Articles in this section

Document Tracking

Avatar
Jeff
  • Updated

You can add documents to the Connect Fonts desktop app, and we’ll keep track of the fonts used in each document.

The advantages to using this feature include:

  • You can open a tracked document directly from within the desktop app, and Connect Fonts will automatically activate the fonts used in the document.

  • You can use the desktop app to collect all the resources used in a document, including fonts, linked images, and other linked documents.

  • You can locate a tracked document by searching text (document file names, fonts used, and document keywords) from within the Connect Fonts desktop app.

 

Start tracking

To start tracking a document, drag it to the Document Tracking section of the desktop app sidebar.

You can drag multiple documents at once, and you can even drag a folder full of any supported documents.

You can also drag a folder with documents and fonts to any of your libraries or sets; the fonts will be added to the target, and the documents will be added to the appropriate tracking section.

 

Documents that you can track

The Connect Fonts desktop app can track the following documents and templates:

  • Adobe After Effects

    • .AEP- After Effects project

    • .AET- After Effects project template

  • Adobe Illustrator

    • .AI- Illustrator document

    • .AIT- Illustrator template

    • .PDF- Portable Document Format (created in any application)

    • .EPS- Encapsulated PostScript file (created in any application)

  • Adobe InCopy

    • .ICML- InCopy document

    • .ICMT- InCopy template

    • .INCX- InCopy exchange file

  • Adobe InDesign

    • .INDD- InDesign document

    • .INDT- InDesign template

  • Adobe Photoshop

    • .PSD- Photoshop file

    • .PSB- Photoshop Large Document file

  • Affinity Designer

    • .AFDESIGN- Affinity Designer document

  • Affinity Photo

    • .AFPHOTO- Affinity Photo document

  • Affinity Publisher

    • .AFPUB- Affinity Publisher document

  • Sketch

    • .SKETCH- Sketch drawing

 

Removing a document from tracking

To stop tracking a document, select it in the list and press ⌫ or ⌦, or choose Edit > Delete.

NOTE: If you open and re-save a document of a type which is automatically tracked, it will again appear in the tracking list.

 

Document details

Applications with tracked documents are listed in the desktop app sidebar. The number of tracked documents is shown to the right of each application name.

To see the tracked documents for an application, click the application in the sidebar. (Adobe InCopy and InDesign documents are in the same group.)

The main window displays documents as thumbnails, or as a list. Use the View button at the bottom to switch between thumbnail and list view.

You can sort documents in ascending or descending order, by Name,Type, or Modification Date. Use the controls below the toolbar, above the documents.

Click the Info   icon for a document to see the document’s Information pane.

This pane consists of a Font Usage tab and a Document Info tab.

 

The Font Usage tab lists the fonts used in the document. Each font entry includes:

  • Activation state (use this to activate or deactivate the font manually);

  • Favorite state (use this to set or remove the font from your Favorites);

  • The font’s Format, Version, Foundry, and Font Sense ID;

  • A sample of the font, using the Preview text.

 

The Document Info tab shows a thumbnail of the document (if one is saved by the application), and this additional information:

  • The file’s name;

  • The file type;

  • The application that saved the file;

  • The creation and modification timestamps for the file;

  • The full path to the file;

  • The number of fonts used in the document;

  • Tags (see Document tags further down in this article).

TIP: By default, InDesign saves a medium (256×256 pixels) thumbnail. You can change this in theFile Handling section of InDesign’s Preferences dialog.

Options include how many pages to show in the preview, and what size the preview image should be.

We recommend setting these options to show the first page (or first 2 pages), with an extra large preview (1024×1024 pixels).

In order to apply these settings, you will need to open and re-save your documents.

 

Automatic tracking

Instead of adding documents manually, you can have the Connect Fonts desktop app automatically track documents created in an application that has an auto-activation plug-in.

To turn on automatic tracking, open the Preferences dialog, click Plug-Ins, and select Enable Document Tracking.

Automatic tracking will only work for applications where you have installed and turned on the auto-activation plug-in. For Adobe applications, you also need to turn onConnect Fonts Auto-Activation(see Accessing the plug-in and Plug-in settings).

Auto-activation plug-ins are available for Adobe After Effects, Illustrator, InCopy, InDesign, and Photoshop, and Sketch.

