In the midst of the busiest working month in GPS history, I wanted to take a break and showcase a little tip I just discovered a few minutes ago.

I use OSX’s default Font Book app for font installation and management, two things it does pretty simply and functionally.

However, one thing that always bugged me was how by default, it would install the font only for the user. Now, I dunno about you, but fonts aren’t one of those things I feel the need to keep private from other users of this computer (of whom there are none, anyway). Worse, certain programs (like Adobe Flash, for example), that don’t recognize fonts installed for the user only.

Well, turns out there’s a simple solution to that problem. Just go to the menu bar, hit “Font Book” > Preferences, and change the Default Install Location from “User” to “Computer.”

Now whenever you install a new font, it’ll be available for everyone!

Transfer All User Fonts to the Computer

Now that you’ve done that, if you had scads of fonts installed in your User directory and wanted them transferred to the Computer, you gotta do an extra step. Right click on a font in your User list, and click “Reveal in Finder”

This will take you to your User font directory, which can also be found in /Users/[username]/Library/fonts

Now move all the fonts inside that folder into another location (move them, not copy), subsequently emptying your User font list.

Once you’ve done this you can check in Font Book to see that the User list is indeed empty.

After that, in Font Book right click on the Computer icon, and hit “Add Fonts…”

You can then select all the fonts or simply select the folder containing all those fonts!

From now on all your fonts should be accessible by everyone and every app!

Bonus Tip: Bookmark Your New Fonts

If you’re at all like me you will download a font online because it looks cool, even though you had no immediate use for it. Meanwhile, by the time you do, you’ll have forgotten the name of the new font and lose it among the hundreds you’d already installed. What to do?

When you install a font in the Font Book, immediately drag it into a font collection called New. To create that, just right click on the Collection Pane and hit “New Collection.” You can then drag the new fonts in there for you to see next time you’re font hunting.

This is great for people like me who can’t be bothered to do a full organizational overhaul of their fonts, but want to keep their arsenal fresh.

And now, I gotta get back to work!