Having zero built-in font organization in CS is akin to using Premiere Pro without bins or Photoshop without layers. In other words, it's a mess! I've seen other posts suggesting ways to organize fonts, yet none that I felt present a complete solution. With that said, here is my suggested solution to the current lack of font organization in CS:
Font Folders
Features:
- Ability to create collapsible (i.e. 'twirlable') Font Folders at the top of each CS program's Font List.
- Ability to add (drag-drop)/remove/reorder/rename fonts within these folders, and add the same fonts to several folders.
- Four permanent 'Master' Font Folders at the top of each CS program's font list:
- 'Program Name Fonts' (e.g. 'Photoshop Fonts')
- 'CS Fonts'
- 'Program Name Projects' (e.g. 'Premiere Pro Projects')
- 'Font List'
- 'Program Name Fonts' would be Font Folders that only appear in the respective program in which they were created. Thus, a 'Wedding Videos' Font Folder created in Premiere Pro would only appear in that program.
- 'CS Fonts' would be Font Folders that automatically appear in every other CS program. Thus, a 'Favorites' Font Folder created in Photoshop would automatically appear in Illustrator, AE, PP and other relevant CS programs. Any eventual changes made to this folder, in any CS program, would automatically appear in every other CS program.
- 'Program Name Projects' would be automatically created Font Folders to keep track of the fonts used in previous projects. Thus, should a video editor want to reuse the same 10 fonts that were used in a project from a year ago, referencing those fonts would be as simple as opening the respective Font Folder. For greater organization, Project folders should automatically be categorized into root folders by year, and allow the same renaming/deleting/reordering as the other two types of Font Folders.
- 'Font List': putting all installed fonts into their own collapsible folder would allow users to twirl this folder closed when they only want to focus on fonts within other Font Folder categories.
- Right-clicking on any Master Font Folder or Font (Sub-)Folder could give users contextual menu options to export/import the Font Folder structure and/or the fonts within them. This would make sharing fonts and/or Font Folders between users and between computer systems quick and easy.
- These contextual menus should also give users the option to 'Sort Alphabetically'.
- Right-clicking on the 'Font List' folder could give users different display options:
- Display all installed fonts
- Display uncategorized fonts (only shows fonts that have not been manually added to a Font Folder by user)
- Diplay unused fonts (only shows fonts that have not been used, i.e. do not appear in the 'Program Name Projects' Font Folders.
- By default, Adobe could populate the 'CS Fonts' folder with standard categories, such as 'Serif', 'Sans Serif', 'Fixed width', etc, to organize its default CS fonts.
- Every font folder should contain a preview of each font, just like fonts in Photoshop's Font List do. For maximum usefulness, the default characters 'Sample' should automatically be replaced by the first 1-30 user-selected characters within the program's interface. Thus, should a Premiere Pro user want to compare how the title 'Jenny+Edward' looks in all 20 fonts in his/her 'Wedding Videos' Font Folder, doing so would be as simple and instantaneous as selecting the text in the Titler, and twirling open the 'Wedding Videos' Font Folder!
- A horizontal resize bar at the top of each CS program's Font List (just like the bar at the bottom of Premiere Pro's Project Window) would allow users to resize font names and font previews within all 4 Font Folders. This would ensure a perfect viewing size for all users, on all resolution monitors.
Why should editors have to scroll through a list of 100, 300, or 500+ installed fonts that are completely inappropriate for a certain title, every time they want to locate and compare the 5-10 fonts that are well suited? Allowing this kind of intuitive, built-in font organization, with a simple drag & drop interface, would be a God-send and set Adobe apart as the first software company to address font management in this way!
Comments? Ideas? Missing features? Please share!
ps. My 'Project Name Fonts' idea may be harder to program by virtue of requiring automation. This feature could therefore be released in a subsequent version, should its omission allow for the sooner release of the other features I suggest. Thank you.