Shorten the font list in FrameMaker

After the installation of Windows 7 (or another version), MS Office¹ You can't escape MS Office for your administrative work, such as writing letters or monitor your income with a spread sheet … and FrameMaker (any version) you have a huge list of fonts in the Format > Fonts display, but also in the font list of the Paragraph Designer or the Character Designer.

Format > Fonts (screen shot from a 24" screen)	Character Designer (watch the scroll bar)

It becomes quite difficult – at least annoying – to scroll to a desired font. IMHO the user wants to have listed 'her or his' relevant fonts. Very often a real font management² I use FontExpert from ProximaSoftware.com, but this may be overkill for You. is necessary to activate and deactivate company specific or client specific fonts only if needed.

Solutions to the problem of a to long font list

Hide fonts in the Windows font directory
Delete fonts from the Windows font directory
Hide the fonts in the FrameMaker fonts directory
Group fonts into families
Map (currently) unwanted fonts to a "waste bin"

Hide fonts in the Windows font directory

Applications written for Windows 7 may observe the 'hidden font' attribute – but I have not found one that really does. FrameMaker version 10 does not honour this flag, if there really exists such a flag on the font file. In the Control Panel > Fonts the display distinguishes three cases:

Aparajita is hidden, hence light gray. Arial is a font group. Double click on it to see alll the font variants, like in the picture to the right for the font family Bodoni MT. Arial Rounded MT Bold is a single font. Double clicking on it opens the font viewer.

So this is not a real solution for the FrameMaker user, but the following options are available.

Delete fonts from the Windows font directory

Of course this method affects all applications, not just FrameMaker.

You should not really delete the fonts, but move them into a safe place from where you can retrieve them later.

While in Windows up to XP you just go into an admin account to move the fonts, in Windows 7 you need to apply this right to every font you want to move … Fortunately a good soul has created a batch file to be run in an admin account: support-ing-net (scroll down to find _2mf-1.2.zip). You may need to adapt the script file for your requirements.

Hide the fonts in the FrameMaker fonts directory

If you do not need all the asian fonts in $HOME/fminit/fonts/Adobe you may rename this directory, for example to !_Adobe and place a note in a text file to explain this. A side effect is that FrameMaker loads a little bit faster.

Group fonts into families

Some of the font families are recognised by FrameMaker automatically and presented in the Fonts dialogues of Paragraph Designer and Character Designer with the family name and attributes for angle, weight and variation. Other families are not recognised automatically and hence must be grouped in the maker.ini file:

Neither Franklin Gothic nore Gill Sans (and others) have been recognised as a family by FrameMaker automatically.
Grouping these fonts in maker.ini at the end of section [WindowsToFrameFontAliases]	Franklin Gothic Book = Franklin Gothic, Regular, Regular, Regular Franklin Gothic Demi = Franklin Gothic, Regular, SemiBold, Regular Franklin Gothic Demi Cond = Franklin Gothic, Regular, SemiBold, Condensed Franklin Gothic Heavy = Franklin Gothic, Regular, Heavy, Regular Franklin Gothic Medium Cond= Franklin Gothic, Regular, SemiBold, Condensed Gill Sans MT Regular = Gill Sans MT, Regular, Regular, Regular Gill Sans MT Italic = Gill Sans MT, Italic, Regular, Regular Gill Sans MT Bold = Gill Sans MT, Regular, Bold, Regular Gill Sans MT Bold Italic = Gill Sans MT, Italic, Bold, Regular Gill Sans MT Condensed = Gill Sans MT, Regular, Regular, Condensed Gill Sans MT Ext Condensed Bold = Gill Sans MT, Regular, Bold, ExtraCompressed Gill Sans Ultra Bold = Gill Sans, Regular, Heavy, Regular Gill Sans Ultra Bold Condensed= Gill Sans, Regular, Heavy, Condensed
Display in the Character Designer after grouping

Map (currently) unwanted fonts to a "waste bin"

You will have a number of fonts installed which you currently (or for a period of time) do not want to see in your list. But they must not be removed from the system, just be out of the way.

In maker.ini you can map them all to the same 'waste-bin-font' with a name sorting at the end of the list: for example, zz-orcus: Agency FB, *, * = zz-orcus, *, *, * Aparajita, *, * = zz-orcus, *, *, * Batang, *, * = zz-orcus, *, *, * BatangChe, *, * = zz-orcus, *, *, * Goudy Old Style, *, * = zz-orcus, *, *, * Goudy Stout, *, * = zz-orcus, *, *, *