Why does Apple block turning these fonts off?

[blackxacto]

Yes, they must be system fonts, but why use them in their system? Is it that code is written in various countries, and Apple does not translate them into English?

I hate seeing these fonts take up so much room in Design and Photo programs. I'll never use them. What a waste of desktop acreage scrolling.

Thonburi
PingFang HK
PingFang SC
PingFang TC
Noto Nastaliq Urdu
Kohinoor Bangla
Kohinoor Devanagari
Kohinoor Telugu
Hiragino Sans GB
Hiragino Kaku Gothic StdN
Hiragino Maru Gothic ProN
Hiragino Mincho ProN
Hiragino Sans
Heiti SC
Heiti TC
Geeza Pro
Arial Hebrew
Arial Hebrew Scholar

Does anyone see a font listed here that is necessary for Apple Menu's, etc.?

 

[blackxacto]

Through trial w Font Book, it seems that some email headings require the font: STYXGeneral

 

[kohlson]

I believe we are at this point with fonts from the way things were:
- You used to be able to delete any font, and if you deleted the wrong one your system wouldn't boot all the way.
- You used to be able to select/delete language packages which. among other things, would install fonts.

Now, you have flexibility in how fonts are available, essentially creating font books. You cannot delete them. But you can disable many of them.

Part of the problem is that many applications beyond the OS want to bring their own fonts. MS is a prime/horrible example of this.

 

[blackxacto]

There seems to be a new behavior w High Sierra. New to me, anyhoo. As I turned off foreign language fonts and on in FontBook, I noticed some redownloaded as I activated it. It must mean that High Sierra trashes some system fonts when you turn them off in Font Book.

I started the process with all fonts in High Sierra & my own fonts, ON. I would turn a selection of foreign fonts off, reboot and see if it affected menu displays. If it did, I always got “blocks” rather than letters. Some foreign fonts cannot be turned OFF in Font Book. I assumed they were needed, as once I trashed a few of them with SIP turned off. Had to reinstall the system after that maneuver.

I wish there was a break down from Apple as to what specific system font is needed for what menu in High Sierra.

My ultimate purpose in this was removing foreign fonts from font displays in Affinity Photo. It’s such a waste of screen space having to include foreign fonts in scrolling displays.

 

[NoBoMac]

What Kohlson said.

It's been years, and recall is hazy, but some non-US English fonts are embedded deep into core things like Finder, etc. Seem to recall some folks getting to zealous with their cleaning of fonts and ran into odd behaviour with some core functions/apps.

Understand trying to get as much disk as possible, but, guessing most have 256GB or more these days, and OS is relatively light compared to say Windows, so, a little overkill, imo, to be messing with fonts. Not like they take up tons of space. Where the bigger hitters are are the screen savers, wallpapers, video files that are part of install.

 

[kohlson]

There's this: http://www.jklstudios.com/misc/osxfonts.html

and this:https://support.apple.com/guide/font-book/welcome/mac

 

[blackxacto]

It’s is a waste of time scrolling through 15 to 20 to 30 foreign fonts in design programs. Wish there were some way to turn off their display per application. Not deactivate, just turn off their display

 

[davidlv]

Yes, they must be system fonts, but why use them in their system? Is it that code is written in various countries, and Apple does not translate them into English?

I hate seeing these fonts take up so much room in Design and Photo programs. I'll never use them. What a waste of desktop acreage scrolling.

Thonburi
PingFang HK
PingFang SC
PingFang TC
Noto Nastaliq Urdu
Kohinoor Bangla
Kohinoor Devanagari
Kohinoor Telugu
Hiragino Sans GB
Hiragino Kaku Gothic StdN
Hiragino Maru Gothic ProN
Hiragino Mincho ProN
Hiragino Sans
Heiti SC
Heiti TC
Geeza Pro
Arial Hebrew
Arial Hebrew Scholar

Does anyone see a font listed here that is necessary for Apple Menu's, etc.?

The file enclosed (a list of required fonts) was taken from http://www.jklstudios.com/misc/osxfonts.html#requiredfonts
I don't think the NotoNastaliqUrdu and Kohinoor fonts are necessary (I deleted these on my English and Japanese system without any problems). If you do not use Chinese, you may be able to do without The PingFang and Heiti fonts (haven't tried that).
You may need to temporarily disable SIP (Google that if you don't know how to do that).

