Introduction

In Printer's Apprentice, a font group is simply a folder containing one or more fonts that can be can all be installed or uninstalled together as needed. Font groups allow you to swap batches of fonts in and out of Windows memory when you need to jump from project to project.

Font groups also allow you to organize your font collection in a manner that helps you locate your uninstalled fonts quickly.

For example, you might have your fonts organized by project or client. Before you start working on the documents for Sample Client that use these fonts, you would install the entire Sample Client font group. When you are finished working on that project, you would then uninstall the Sample Client font group.

Font Groups Location

By default, the Font Groups folder structure is located in a folder in your Application Data area. But Printer's Apprentice only shows the main folder itself in the Font Groups tab. Other folders from your hard drive are not displayed. The diagram below shows the relationship between the Font Groups list in Printer's Apprentice and its actual location on your hard drive.

c:\documents and settings\user name\Application Data\Printer's Apprentice\Font Groups

Fonts in the group folders are simply files in a folder. The fonts are not compressed into ZIP files and Printer's Apprentice does not maintain a database or track any information about the fonts. This allows you to manage the font groups inside Printer's Apprentice, with Windows Explorer or with any other file manager.

You can easily change the font groups location from the default to another drive or folder.

To change the location of the Font Groups folder

1. Click the Font Groups tab in the main Printer's Apprentice window.
2. Select Options from the Tools menu.
3. Click the Font Files tab.
4. Click the Select Folder button.
5. Use the Browse For Folder dialog box to select the new location for your font groups.
6. Click the OK button to save your changes and return to Printer's Apprentice.
7. The Font Groups tree will be refreshed to select the new location.

Creating Font Groups

To create a new font group

1. In the Font Groups tab, right click the top Group node in the tree view.
    
   
2. On the popup menu, select New Font Group.
3. A "New Group" node will be added to the Groups tree. Rename the group as desired and press the enter key. Your new font group is now ready for new fonts!

Adding Fonts To a Group

Fonts can be added to a group from any of the three font location tabs - Installed Fonts, Font Files and Font Groups.

To add fonts to a group, select one or more fonts and click Copy to Font Group on the Toolbar. You can also right click the fonts and select Copy to Font Group from the popup menu.

For the purpose of this section of the documentation, we will use the "Copy" function. The "Move to Font Group" fuunction uses the same dialog box to select a destination font group. But the font files are moved from their original location to the selected Font Group rather than copied.

The Copy to Font Group dialog box is then displayed. The font files to Copy are on the left side of the screen. The destination font group is on the right. Select a font group and click the "Copy Fonts" button. Printer's Apprentice displays a progress bar as the fonts are copied from the source folder into the font group folder.

Now remember, font groups are simply a set of folders in a given location on your hard drive. For example, you decide to copy four font files from c:\temp to the "Dingbats" group. If you wanted to see the font groups in Windows, you would use Explorer to navigate to c:\documents and settings\username\application data\Printer's Apprentice\Font Groups. Then open the "Dingbats" folder. You can also use the Explore Font Groups Folder item on the Options menu to quickly open this folder.

Removing Fonts From a Group

To delete a font from a group, right click it and select Delete from the popup menu. You can also use the Move the font to another font group or folder. Deleting the file using Windows Explorer will also remove the font from the group.

Installing and Uninstalling Font Groups

Font groups make it easy to install and uninstall batches of fonts as you move from project to project (or your taste in fonts change!).

To install a font group

1. In the Font Groups tab, right click any font in the group and click Install All Fonts In Font Group.
2. The Install Font Group dialog will open. Click the Install Fonts button.
3. A confirmation message will show you how many fonts from the group were installed. And the icons for the fonts in the group will change to the Windows flag to show that they are installed. And if you click over to the Installed Fonts tab, the fonts from the group will be listed there.

When fonts are installed from a group, they are added to the Windows Registry and automatically copied from the Groups folder on your hard drive to the c:\windows\fonts folder.

To uninstall a font group

1. In the Font Groups tab, right click any font in the group and click Uninstall All Fonts In Font Group.
2. The Uninstall Font Group dialog will open. Click the Uninstall Fonts button.
3. A confirmation message will show you how many fonts from the group were uninstalled. And the icons for the fonts in the group will change to the appropriate font icon to show that they are uninstalled. And if you click over to the Installed Fonts tab, the fonts from the group will no longer be listed.

When fonts are uninstalled from a group, they are removed from the Windows Registry and deleted from the c:\windows\fonts folder. The original font is still located in your Font Groups folder.

How Do Font Groups Work?

As mentioned above, font groups are simply folders containing uncompressed font files in a set directory on your hard drive. There is no database or other mechanism that will get in the way of using Windows or other file management utilities to move font files around.

When fonts from a group are installed, they are copied to the system font folder (c:\windows\fonts), written to the Registry and added to Windows memory with an AddFontResource() call. The original font files remain in your Font Groups folder hierarchy.

When you uninstall fonts from a group, Printer's Apprentice deletes the files from c:\windows\fonts, removes the Registry entry and issues a RemoveFontResource() call. The original font files are still in your Font Groups folder hierarchy.