Too many fonts

[Stan Brown]

In all my programs, when I select a font there is a huge drop-down
list, because there are 250 fonts installed in Windows 7. I
understand that's a lot less than most people have, but it still
makes a long list to scroll through when I don't use more than a
dozen of them.

I opened Fonts in Control Panel, and I thought "Hide" would be just
the thing. /Windows 7 Inside Out/ says "Hidden fonts don't appear in
application font lists". But after I hide a font, close the Fonts
folder, and then open a program, that font is still listed in the
drop-down list.

I don't want to flat-out uninstall the fonts I don't use, because I
might want to use them one day. Indeed, I remember that in Windows
XP some fonts *couldn't* be uninstalled, like "Che Dotum".

How do y'all manage the embarras de richesses that is Windows 7
fonts?

 

[Nil]

I opened Fonts in Control Panel, and I thought "Hide" would be just
the thing. /Windows 7 Inside Out/ says "Hidden fonts don't appear in
application font lists". But after I hide a font, close the Fonts
folder, and then open a program, that font is still listed in the
drop-down list.

Whether or not the fonts would be shown in the choice list would be
controlled by the application, not by Windows itself. I suppose some
newer programs might be "Windows 7 compliant" in that way, but your
unnamed program must not be one of them.

I don't want to flat-out uninstall the fonts I don't use, because I
might want to use them one day. Indeed, I remember that in Windows
XP some fonts *couldn't* be uninstalled, like "Che Dotum".

I don't have a font by that name on my XP boxes.

How do y'all manage the embarras de richesses that is Windows 7
fonts?

On my XP machines I just move my least-used fonts to another folder and
reinstall them if I need them. I use a free font manager program that
allows me to browse through them and see samples. I can't remember its
name right now. There are commercial equivalents out there that
probably have more features. I haven't bothered to do any of this on my
Vista or Win 7 machines yet.

 

[Stan Brown]

Whether or not the fonts would be shown in the choice list would be
controlled by the application, not by Windows itself. I suppose some
newer programs might be "Windows 7 compliant" in that way, but your
unnamed program must not be one of them.

I tested with Microsoft Word 2010.

 

[KCB]

I tested with Microsoft Word 2010.

Did you reboot after you hid your fonts? Or maybe logging off then back on.
I'm thinking they're already in memory after Windows starts?

 

[Stan Brown]

Did you reboot after you hid your fonts? Or maybe logging off then back on.
I'm thinking they're already in memory after Windows starts?

I didn't, but I suppose I can try that. But it seems like if it were
necessary, a message should pop up, "These changes will take effect
after you restart Windows".

 

[Stan Brown]

Whether or not the fonts would be shown in the choice list would be
controlled by the application, not by Windows itself. I suppose some
newer programs might be "Windows 7 compliant" in that way, but your
unnamed program must not be one of them.

In Control Panel » Fonts » Font Settings, I put a check mark for
"Hide fonts based on language settings". The text immediately above
that box says

"Windows can hide fonts that are not designed for your input language
settings. If you choose this option, only fonts that are designed for
your language settings will be listed in your programs."

So I check it and click OK. Open Microsoft Word 2010. Click the
font drop-down list. Damn! Still all the dozens of useless Asian
fonts. (Useless to my English Windows, I mean.)

Someone suggested rebooting, so I did. And Word still shows those
useless fonts.

It's bad enough that they're on my system and undeletable. It's
*really* ridiculous that Windows' own "hide fonts" doesn't work.