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San Francisco System Font
- Thread starter nattK
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The files themselves are found in /System/Library/Fonts and have SFNS prefix. As to how one could make them appear in Font Book, I have no idea. I even tried copying them over to another Mac (running Mavericks) and I can't get them to appear in Font Book there either.
Install the non-UI version, which can be found in the Watch dev kit. (https://developer.apple.com/watch/human-interface-guidelines/resources/)
You will need to click the Download All link if you do not have a developer account, the other separate downloads redirect you to your account screen which is odd.
You cannot use the UI-tagged version as a typeface font because it has several subtle tweaks and cheats to make it look prettier in the system. This is also why you'll never find the system font "LastResort" which is the one which throws up the little diamond-with-a-question-mark if it really can't find a substitute typeface character.
You will need to click the Download All link if you do not have a developer account, the other separate downloads redirect you to your account screen which is odd.
You cannot use the UI-tagged version as a typeface font because it has several subtle tweaks and cheats to make it look prettier in the system. This is also why you'll never find the system font "LastResort" which is the one which throws up the little diamond-with-a-question-mark if it really can't find a substitute typeface character.
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This is SF Compact, not SF for iOS and Mac. They are distinct.
I don’t think there is such a thing as an ‘UI-tagged’ version. SF was created for just this purpose. The simple reason is that Apple likes to keep the typeface exclusive to the system and Apple software promotion and intentionally blocks it from showing in font panels and Font Book. They own the typeface after all, they could make it available to everyone. Developers are under a licence agreement and the rules for using the typeface are very strict, i.e. only for Apple software development and the promotion thereof.
Ah I didn't realise that Compact was a different font, I assumed the 'text' and 'display' variants were the two different versions, my mistake
The hidden system fonts have been a thing for a good long time though (definitely by OS8), it meant that even if you went mad and combed your system for every font in every folder and then deleted them, your system would still run.
Ah I didn't realise that Compact was a different font, I assumed the 'text' and 'display' variants were the two different versions, my mistake
These are for different font sizes. Display is for larger text (20pt and above), Text for everything below that. Text has some different characters and a different kerning to improve its legibility at smaller sizes. SF Compact is a different cut, with flatter round shapes. Apple had an interesting developer session about the new typeface at the WWDC, if you are interested in that.
You can download both the watchOS and iOS & OS X versions of San Francisco here.
https://developer.apple.com/fonts/
https://developer.apple.com/fonts/
Not a San Francisco issue . . . . but, I was still (after years) hoping for Resolution Independence in this new release. I cannot understand why Apple refuses to do this when MS did it years ago. I have a 27" RETINA iMac and the system text is almost unreadable . . . and I have 20/15 vision. Very disappointing. And, using magnification is, at best, a clunky solution, really, no solution at all. Anyone else concerned about this?
The SF Apple gives to developers differs from SFNS. SFNS has far more weights; I think about 4 grades for each weight. So instead of just Thin, Light, Regular, etc. It has Thin Grade 1, Thin Grade 2, etc. These grades give more fine control because light text on dark backgrounds can look different than dark text on light backgrounds. SFNS is a UI version, and it's not meant to be used by designers.
The fonts Apple gives to developers are for designers to comp their work, to show how the system font will look. It's not actually the system font.
Hopefully someone works out how you can change it. Keen to get Avenir Next back on like I had on Yosemite. San Francisco looks nice on retina I'm sure...
Microsoft has had it for years but most third-party apps were written in a 'hacky' way that resulted in inconsistent appearances.
Apple's approach is to use double the number of pixels per point in each direction to maintain a consistent appearance even if developers have not updated.
On retina displays, using a scaled resolution in the Displays panel in System Preferences will render the selected resolution in four times the pixels and downsample it to your screen, resulting in OS X's version of 'resolution independence' since it is difficult to discern individual pixels.
Now I'm confused. Apple is the only company that currently ships an OS with working implementation of resolution independence. Sure, it does not allow arbitrary scaling — there are good reasons for that. But it works and delivers very good results — unlike, say, Windows implementation which breaks legacy applications and makes the life of the programmer difficult.
FYI, Apple was experimenting with free-scale resolution independence since at least Panther (or was it Leopard?) They have abandoned their original implementation and decided to stick to a restricted set backing store multipliers, for a number of reasons. A 'correct' implementation of resolution independence would mean abandoning the concept of pixels altogether and move to proper measurement units in the UI (e.g. metric units). However, this would require a completely new APIs. As long as we operate with pixels as the smallest logical element of the UI, resolution independence is tricky.
Something that may help a little bit with system font readability is System Preferences > Accessibility > Increase contrast. I do think there should be a bold font option like on iOS.
Looks terrific on Yosemite... most of the time https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/el-capitan-font-san-francisco-on-yosemite.1891830/
The files from there can be added to Font Book.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/el-capitan-font-san-francisco-on-yosemite.1891830/The files from there can be added to Font Book.