Delete or hide Noto and other unnecessary fonts. Big Sur

Hi Luis.

Ta, but na.

I am in the design business. Controlling fonts and their conflicts has been and continues to be not only important to the design process but can also be professional duty of care. It is something we are very practised at and have been doing for decades. Having exactly the right cut of a font is something most do not care about but is fundamental to specific parts of our industry.

I have 20,000 typefaces. Synchronised across the network that don't live in the system folder.

Beautifully managed using the sensational program "Typeface".

Fontbook to Typeface is a bi-plane to jet fighter comparison.

"The system is mounted read only so you can’t just delete fonts that are included" is exactly the point. The excess fonts should not be in there. Are we meant to believe that apple OS Big Sur is going to use a hundred variations of Noto? Come on Apple. Really? Get em out of there so we can optimise our tool around the design elements we need.

I get it that you might be able to make sets in Fontbook to manage the display a bit better, but it's a substandard, laborious option compared to genuine font management.

And to your point about not deleting fonts from the system. Been doing that for years.

Thanks. Doing that too.

Have read quite a few responses by programers saying how easy it is to implement but I can't help the feeling that each one will do it slightly differently and they might not be provide the utility proper font management provides. So then we will end up with multiple overlapping methods – ugly, more complicated.

But really, it shouldn't be necessary to do it program by program. This is a system level setting design professionals need.

Back to basics.

Dear Apple, let me turn Noto off!

You seem to agree that the OS doesn't need a hundred variations of Noto. Just loaded by apps when it's called. Great I don't want it called. So Apple? Let's be allowed to turn them off or remove them.

Regarding it being up to individual programs. What's easier?

Ask very developer to upgrade their programs or Apple allows us to delete fonts we don't need like we have been able to do for 20 years?

"The OS doesn’t load them unless needed. That’s what your apps should be doing."

My apps ARE doing this, its just that I do it in one place and its called "Typeface" a dedicated font manager.

Small installed set of system fonts, plus small select sets of fonts browsed and controlled from a massive archive (2 gig 24,282 items) residing outside the System folder.

Font management is a system wide control we have been using to deal with complex font issues since the days of Pagemaker. And now this stupid long list of Noto fonts that takes four scrolls of the mouse wheel to get past. (That's just one font family by the way, there are others) I need them controllable.

I group font selections by client.

That crosses multiple programs and skillsets. Doing it program by program would be very underwhelming.

You have you way, I have mine but I would support both options being implemented so folk could choose to suit how they work.

Second Solution

Typeface font manager.

Typeface doesn’t show them, because macOS, understandably, doesn’t provide them. You can deactivate them in Typeface, but you’ll have to import them manually:

1. Open Typeface

2. Choose File > Import…

3. Navigate to /System/Library/Fonts/Supplemental

4. Import the ’Supplemental’ folder

Deactivate away.

That folder contains optional system fonts, which can be deactivated by Typeface. It includes the ‘document support’ Noto fonts.

Update.

Rightfont seems to allow you to disable most of the Noto families even using the trial software.

https://rightfontapp.com

Good going guys.

Sending love and a subscription.