Very few of us are printing companies and most of us use at most a half dozen fonts. Indeed, the use of too many fonts on a document became a much ridiculed technique when executives were suddenly given the power of bypassing their secretaries and creating their own letters. It was the same when people realised that no PowerPoint presentation was complete without using every feature of the application. So the message became secondary to the flashy design and whizz bangs. Now, thankfully, we’re all a bit wiser.

Unlike earlier operating systems, Windows XP and Windows Vista will not crash because there are too many fonts. Both systems carry enough to offer variety and they will take as many as the hard disk has space, but too many fonts will slow your system down. So if you don’t need them, bin them.

To have a look at the fonts you have on your system, click Control Panel, Appearance and Themes and the click Fonts (top left of the panel). This will give you the complete list of fonts on your system. If you feel that there is too many, or too many have been added, you can remove some of the more obscure examples. But bear in mind that some of the weirder sounding files often provide those symbols which you might need once in a blue moon, but are still very necessary.

Don’t delete any font file ending in .fon (others end in .ttf), as these are Windows system fonts (they should also have a red A icon, rather than grey-blue). Also, don’t ever delete the basic fonts such as Arial, or Times New Roman, as many applications requires these and you’ll cause all sorts of problems if you wipe them.

So, unless you’re computer is needing a zimmer frame, don’t play around with the fonts.

How Many Fonts is Too Many Fonts – Recap

• don’t get hooked on fonts;
• check fonts on system;
• don’t delete system, or key fonts.