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jefffultondesign
Participant
October 18, 2023
Question

Remove Noto Sans

  • October 18, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 2251 views

I saw where there was another post on this marked as "resolved," but the resolution steps to resolve it no longer work. How — in the year of our Lord 2024 when Photoshop AI can blow our minds — can we NOT hide all of the Noto Sans fonts? Adobe points at Apple, Apple points at Adobe, and designers are caught in a very annoying situation between them.

2 replies

Moonshiner1111
Participating Frequently
December 22, 2023

Font management is without doubt the most primitive feature in the entire OS history. The only conclusion I can come to is that its deliberate. 

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Legend
December 23, 2023
quote

The only conclusion I can come to is that its deliberate. 

By @Moonshiner1111

 

Yes! It is indeed deliberate, but not so primitive.

I don't know why we can't hide/inactivate all those Noto fonts on Apples and all of the foreign languages and dialects on Windows, but I'm sure in involves money somewhere and somehow.

 

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
December 23, 2023

That both MS and Apple do it, turned up to 11, and remain stubbornly mute on both why and any potential options... grrr. It's enough to make you switch to the other guys.

 

Oh, wait, that's right... there aren't any other guys.

Barb Binder
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 18, 2023

Hi @jefffultondesign:

 

You are not alone in your frustration regarding Noto Sans. Have you seen this post?

https://creativepro.com/how-to-hide-noto-fonts-in-your-font-menus/

 

~Barb

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Legend
October 19, 2023

Microsoft is doing something similar on the Windows OS, too. We now have a million+ foreign language fonts that can't be uninstalled or deactivated. They're not the Noto Family (which is excellent when you need it, BTW) but instead individual fonts by many different font foundries for various Asian, Middle Eastern, and SE Asian dialects.

 

It's a nice idea to give us the ability to be "world ready" in our document designs. But I can't foresee needing to use Aharoni or Aparajita anytime soon in my design career.

 

Apple and Microsoft should at least let us deactivate unneeded fonts so we can have more manageable font menus. Then, if I do suddenly have the need to use Estrangelo Edessa Regular (a Syriac script font for ancient Aramaic dialects that's installed with Windows), it's still on my system and can be quickly activated.

 

Of course, if the need arises.

 

Fonts on both platforms are becoming a nightmare for us designers!

 

I'm ready to start a revolt!

 

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
Joel Cherney
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 23, 2023

I'm the guy who actually uses all those fonts, and even I feel this way. Months might go by when I don't use any fonts for languages from, let's say, the Indian subcontinent. I'd love to not have to scroll past them every day. 

 

Once upon a time, early on in my career, I used font management software. It was very useful, until it blew up in my face and I was late delivering a time-sensitive project, because Suitcase ate my Khmer font library. I swore I'd never use font management tools ever again, and I've held true to that oath. That was on a machine that ran System Mac OS 8 point something, to give you an idea of how long I've been nurturing this grudge. 

 

But I still can't shake the idea, decades later, that it might be a good idea to be able to turn fonts on and off, so we're not scrolling past eight thousand fonts for languages we're not working on today, while we're looking for That One Syriac Font.  I'm not even asking for auto-activation; I simply would like to to be able to choose.