Photoshop: Ability to disable fonts from within Photoshop

Report · Jan 15, 2019

Why in 2019 do we not have the ability to turn off fonts from inside Photoshop? Why when I make a text layer must I scroll through a never ending list of fonts I do not need. Like Apple Braille? Or fonts in foreign languages that I will never use? Users should be given the option to hide fonts they do not want to see. How hard is that? How did Lorem ipsum place holder text get added as a feature before some better font management was added. I should not be forced into going and trying to delete system fonts from my operating system and risk ruining it.

Report · Jan 15, 2019

You can mark your favorites font with a star and filter them. But I am affraid that at the certain point with PS update you will loose your settings so might need to do it again.

Report · Jan 15, 2019

As someone that uses a lot of fonts that is not a good solution. Then I end up turning the favorites into a list that filters out the crap fonts instead of using it for the intended purpose of showing me my favorites.

Essentially breaking a feature to solve a glaring oversight in Photoshop. The solution is clear. Adobe needs to get off their butts and add the ability to hide fonts from the main font list.

Report · Jan 15, 2019

Then I end up turning the favorites into a list that filters out the crap fonts instead of using it for the intended purpose of showing me my favorites.

What are you really saying?

Report · Jan 15, 2019

I so agree, I hate having to scroll through all the fonts. I already have an app for that, I don't need them all in PS

Report · Jan 15, 2019

A font browser/filter popup dialog from the hamburger menu in the characters panel sounds like a good place to stick that, IMO. Power users could multi-select and dump fonts to and from an "Active" column to an "Inactive" column. It would also help troubleshoot stability issues since poorly made or corrupted fonts tend to cause lots of problems.

Report · Jan 15, 2019

What do you mean? Let’s say for the sake of making an example that right now there are 100 fonts showing inside of Photoshop. Of those fonts let’s say that 35 are useless to me. That means I need to put 75 remaining fonts into my favorites in order to have a list that filters out the ones I do not need.

However of those 75 not all are my favorites. I might have 15 fonts I use as favorites. Not I have sacrificed the favorites list to get rid of the fonts I do not use at all and have no way of filtering to just my favorites.

Report · Jan 15, 2019

Lorem ipsum place holder has been a feature in other software for years. It seemed logical to include it in Photoshop. Better yet, if you don't like it you can disable it.

Report · Jan 15, 2019

Exactly! 😄

Report · Jan 15, 2019

If you are seeing Apple Braille, then you're running on a Mac. The functionality to disable fonts is available from the OS by default via Font Book. No reason to duplicate existing functionality.

The fonts you are complaining about are included by the OS for compatibility and support. Photoshop gives users access to MANY different kinds of fonts -- which is why we try to work with any font, from any source on the OS. So again, the point of filtration should be the OS.

If you've got more than about 500 fonts, you're going to see system performance degrade. And there isn't anything anyone can really do about it; resources are finite, though lesser machines will slow down with fewer fonts. In deed, disabling fonts is a GOOD THING as it reduces overhead for ALL your apps. Another reason it should be handled by the OS.

So, given this limit and that you can mark the ones you like best as favorites, 90% of the problem is solved. To do the rest is actually quite a bit of work that wouldn't be useful to most users -- and the interaction between apps can be a serious killer -- what happens if you've disabled a font in PS but you use it in AI for a smart object in your PS layour...? No, Adobe used to have a font management app, but really, that is the domain of the OSes for a number of good reasons. Font management needs to be applied uniformly across applications. People already complain that Photoshop is trying to do too many things beyond image editing -- font management sure seems to fall into this category as well.

To disable Lorem Ipsum, which was a user request (not all users want the same features, just as not all users use the application in the same way), go to Preferences > Type and uncheck Fill new type layers with placeholder text.

