It is essential for maintaining consistent activation practices across your devices and operating system platforms to reduce risks when working on creative projects.
Below are the different activation status' Connect has for when fonts are activated and best practices for each status:
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Auto-Activation
Is when fonts get activated automatically using Connect's plug-ins for Adobe, Sketch or which are available for other creative applications.
This process allows you to keep your fonts in a deactivated state requiring only a minimum number of fonts on your machines Operating System to be available.
Best Practice - Using Auto-activation ensures 100 percent accuracy when projects are opened using Connect's font management plug-ins. Auto-activation will automatically activate the font previously used and save in the projects file.
Auto-Activated fonts will appear with a Blue Diamond activation symbol when font is activated by Connect's auto-activation plug-in:
For more information on how to use the Auto-activation plug-ins please view the following article - Using Connects Auto-Activation Plug-ins
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Temporary Activation
Means that Connect Fonts keeps the font active until the type core (the background process that Connect Fonts uses to activate and deactivate fonts) quits. Or, when you log out of your user session, or restart your computer.
Fonts that are Temporarily active can cause issues if you're trying to activate a font with the same postscript name.
Best Practice - When using Temporary font activation, it is best to deactivate any font that was temporarily activated once you are done using it.
Temporarily activated fonts appear with a Blue activation dot when the font is active as show below:
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Permanent Activation
Means that the type core will keep or reactivate fonts when the type core restarts. This is ideal for fonts you use frequently.
Again, fonts that are Permanently active can cause issues if you're trying to activate a font with the same postscript name.
Best Practice - When activating fonts Permanently, it is best to keep only a small group active. We highly recommend keeping these in a separate folder so they can quickly be identified. Similar to temporary activation, we suggest deactivating the font once you are done using it.
Permanently activated fonts appear with a Green activation dot when the font is active:
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Permanently Activated / Locked (System Fonts)
Connect may display multiple folders for System Fonts. These categories will be labeled as System, User, Local and Other.
System Fonts are crucial fonts typically used your system. These fonts are shown in Connect with a Permanent activation status with a lock over the Green activation dot.
Apple's platforms comes with many preinstalled fonts that can be used by the operating system. Additional fonts are may have been download by the system or through document-based apps like Microsoft Office. These additional fonts might show within the System Fonts under the User, Local or Other folders in Connect.
Best Practice - Check all of the System Font folders within Connect and de-activate all fonts in which are Permanently activated and not locked. Anytime a document based application is installed on your system, it may include fonts and place them in one of these folders and permanently activate the font by default.
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The following font activation is one Extensis typically encounters when troubleshooting font conflicts or font activation issues. These fonts are typically grouped in to Libraries or Sets and manually activated.
Critical or Start-up Fonts which are Permanently Activated
Critical Fonts or Start-up Fonts are fonts placed in a Library or Set which have been Permanently Activated manually within Connect.
These fonts have been prioritize as Critical or start-up fonts as needed by/for the organizations day to day needs. Typically, these fonts are commonly used in projects that they remain active for use on a system.
Best Practice - When making any font Permanently activate, you risk font conflicts from the same postscript named fonts. This issue is most prevalent when common fonts such as Helvetica, Helvetica Neue, Arial, Roboto and others are set as permanent. We highly suggest not keeping libraries or sets of fonts permanently activated within Connect. Using Auto-Activation or activating and deactivating these fonts when needed will reduce font conflict risks.
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By following these font activation best practices, you can achieve a balance between aesthetic appeal, performance, and readability, creating a more engaging user experience on your digital platforms.