OS X Mountain Lion Bible

Summary

OS X supports five font file formats: PostScript Type 1, PostScript Multiple Master, TrueType, OpenType, and dfont. TrueType and OpenType are the modern typographic standards, while the two PostScript formats are being phased out. The dfont format is internal to Mac OS X for use in menus and other user interface elements, so you cannot buy fonts in that format.

Fonts can be stored in any of several locations, with /username/Library/Fonts used for fonts available only to a specific user, /Library/Fonts for fonts available for all users, and /System/Library/Fonts for system-required fonts.

The Font Book application lets you both install and manage fonts, such as detecting and resolving duplicate fonts, detecting corrupt font files, and creating groups of fonts for easy activation and deactivation. Some groups, called collections, are available to other applications such as TextEdit and iWork Pages to give users easily navigated font sets. Font Book also lets you preview fonts, plus it can auto-activate fonts that aren't enabled but needed by a document.

You can buy font managers to use instead of Font Book, which makes sense if you are managing fonts across a workgroup of users or if you need some of their specialized capabilities such as font repair.

To use the special characters, called glyphs, in fonts, you can use several methods, including keyboard shortcuts, the Keyboard Viewer and Character Viewer utilities that come with OS X, or a separately purchased utility such ...