NOTO font family is driving me INSANE!

Kurt Lang wrote:

Without even the slightest doubt, it's a bug. And it's Apple's apps that aren't working the way they should. Using Pages again as an example (latest version), the drop down list doesn't show Noto Sans at all.

But if you open the fonts palette, you suddenly see a bunch of them.

Pages only shows fonts in the fancy menu that are appropriate for your language. If you choose "Show Fonts", then you can see all fonts available on the system, including those for other languages. You can click on the "English" Smart Collection to see the fonts available in English. If your system is running a different language, you will have a different default language smart collection.

Of these, a few have 9 faces (light, medium, etc.) for a total of 32. Which is still well short of the number of Noto Sans fonts that are active.

Those fonts listed in Font book and in the Font display are the only fonts that are active. Apple provides many other fonts for compatibility, but they are not listed in any system font lists. I don't have Adobe apps so I don't know what they are showing. Microsoft Word shows many more Noto fonts, but this is incorrect. Word should not be showing those fonts.

Here is an Apple support document describing how these different font sets work: Fonts included with macOS Catalina - Apple Support

It's pretty clear Apple's apps stink when the drop down menu and font palette of the same app can't even agree what's open.

As far as I can tell, Apple's apps are the only ones doing it correctly.

This is also nothing new with fonts installed by the OS. Athelas.ttc, Iowan Old Style.ttc, Marion.ttc, Seravek.ttc and SuperClarendon.ttc still appear everywhere – except in Apple's own products. Office, Adobe, you name it. Any third party app displays these active fonts. But you cannot find them in any app written by Apple. Not Font Book, Pages, or anything else.

Because Apple's products are the only ones doing it correctly.

There is only one fix for this. Copy these same fonts from (specifically) Yosemite and replace the versions installed by any later version of macOS. Then they show everywhere, as they should.

That's a hack, not a fix. I thought people were upset because they were seeing all these new fonts. I don't see how adding even more fonts would be a fix for that.

Deal with what? That their apps are working correctly?! An active font should be available in every app. Period. There's no wiggle room here, or the slightest reason to throw the blame anywhere other than where it belongs. And that's Apple's crummy apps.

Apple seems to see things differently. Some fonts are designed specifically for Asian languages that have much different character sets than English. There is no point in making them available for English. I happen to agree with Apple.

I've been paying attention to fonts far more closely than most other people I know. I work with them for a living.

Do you work with Asian languages? I still can't tell if you are upset because the fonts are available or because they aren't. Do you want Apple to just strip all of the language metadata from the fonts so they show up in Apple apps too? Or do you want Apple to start ignoring language metadata in its apps so that Apple apps behave like 3rd party apps? Or do you just want Apple to stop shipping a multi-lingual operating system? So you want macOS to be like Windows where users have to download "language packs" if they speak one of those "weird" languages?

And no, it's far from sudden. Apple has not displayed active fonts correctly since El Capitan, and it's still not fixed. Why not? See my response to MrHoffman.

I just checked in my VMs and I didn't see any difference going back to Mavericks. I don't have 3rd party apps on those VMs to see how they behave. But Apple definitely shipped language-specific fonts in Mavericks. The first font, Al Banyan, is an Arabic font. It doesn't show up in TextEdit by default. I don't see any change in El Capitan.

And I mean incorrectly specifically for Apple's own products. Third party apps are not affected by Apple's own poorly written apps.

You have opinions. I have repeatable, verifiable facts.

I think you've got that reversed.

James Ballard wrote:

There are like 65+ noto fonts to scroll through to get past them in Adobe Indesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc...

Apple has already done that. You will need to contact Adobe and request that they stop displaying non-English fonts. This is trivially easy to do.

That was a boatload of nonsense. I can't imagine why you spent the time writing any of it.

If you choose "Show Fonts", then you can see all fonts available on the system, including those for other languages.

If you choose All Fonts, it still doesn't show you all fonts. Does that sound like something that's working to you?

That's a hack, not a fix. I thought people were upset because they were seeing all these new fonts. I don't see how adding even more fonts would be a fix for that.

You're not adding them, you're replacing them with versions that work as they're supposed to. I reported this several times on Apple's bug reporting site. They finally fixed it in a beta release of Sierra. That held in the official release and in version 10.12.1. In version 10.12.2, they went missing again and have been absent in all - and only - Apple's products since then. But yes, please tell me again this isn't a problem in the OS.

Because Apple's products are the only ones doing it correctly.