The first time you save a document, the Connect Fonts desktop app will start tracking it. When you make any changes to the document, the desktop app will automatically update the tracking data.

To add automatic tracking to an existing (untracked) document, make sure all the above settings are correct, open the document in question, make a small change, save the document, undo the change, then save the document again.

 

Stopping automatic tracking

To stop automatic tracking, open the Preferences dialog, clickPlug-Ins, and deselectEnable Document Tracking.

Any documents that have already been tracked will still be tracked, but new documents will not be added.

If you turn automatic document tracking off, then later turn it back on, the desktop app will alert you that tracking data already exists.

  • You can choose to Continue, and turn tracking back on, keeping the existing tracking data.

  • You can choose to Reset tracking data and start tracking documents with a fresh slate.

Neither option will affect the content of existing documents.

 

More document tracking options

Opening documents

You can open a tracked document from within the Connect Fonts desktop app; double-click the document, or select the document and choose File > Open Document, or right-click the document and chooseOpen Document from the shortcut menu.

When you open a document this way, the desktop app will activate the document’s fonts immediately, so you will not have to wait for the application to activate the fonts.

NOTE: If you do not have the application that created a document, your operating system may open the document with a different application. If this is not the desired behavior, immediately quit the application without saving any changes.

 

Updating tracked documents

If you make changes to a tracked document while the Connect Fonts desktop app is not running, you can update the document’s information the next time you use the desktop app.

Right-click on the document in the the desktop app sidebar and choose Update from the shortcut menu.

 

Document tags

When the Connect Fonts desktop app tracks a document, it automatically includes the document’s Keywords and other metadata as document tags. You can view these tags in theDocument Info tab, and you can use QuickFind to locate documents with a specific tag.

You can’t edit document tags within the desktop app, but when you change a tracked document, the desktop app updates the information it stores about the document, including its tags.

 

Collecting documents

The Connect Fonts desktop app allows you to copy a document and its resources (fonts, linked images, and other linked documents) into a folder. This can help you gather everything you need to give the document to someone else, or to deliver it to a third party for output.

To collect a document and its resources, right-click on the preferred document and choose Collect for Output. Choose the location to save the collected files, then clickCollect.

The document, its associated fonts, and any linked documents and images will be copied into a folder with the same name as your document.

If you get a message about missing items, you can continue to collect the document and its resources. The desktop app will generate a text file that lists the missing resources.

 

Moving a tracked file

If you move or rename a tracked file on disk, the Connect Fonts desktop app will no longer be able to track it.

If this happens, remove the document from the desktop app, then add the moved or renamed version of the file.

 

QuickFind and tracked documents

You can use QuickFind to locate documents. Select one or more document types, then type some text into the QuickFind field, and Connect Fonts will display all documents of the selected type where the text you entered is in one of three search areas: the document path, the name of any font used in the document, or any tags extracted from the document.

For example, if you enter ari in the QuickFind field, Connect Fonts will identify the documents in a folder named “Darian”, documents using any Arial font, and documents with the keyword “safari”.

TIP: To narrow the parameters of your QuickFind search to a single document property (such as Tag), click the magnifying glass at the left end of the QuickFind field then select a property from the menu.

 

Copying fonts

You can copy unprotected fonts from a document into a library or set. Select a document, click the Info icon, click Font Usage, then drag one or more fonts to the preferred library or set.

 

Locating a document

To show a tracked document on disk, select the document and choose File > Reveal in Finder (Mac) or File > Reveal in Explorer (Windows). You can also right-click a document and choose Reveal in Finder or Reveal in Explorer from the shortcut menu.

 

A note about the auto-activation plug-ins

Unless you have the auto-activation plug-ins installed and turned on in your applications, opening documents from theDocument Tracking section of the Connect Fonts desktop app sidebar—or from anywhere else—will not take advantage of Font Sense, the method that Connect Fonts uses to identify the exact fonts that you are using.

This will usually not be a problem, but if you have similar fonts that can’t be differentiated by the information available to the application, then you might not get the exact font in all situations.

Whenever possible, use the auto-activation plug-ins to guarantee the exact fonts originally used are activated every time.

Related articles