Thanks,
David

Report · Jan 15, 2019

Hey David,
Thanks for the reply.
Let me start by saying that in MacOS Mojave you can not disable system fonts in Font Book. The option to do so is greyed out, see the attached screenshot below:

I even went as far as trying to install a third-party font management app (Font Explorer X Pro) and it also was unable to turn off system fonts.
Not being satisfied with that I then tried to do it the old fashioned way. MacOS keeps non-user fonts in two places. Some are kept in:

HD > Library > Fonts

And the bulk of system fonts are kept in:

HD > System > Library > Fonts

Anything in the first location can be removed, but nothing in the second location like our friend Apple Braille can be deleted:

The above screenshot is what happens when you attempt to delete the file. Moving it is also impossible. So that kind of puts a damper on your suggestion.
Even if this was still possible I do want to address the notion that you would be duplicating functionality and that this should be done at an OS level. I'm sorry but if you take your Adobe hat off that's a bunch of none sense. Your very own example of what happens if a font is off in Photoshop and you need in AI in a smart layer works against you.

You would ask a user to go a remove system fonts to have them stop appearing in Photoshop and risk damaging their system or finding themselves in a circumstance when the system requires it and it is not there.
Seems like the same problem you brought up, only worse because now it is at a system OS level.

If it were handled in PS it could be solved with a warning dialog box when you go into a situation where it is on in one app and off in the other. Ultimately the fonts don't even need to be off, just the ability to filter them out of the list in a way that does not sacrifice the favorites list.

Report · Jan 15, 2019

I see where you're coming from and I'll log a feature request to block the display of fonts in the menus. To be honest, however, I would expect a lot of push-back on such a feature for the reasons I detailed. Clearly if Apple went to all that trouble to make it impossible to remove these fonts, then it would be unwise to disable them as their presense could be required for unforeseen reasons. Hiding their display in the font menu could be a work-around, but that's liable to be work which management might not agree needs to be done. If you have user-stories you could share, that would be helpful to get this work prioritized.

Thanks,
David

Report · Jan 15, 2019

I would respectfully disagree that the OS should be the gatekeeper for fonts. There are a lot of "Compatability and support" fonts that are exactly that... utility fonts with no purpose to a designer or artist in the context of photoshop. I agree that if you're fumbling through 500 3rd party fonts, you should be using a font manager or uninstalling unsuded ones, but we're talking about the big list of crud that comes with the OS and Office Suite for instance. The number of times I'll be using "MS Outlook" or "Dubai" in photoshop is exactly zero.

Giving the option of hiding or filtering those out in the menus to power users is not the same as just shutting it off by default. This isn't something that would be accidental, "I bumped my elbow and now all my system fonts are missing". Put it in a hamburger-menu-option dialog and it's safely tucked away where only people who know what they are doing will get at it.

Aside from not having them clutter the list, the menu not having to generate preview thumbs for those fonts might be a performance boost.

Report · Jan 15, 2019

If the OS is dependent on a font, why in world would you want to try and hide it.
There are so many REAL issues with software, why pick on something like this.
But if you want to have a font not show up in a program, it would be nice to have a way to hide it not try to disable it.

Report · Jan 15, 2019

@dennis - When was the last time you needed "Wingdings" or "MS Reference Specialty" in your mockups?

Report · Jan 15, 2019

David,

Thanks again for your reply. I do not know what stories I could share but it seems like most people who have chimed in on this thread agree that it is frustrating having a list of fonts filed with fonts they never use. So I think it would be a good usability enhancement that makes dealing with fonts in Photoshop more pleasurable and productive.
You could also tell the bosses that there is a very good chance the Mac is ported to ARM processors and leaves Intel within the next 5 years. And when that happens MacOS could end up looking even more like iOS in terms in Apple locking down the operating system which means in-app font management might become even more necessary.
BTW I am very curious as to how font management will work on iOS. If you go from a file created on the Mac where you can install font files and open it on Photoshop for iOS where you can not install font files on an OS level.

