsp.edu>

Ryan-

We only run it as needed. If font book can't load or unload fonts....we run the app and reboot. It took some time, almost all our users run it before calling us.
They got tired of hearing "Did you run clean up my fonts? Did you reboot?"

We strip down our fonts to the basic fonts needed. We only have Arial in the /Library/Fonts for our Filemaker ticket system. We keep AppleSymbols, AppleGothic, geneva, Keyboard, LastResort, LucidaGrande, MarkerFelt, Monaco in the /System/Fonts

Firefox likes to use helevetica, you will need to load that into fontbook, open Firefox, change the default font to LucidaGrande.

All other fonts are addressed per user. Our desktop workers don't ever need the Microsoft Fonts that get loaded into /Library/Fonts.
we don't deploy the microsoft fonts in the Office package we have. We posted them on self service. If you run our app, it cleans out the microsoft fonts.
Our Customer service Department needs the office fonts.....occasionally they need to run clean up my fonts as well. When the Customer service people log back in, they download the office fonts from SS.

Dan

[#9]

Are you able to share your script? It sounds great!
Thanks,
-JD

[wmateo]

@donmontalvo][/url

how are you handling font sync after imaging? our users login, and download all the fonts, and the process can take a long time. I have been asking around if there is a solution to "cache" the fonts during or post imaging since the process of connecting to the font server takes the account user ID and creates folder ID under /Library/Extensis/ folder, I was wondering is there a more efficient method of doing this and apply it to a template, etc for example. and having user simply login, and sync and download newly installed fonts.

[donmontalvo]

Good question, to be honest we've never done that before. UTS4 takes less time to sync, we tell users to not interrupt the process. We recently rolled out an update to UTS4 and full sync took about 3-4 minutes over a 100 speed wired connection. This included the Adobe Font Folio plus some. As I mentioned in the other thread, UTS4 client should purge/recache if loging account or server changes.

[ShaunRMiller83]

@donmontalvo - Yes, I would assume you are correct and would purge/recache when a login account changes. I have moved between my prod and dev server and have kept my fonts so not so sure moving servers with the same account kicks off a purge ecache.

@wmateo - Is there a reason you need to have all fonts download and not use a move "On Demand" method in UTS? We were having all of the fonts download, but have seen significant reduction in system utilization using a more "On Demand" method sync'ing our fonts every 20min.