How to install fonts on network profile?

October 20, 2006 3:16 PM

When installing a particular font in a Win2k networked system, the font is gone after logging out and back in....

I understand that there is a mechanism which resets the user profile after each logoff that is probably causing this, my main question is: How can I get around this and make the font normally available without setting off all manner of alarms at the admin's desk (install on the local pc account, perhaps)? Failing that, what would be the simplest way for to them accomplish?

posted by IronLizard to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

Response by poster: The main problem being a company logo I redid and exported into a wmf file. When viewed on their PC's, the font reverts to a default (and rather unappealing) style. Perhaps there's another word-compatible vector format I can use that turns the text into independent vector graphics as opposed to using the system's built in font set?
posted by IronLizard at 3:24 PM on October 20, 2006

Installation of fonts requires administrator privilege. Get the administrator to do it for you, and then it will be permanent.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 3:43 PM on October 20, 2006

Response by poster: So, if I get into the (a) admin account on the local PC, the font would be available to a user who is using a network logon? (I'm trying to do this without involving the IT department that happens to be three states away and usually has a 'no' to answer to questions like this)
posted by IronLizard at 3:47 PM on October 20, 2006

Best answer: I believe fonts are accessed locally. In other words, someone using a network login can access the base file on your computer, but will use the fonts in their own. It would require an administrator to install the font on their machine.

I think the answer is for you to give up on WMF as a format. There are other formats which should serve which don't require an external font at the time they're displayed, like PDF.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:19 PM on October 20, 2006

Response by poster: Which format(s), in particular? It has to be vector based because they'll be resized several times for marketing materials in a variety of media.
(BTW, Thanks! I'll be hacking the local machine tomorrow while it's disconnected from the network.)
posted by IronLizard at 6:17 PM on October 20, 2006

As I understand it, and I may be wrong about this, what a PDF file does is to include the actual font in the file. The fonts are stroke-based and thus can be resized, but your text is stored as text. So the actual image as such isn't stored as strokes directly, and it can be edited as text if need be.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 7:32 PM on October 20, 2006

I should mention that I have never worked with the tool that creates PDF files, and it would be wise to consult someone, or have another user chime in here about now, who knows more about it.

But I do know that there are self-contained formats which can represent text and graphics, that are scaleable, which are portable without relying on locally-installed fonts. I'm pretty sure that PDF is such a case.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 7:44 PM on October 20, 2006

Best answer: If you can get admin rights to the box you will be all set. Install via control panel
posted by a3matrix at 8:21 PM on October 20, 2006

Response by poster:
If you can get admin rights to the box

It's windows :)
posted by IronLizard at 9:24 PM on October 20, 2006

Best answer: Why not just convert the text in the logo to shapes before creating the WMF? Having 'real text' in a logo is rarely a good idea.
(Also, from my experience it's a good idea to create WMFs at a very large size then scale down when they're used, as the coordinate system isn't very precise, unless that was a limitation imposed by the package I was exporting from)
posted by malevolent at 1:04 AM on October 21, 2006

PDF files do include the actual fonts in the file (with the exception of Helvetica, Times, and a few others that the PDF spec says you can assume will be there), but normally only that subset of letters that are actually used in the document. This makes it less useful to extract the fonts from the document and to install them locally, because you could easily end up without ; or — or a capital X in the file.
posted by Aidan Kehoe at 2:45 AM on October 21, 2006

Response by poster: Why not just convert the text in the logo to shapes before creating the WMF?

You've intrigued me, how do I do this? It would solve the problem neatly and with a minimum of difficult to explain (if it were to ever become necessary, of course) modifications like a newly reset admin pw.
posted by IronLizard at 4:17 AM on October 21, 2006

Response by poster: http://stevenchan.us/publications/motiondesign

I'm rather embarassed, I should have found this sooner. Thanks!
posted by IronLizard at 4:24 AM on October 21, 2006