Report · Jun 29, 2020

I beg to disagree strenuously, David. Hiding dozens of foreign language fonts that they will never use (and other fonts that they never use, but that the System needs) so that they do not massively clutter the font menu in CC apps would NOT be a feature "that wouldn't be useful to most users." Thanks.

Report · Oct 27, 2020

I totally agree with Adam (andmany others), it has been a big frustration for as long as i use Mac and Adobe applications (30+ years), to have all those unwanted, completely useless (to me) fonts in the fontlist of every program.
Why not have the option option when installing a new OS to specify for which language we want to have fonts available, so immediately preventing specific (e.g. chinese, arabic, hebrew) fonts from being installed.
Or, if that's such a problem, to completely disable and hide them. I don't see any reason why this can't be incorporated in the OS and/ore apps. So much is adaptable, personalizable, why not this?

Report · Oct 27, 2020

With the addition of the "Manage Fonts" panel in the Creative Cloud App, there should be a way to use that to flag non-adobe fonts as "hidden" from all Adobe apps, without having to disable or remove them systemwide.
Or tie into the "favorites" idea and have a "hidden" toggle in the font filters dropdown in PS.

Report · Nov 09, 2020

There are a number of compatibility issues if you skip installing the core foreign fonts for each OS. Now, true, you in particular might not have that as part of your workflow, but anyone who does will be DOA without the full set of OS fonts. Trust me, it's not like the OS manufacturers WANT to pay to give you fonts for free; they're needed for compatibility. Again, perhaps not your workflow...but then, so much "just works" cuz those fonts are already there...

The case to hide (specific writing system) fonts within PS is a different issue (and possibly do-able) and I'll mention at today's meeting, but that's different than choosing not to install them. Indeed, even choosing not to enumerate certain fonts would be a rather new direction...

Thanks,

David

Report · Nov 09, 2020

Hi David,

Thanks for your reply, I must admit, i have no idea of (technical) consquences and (im)possibilities of not installing certain fonts.

So probably the most realistic and doable option would be to be able to hide them in Photoshop and, in my case even more needed, Indesign.

Hope it'll possible some day!

Cheers, Mark

Report · Nov 10, 2020

Talking about removing fonts at a system level is going off course.

Adobe is not creating the OS and therefore has no control over it.

The discussion is wether or not Photoshop should allow users to hide certain fonts. I believe given the majority of the comments that most people agree with me.

When you are trying to do creative work and playing around with various type faces having all this crap in your way slows you down and breaks your concentration. As far as I'm concerned that's the end of the discussion.

It amazes me how stagnant Adobe is as a company. That something so useful for a user gets buried because of company politics.

Report · Apr 07, 2022

April 7, 2022. the issue is still unresolved.

The app should have a way to filter out fonts we will never use in photoshop. thank you photoshop for listing all the fonts that are installed, but please give us a way to remove fonts so we do not have to scroll past 100 foreign language fonts to get to the bottom of the list.

Although, you wonder why My Mac OS needs such fonts when I am using English. Even in Spanish or German mode those other fonts are there. Oh well.

It is annoying, but you deal with it.

Peace all.

Report · Oct 18, 2023

I'd like to voice my support for this feature. Having my fonts lost in a massive list of OS fonts has frustrated me for the last decade or so... it seems many people feel the same.

It's as simple as this:

In the Creative Cloud app, there's already a Manage Fonts section (great!).
In this section add a "hidden fonts" tab.
Display all system fonts in a list and allow the user to toggle certain fonts as hidden.
These fonts will now be hidden from the list in all Adobe apps. If a document is loaded which contains a hidden font, it will be displayed as normal - the fonts are hidden from the LIST ONLY, they NOT disabled.

It's really pretty trivial to see how beneficial this is. It's an opt-in feature, that will solve a massive headache and not affect any third party apps. Expecting us to mess with system fonts and potentially break simple web browsing is ridiculous.

Please please please implement this feature. 🙂

Report · Oct 18, 2023

I already have an app for that, I don't need them all in PS