That's beyond insane to make such a statement. Try this. You get a contract to build multiple flyers for a large company. They need it in 20 languages:

1. You beat your head against a wall trying to do this in Pages, where no matter what you do, you cannot get it to show you fonts you must use to complete the project you've been hired for. You're also too stupid or lazy to purchase an app that works as expected. You eventually lose the contract because it's impossible for you to meet any kind of deadline. The company sends it someone who can actually do the work.
2. You use InDesign and have no trouble at all building the project.

Which one is not working correctly? 1 or 2?

Do you work with Asian languages?

I work with all kinds of languages in the documents I receive. They also all work because both I and my clients use apps that work.

I think you've got that reversed.

You really, really need to stop pretending Apple is infallible.

Sorry, still not a bug. Affinity Photo does exactly the same thing, as will any other app that correctly displays any active font. I had to take two screen shots to get all of them.

Office 365? Pages? The Adobe CC 2020 suite? Yes, they all show the same very long list of Noto Sans fonts for the same reason. I see Quark XPress 2018 only shows some of them. But it's also not really designed for Catalina.

The real problem here is Apple moved all of the fonts that used to be in the /Library/Fonts/ folder to /System/Library/Fonts/Supplemental/. In the previous location, you could disable any fonts in that folder. But Apple made no attempt to alter how fonts work in the System folder. Per usual, you can't disable any fonts in that location with any font manager. And now that all of these non-critical fonts are also in the System folder, you can't disable those, either.

The only current fix anyone can do without relying on a fix from a vendor such as Adobe, or third party app that can hide active fonts, as etresoft mentioned, is to remove them from the drive.

Kurt Lang wrote:

Sorry, still not a bug. Affinity Photo does exactly the same thing, as will any other app that correctly displays any active font. I had to take two screen shots to get all of them.

Whether this is a feature request or a bug is certainly debatable, though what's here is pretty clearly working as designed.

And I'd expect Apple will push this display decision onto the application developers, who better know which fonts their particular app users will be interested in.

Which means Adobe gets to deal with this. Or this means swapping to another app vendor that is more responsive to requests.

And I'd expect that Apple won't be unlocking system-installed fonts for delete access. Not easily.

Below images from Mojave, Pages version 10.0 (6748), first showing Noto all fonts, and then showing English fonts...

Whether this is a feature request or a bug is certainly debatable, though what's here is pretty clearly working as designed.

Without even the slightest doubt, it's a bug. And it's Apple's apps that aren't working the way they should. Using Pages again as an example (latest version), the drop down list doesn't show Noto Sans at all.

But if you open the fonts palette, you suddenly see a bunch of them.

Of these, a few have 9 faces (light, medium, etc.) for a total of 32. Which is still well short of the number of Noto Sans fonts that are active.

It's pretty clear Apple's apps stink when the drop down menu and font palette of the same app can't even agree what's open.

This is also nothing new with fonts installed by the OS. Athelas.ttc, Iowan Old Style.ttc, Marion.ttc, Seravek.ttc and SuperClarendon.ttc still appear everywhere – except in Apple's own products. Office, Adobe, you name it. Any third party app displays these active fonts. But you cannot find them in any app written by Apple. Not Font Book, Pages, or anything else. There is only one fix for this. Copy these same fonts from (specifically) Yosemite and replace the versions installed by any later version of macOS. Then they show everywhere, as they should.

Which means Adobe gets to deal with this.

Deal with what? That their apps are working correctly?! An active font should be available in every app. Period. There's no wiggle room here, or the slightest reason to throw the blame anywhere other than where it belongs. And that's Apple's crummy apps.

James Ballard wrote:

I was with adobe for over an hour and a half with one of their techs. He had access to my computer and was not able to fix the situation as the fonts are in that Supplemental folder that cannot be deleted, or moved. He was super thorough but wound up telling me to talk with apple.

Adobe phone techs will not be able to fix this. And they certainly can't fix it on your computer. The only way to fix it is on Adobe's computers.

( Before I posted here, my google searching showed where others got this runaround as well - Got to apple - go to adobe - go to apple... sigh... )

This is an adobe bug - end of story. When I first found out that this was such a big problem for people, I wrote a little app to list installed fonts and then filter them by language. It took all of 5 minutes. It is just drop-dead, fall-of-a-log easy.

I'm sorry you have gotten the runaround, but that is what big companies do when they don't want to deal with a problem. These days, companies often use bugs as a way to keep people signed up for subscriptions. If they don't stay up-to-date on everything, the software stops working. So, if you choose to update the operating system, you should expect to have to update all of your 3rd party software too. Sorry.

This is an adobe bug - end of story.

