Large Font Collection Managment in Xara

**mjindustry** · 24 September 2012, 04:37 PM

Hi

My wife is designing in Xara pro and has 1700 fonts she wants to be able to use.

How can she organize them into like 20 categories and have access to them in Xara?

**mwenz** · 24 September 2012, 05:11 PM

If these are fonts added to Windows outside of the ones that show up in the Xara Fonts Gallery, there isn't a way.

Fonts in applications that show up in the fonts menu are organized by family only--and then only if the font designer did their naming thing properly.

fwiw, I use a font manager (MainType) where I can categorize them into groups of my choosing. I don't keep anywhere near 1700 fonts installed (heck, I think I am somewhere below 900 presently). But I can review the installed and uninstalled fonts inside of MainType in their various categories and install them as desired for specific projects at hand.

Take care, Mike

**angelize** · 24 September 2012, 06:09 PM

Never say never

There is a way to use the designs gallery for font management. It is a bit of work to set it up but once it's done it's handy.

First you need a folder on your hard drive, you can call this what you like, font groups, or Font categories etc. Create a new document and create a new layer name it as the category.

Now here is the part that can get a bit tedious especially if you have a lot of fonts, type a small sample of each font you want in the category, Say for example ,script fonts. Once you have a sample of all the script fonts you want to be in the category open the page and layer gallery and lock and hide the fonts layer (clicK the little lock and eye icons on the right)

Now save the document to the folder you set up in the first step, name it as your category, in this example script fonts. Now do this for every category you want in your list of categories.

Once you have all your categories set up and saved to your folder, add this folder to the designs gallery (Click disc designs at the top, browse to the folder, double click to open it and click add, click yes on the confirmation box that comes up)

Now to use this set up drag a category from the designs gallery I'll use the script fonts example again, once it is on the page you won't see anything because you hid it and locked it but what you will see is the fonts category layer in the page and layer gallery and more importantly at the top of your fonts dropdown list you will see a list of all the fonts used in the document. once you have picked the script font you want and used it in the document,you can use the page and layer gallery to delete the script fonts layer and then say you want a san serif font to go with that script font? drag in the san serif category and there you go!

You can also use this in combination with the styles if you have a version that has that feature.

**mwenz** · 24 September 2012, 07:12 PM

How about there isn't an easy, straightforward and truly manageable way of automatically having Xara do this for you? Or that doing 1700 fonts in this manner is, well, I would gouge my eyes out and run kicking and screaming from the computer

Font managers are worth their weight in gold and can run from no cost to low cost and to higher cost. Categorization and, well, management, is what they do best.

Take care, Mike

**angelize** · 24 September 2012, 08:16 PM

I have used font managers and to be honest it really doesn't help much at all. Sure, you can see in the font manager at a glance what fonts you have and can organize them in categories, but you still have to search for your font in the drop down menu in Xara or any other program. Now if the font manager could actually sort the windows fonts folder into categories that would show in any program's drop down list then it would be helpful

**handrawn** · 24 September 2012, 08:21 PM

you only need to search through those with the same first letter as you can jump directly there in xara

**mwenz** · 24 September 2012, 08:42 PM

Originally Posted by angelize

I have used font managers and to be honest it really doesn't help much at all. Sure, you can see in the font manager at a glance what fonts you have and can organize them in categories, but you still have to search for your font in the drop down menu in Xara or any other program. Now if the font manager could actually sort the windows fonts folder into categories that would show in any program's drop down list then it would be helpful

We think differently about fonts.

First, I do not believe it is healthy for the system to have 1700 fonts loaded at all times. In fact, above 500 or so I start getting twitchy but often have the 900 or so I mention I have currently installed. I have installed a few new applications and they unwisely dropped them in the fonts folder during installation. So I have not decided which I will keep installed and will eventually get around to categorizing them and uninstalling them. Doing so within MainType, they show up as in the attached screen shot. Green next to the name says they are installed, "clear" means they are not. But I can still preview them and with a click install them for use once I decide on fonts for any particular job.

Fonts in MT can belong to more than one category. So I have fonts "tagged" also with any job name for work I may redo in the future, which makes reinstalling them a single click (I can add an entire category at once).

That type of scheme in MT is as close as you are going to get in Windows (or Mac for that matter). Else one is left with a cludgy work-around in Xara.

Take care, Mike

**mwenz** · 24 September 2012, 09:00 PM

OK, ya want Xara to really categorize your fonts?

You cannot do it using the standard Windows font list. But you can do it in the Fonts Gallery.

Want to know how? In the Xara application folder, you will find a fonts folder. In that folder and the ones below it you will find text files. Take a look at how they are constructed. Create a main folder in the My Documents Folder and perhaps call it MyFontCollections. Now create folders for each category. Now copy the text files and their structure into the folders you jest created. Edit the files to reflect names and categories. There is also a folder of screen shots of the fonts you could create so not just the names but a picture of the fonts are displayed (which is what Xara is using in the Fonts Gallery I believe).

You should end up with the same type of structure in the Fonts Gallery if you do every thing correctly.

An Excel spreadsheet and a few well written macros could read the folders and create the proper format waiting to be exported. Ideally a nice little Windows utility could be written to automate this.

Take care, Mike

**Albacore** · 25 September 2012, 10:57 AM

I totally agree with Mike having that amount of fonts anywhere in your system is going to slow your computer down even if you have a large amount of ram available. If you want to categorize your fonts in families use a font manager it is much easier than using the font galleries in Xara.

**graphicsfactory** · 25 September 2012, 02:26 PM

I agree with Mike, 1700 fonts loaded at one time just is not a good thing. And, in my opinion, if you are serious designer or work with graphics and fonts on a regular basis, a font manager is a must. I too use Main Type. Why make things so complicated? If you don't want to purchase a font manager, there are many for free. There are three key factors to managing fonts. First, being able to view a font that is not loaded or installed. Second, being able to organize fonts into categories. Third, having the ability to find a particular font. I prefer a font database, like in Typograph. But, you have to search in Main Type.