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AVmcclint
Honored Contributor

Posted on ‎06-27-2022 10:02 AM

A question was asked of me recently and I didn't have an answer so I pose the question here:

Can we manage fonts via version numbers using JamfPro?

To clarify: Our graphic designers make numerous in-house fonts and they do update them from time to time. If we installed v1.0 of a font via Self Service or Config Profile, could we have smart groups to scope v2.0 of that font installation?  I see that jamf DOES display a column for font versions, 100% of them say "n/a". We are collecting font info in the inventory, but none of them display versions. I have verified by random selections that OS, 3rd party, and in-house fonts DO have versions in the Get Info window.  Is this a function that's broken in JamfPro?

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mm2270
Legendary Contributor III

Posted on ‎06-27-2022 01:31 PM

It might be a broken function in Jamf Pro. I don't really know because I have no need to collect fonts from our Macs, so I don't use it. I also don't know what mechanism Jamf is supposed to be using to get the version info on installed fonts. I can see their versions if I use mdls on the path of a font. Something like this

mdls /System/Library/Fonts/HelveticaNeue.ttc -name kMDItemVersion -raw

 If you only have to track a small number of fonts like this for version control, it might be a reasonable compromise to create an Extension Attribute for each one, pulling the version info using mdls like I show above. Then you can build Smart Groups from that info collected and go from there.