 

[blackxacto]

Spent sometime in and out of SIP tonite. Found where a lot of foreign fonts are stored, deep within folders.
Try: MyHD/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ATS.framework/Versions/A/Support/FontSubsets/ . . . . and see what sits inside this folder. I disabled SIP, then deleted them. There were a few in the System Folder/Library/Fonts, that I trashed as well, as well as some from MyHD/Library/Fonts. Using the list from jklstudios.com you gave me.

Everything seems to be working as I have the minimum suggested by jklstudios. Menus in iTunes for buying things seem to open fine. I'll know in a few days, whether I will have to reinstall the system. Thanks for your help everyone. I still don't understand why we must have tons of foreign fonts activated, hidden deep in the folders.

 

[blackxacto]

Realized that there are multiple copies of foreign fonts stored deep within System Folder. Many copies are used in Xcode folders. With SIP off, removed the foreign fonts in System folder/Fonts. Luckily, FontBook, does not seem to recognize them anywhere except the System folder/Fonts, Library Fonts, and user/library/fonts. There more copies of fonts in Container folders, but unseen by FontBook.

I think I have this right. Maybe not. It’s bizarre how many copies of these same fonts arenway down deep in the System.

 

[kohlson]

Did you notice any system improvements, such as reduced memory usage by kernel_task or WindowServer, or increased responsiveness?

 

[davidlv]

Spent sometime in and out of SIP tonite. Found where a lot of foreign fonts are stored, deep within folders.
I still don't understand why we must have tons of foreign fonts activated, hidden deep in the folders.

I am certainly not an expert on this subject, but I assume the major reason is that macOS provides support for a ton of foreign languages. In Asia, the system provides double-width fonts, like Kanji in Japanese and Chinese, and as some apps use the menus and/or menu bar, these fonts/symbols are included in one or more of the foreign fonts. Apple doesn't know which language you will be using, so they provide support for all languages. When was the last time "you" used Cherokee (apologies to anyone who needs fonts for that language)? The real issue is why do some apps include all fonts in the menus even if you turn off a font in FontBook? So deleting all of the fonts you don't really need is the only effective solution.
As someone mentioned, Microsoft is a major offender here. Bad Bad Office

 

[blackxacto]

Did you notice any system improvements, such as reduced memory usage by kernel_task or WindowServer, or increased responsiveness?

Have not noticed any weird things happening. The speed of the iMac seems the same, w 24gb ram, no crashes. So nice not to see all the foreign fonts in scrolling displays when I design.

 

[ArtfulAction]

I wish there was a break down from Apple as to what specific system font is needed for what menu in High Sierra.

My ultimate purpose in this was removing foreign fonts from font displays in Affinity Photo. It’s such a waste of screen space having to include foreign fonts in scrolling displays.

Thank you for your posts. I agree 100 percent with you on that, blackxacto. It would be nice to know which system font is needed/used where and why, so maybe Apple can/will provide documentation about that.

Also, davidlv, yes...here's hoping that various software developers get with the program and give us Font Display options (whether from within the programs, or however else this may be well handled). I would like to not have to see/scroll through all the foreign language options that the system may use, but that I personally won't use in design programs and in MS Word menus, etc. Not sure if there would be a way to repair this issue from Apple's development side, but if there were, it would be helpful and would improve my personal efficiency, as well as improve my user experience in terms of personal preferences.

Going through a lot of the same issues in High Sierra with the Font Book app and some inconsistencies...Some fonts listed there were not in my system font or library font folders, and others that are in my library fonts did not appear in Font Book (I tried advice from another post of removing the preference file and relaunching Font Book, so will have to re-compare everything to see if that worked.)
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The real issue is why do some apps include all fonts in the menus even if you turn off a font in FontBook? So deleting all of the fonts you don't really need is the only effective solution.
As someone mentioned, Microsoft is a major offender here. Bad Bad Office

True, true, davidlv. Indeed, although many extraneous foreign language (and other) fonts may be disabled in Font Book, many other fonts that I would prefer not to have to see and scroll through in my MS Word and other design program menus still appear because they have to remain in the system fonts folder for the system usage (therefore preventing their being disabled in Font Book). So...these individual program developers need to come up with a way to let us remove their display from within the program's design/font menus. Let's go give this feedback to the Microsoft — and other individual design software developers —on their respective sites!