Remove fonts at imaging time

Wow, nice to see they've updated it for Snow Leopard.
"Gibson, Robb" <RobbGibson at OfficeMax.com> wrote:

I wouldn't touch /System/Library/Fonts or /Library/Fonts unless you're absolutely sure the fonts are not needed. If you decide to, I would *.pkg them up for distribution just in case.

I would rather use a font management solution like Extensis Universal Type Server to manage those unneeded fonts. I'm sure there's also a way to use Font Book to disable the fonts.

Don

We're actually pretty hardcore about the System and Library fonts and pare
them down to just the essentials. Then we use Suitcase server (UTS is next
on our upgrade list) to manage all the Postscript fonts.

Helvetica seems to be popping up as a requirement in applications that are
not aware of Suitcase, so were going to end up moving it back to the
System/Library/Fonts folder.

Robb

I have created the font packages I want to install based on the Extensis
Guide. I want only the one the OS needs as I create the master OS for
different offices in the US that use different font management solutions so
I want to make sure that only the need fonts are there. In the past I have
done it manually before hand deleted out all the ones that are not needed,
but I am trying to move to using the OS X installer disk so it is truly a
clean install.

Rich

Rich Dagel
Senior Technology Specialist

Landor Associates
1001 Front Street
San Francisco, CA 94111
United States
415 365 3933
http://www.landor.com
Rich.Dagel at landor.com


Create a shell script to delete the font files, import it into casper and set it to run at reboot, then deploy it with you image.

Mac OS X 10.5 included a new self-healing feature where system fonts are
On 11/9/09 11:43 AM, "Dagel, Rich" <Rich.Dagel at landor.com> wrote:
concerned. I believe, however, this should only affect those fonts found in
/System/Library/Fonts. The fonts in this location are used by the Mac OS X
system itself as well as some applications like "Dictionary.app". If at all
possible, leave what you can of these fonts.

We have a need to remove the Helvetica font from the /System/Library/Fonts
folder and use our version instead. To allow us to do this we go into
System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/
Versions/A/Frameworks/ATS.framework/Versions/A/Resources/ProtectedFonts/ and
remove it from there. We enable our Helvetica via Suitcase.

As for using Apple's installer package format for deploying items, I would
only do this if you need to run scripts in addition to installing items. The
.dmg packages are easier for Casper to access for installing files because
they can be opened from your repository and their contents copied directly.
The .pkg files must be copied locally first and then installed using the
Installer binary, which has to evaluate additional information during its
process. This could make install times take longer.

--

William Smith
Technical Analyst
Merrill Communications LLC
(651) 632-1492

Extensis' website has a PDF titled " Font Best Practices in OSX v6" that
breaks down which fonts are essential for the OS, Office, Adobe, etc., where
they live and which fonts can be removed.

http://www.extensis.com/en/downloads/document_download.jsp?docId=5600039

What we've been doing is cleaning up fonts prior to building our base image
and moving application fonts when building the app.dmg installer. We'll
might change to a shell script when we move to JSS 7.1 since that supports
creating a disk image by dropping the OS image from the disc.

Robb Gibson
System Engineer - eMMS, Publishing Systems
OfficeMax : 263 Shuman Blvd. : Naperville, IL 60563
(630) 864-5242


It would be worth a look at the Extensis UTS documentation to see that it can easily handle these things for you. This way you're centrally managing instead of stripping away and possibly creating issues down the road. :)

Don

I run Universal Type Server - and I decided long ago never to touch what's in /System/Library/Fonts. /Library/Fonts can usually be cleared out without any issues. Never had any problems with this config.

-- Ted August
Salve Regina University

I create my images using instaDMG. I wrote a script that runs at image build time that moves all the unnecessary fonts to /Shared/Users/ Font Library/ They are all organized there... and this is also where I encourage users to keep copies of their fonts. I make sure I re- apply permissions to /Users/Shared/ within the script so the permissions are correct.

Hi Ted,

Just curious, what benefit does clearing these fonts manually have over allowing UTS to do it for you? The reason I ask is this is a road we'll need to travel soon at one of our Burbank customers, and if the end effect is the same would rather pick the centrally managed approach rather than stripping away.

Thanks,
Don

Hi Don,

It's just a matter of preference I guess. When it comes down to it, I don't trust the font server to work perfectly all the time - so I clear out what's in /Library/Fonts to make sure there are no duplicates and conflicts. I make sure to leave what's in /System/ Library/Fonts in the event that the server is down or unavailable - most applications will go haywire if those fonts aren't there.

I'll be honest, here at Salve we're not power users of the product. All student users log-in with the same account so they can access the fonts, and make collections for their projects, etc. Otherwise we're not doing too much of it, and some of my procedures on the client side are hold-overs to when we were using Font Reserve, which could also be buggy at times. I should probably re-examine what Extensis' best practices are for allowing UTS to manage these system required fonts.

-- Ted August
Salve Regina University

Hi Ted,

Well, it looks like UTS isn't able to manage fonts in folders that users don't have rights to change, since UTS runs with user rights. I saw this on the UTS forum:

http://forums.extensis.com/jforum/posts/list/2923.page

...see Carl's post. I guess I'll be following the same route you're following. Unlike Suitcase Server, we're not able to manage the /Library/Fonts and /System/Library/Fonts folders for users from the server end. I guess this is why Extensis put together v6 if the font best practices PDF (incredible level of depth compared to previous versions!).

Thanks,
Don