No, it's not a bug. There really are an enormous number of NotoSans fonts in Catalina. Adobe's apps are doing nothing but what they're supposed - listing active fonts.

Curious about the app you wrote. I assume you mean you can tell the system to hide fonts you select, even though they're still actually active?

Kurt Lang wrote:

No, it's not a bug. There really are an enormous number of NotoSans fonts in Catalina. Adobe's apps are doing nothing but what they're supposed - listing active fonts.

Perhaps it is a case of Adobe doing the very minimum then. There are lots of fonts. Each one has metadata. Ignore the metadata and list the fonts. Apple has a basic font picker that defaults to English fonts (or whatever your language is). Some apps want something a little more fancy, perhaps listing each font it its own typeface. There is nothing wrong with that. Pages does that. But Pages also omits those Noto fonts. Why can’t Adobe do that too?

Curious about the app you wrote. I assume you mean you can tell the system to hide fonts you select, even though they're still actually active?

If I’m not using that built-in font panel, I can tell the system to do whatever I want, according to any criteria I want. If my customers were vehemently opposed to Comic Sans, then I could omit that font even if it was installed and active. There is language metadata attached to each font. It is easy to determine what the system language is. Put those two together, and voila! If I can do it 5 minutes surely Adobe can do it in a year.

Office 365? Pages? The Adobe CC 2020 suite? Yes, they all show the same very long list of Noto Sans fonts for the same reason.

My Pages doesn't show any of the Noto fonts. If I open the Font panel, I can get to them, but the app does not show any Noto (or any non-english) font in the Font picker in the formatting pane. But, yes, Word 2019 does show them all along with their compendium of useless fonts.

Well, that seems new! The last time I looked (it was a while ago) Pages showed everything. Now? Not a single Noto Sans font.

It also doesn't show Kokonor, Malayalam MN, or anything else the user on a Mac defined with English chosen as the main language.

Seems Apple has intentionally blocked the view of any font it thinks an English user wouldn't supposedly care about. But, um, what if Pages is the only word processor / page layout app you use, and you need access to those fonts for a project you're building? Too bad? That is very simply a stupid decision by Apple's engineers. I realize Pages is not, even slightly, a professional app in this category. It is free, after all. But how did Apple come to decide which fonts millions of users would, or wouldn't want access to? Yet another reason I will not use Pages, Numbers or Keynote.

But, um, what if Pages is the only word processor / page layout app you use, and you need access to those fonts for a project you're building?

As I noted, you can still access them from the "Show Fonts" panel.

Kurt Lang wrote:

Office 365? Pages? The Adobe CC 2020 suite? Yes, they all show the same very long list of Noto Sans fonts for the same reason. I see Quark XPress 2018 only shows some of them.

It's not 1992 anymore. There just aren't that many native Mac apps left. Office, Adobe, Affinity, etc. are all cross-platform apps. They just aren't going to bother. I have a few apps that are native, but they rarely, if ever, get updated. The Mac market is pretty much a wasteland these days. And yet, it is far bigger than it was in 1992, when there were quite a number of viable 3rd party apps.

Seems Apple has intentionally blocked the view of any font it thinks an English user wouldn't supposedly care about. But, um, what if Pages is the only word processor / page layout app you use, and you need access to those fonts for a project you're building? Too bad? That is very simply a stupid decision by Apple's engineers. I realize Pages is not, even slightly, a professional app in this category. It is free, after all. But how did Apple come to decide which fonts millions of users would, or wouldn't want access to? Yet another reason I will not use Pages, Numbers or Keynote.

Damned if they do and damned if they don't, eh? These fonts aren't disabled or inaccessible in Pages. They just aren't listed in the fancy pull-down menu. Apple's own font panel, which is accessible in Pages under Format > Font > Show Fonts, still has them. That panel also has font collections that users can add these, or other fonts, to. Unfortunately, none of those other apps support font collections.

And it's not like Apple made any change here. Apple has supported language metadata on fonts, and has shipped non-English fonts as far back as 10.9, it not before. That's just the oldest VM that I have handy. This is a feature that has existed for at least 7 years, if not 10. And now all of the sudden, Apple broke it? By doing not one thing differently than they have done for years? Give me a break!

And now all of the sudden, Apple broke it? By doing not one thing differently than they have done for years?

I've been paying attention to fonts far more closely than most other people I know. I work with them for a living.

And no, it's far from sudden. Apple has not displayed active fonts correctly since El Capitan, and it's still not fixed. Why not? See my response to MrHoffman.

And I mean incorrectly specifically for Apple's own products. Third party apps are not affected by Apple's own poorly written apps.

You have opinions. I have repeatable, verifiable facts.