What is the best way to uninstall a large quantity of fonts?

[Suzy]

Hi all, I am putting this under PSP because 2023 has added an additional 50 fonts, and I am already way overdue to get rid of some of my old ones. I have already added a bunch (100s) of new style fonts and want to get rid of a bunch (100s) of my old ones. I don’t have a font program and really don’t want one unless I 100% have to. 

The problem is two-fold. I don’t know what it would do to my system if I deleted some of the Asian, middle eastern, Cyrillic, and other foreign ones - these would be a no brained to delete and there are tons of them.

The second problem is the only way I know to delete or uninstall fonts does not allow you to see the font. You can only see the name. So I have been looking at the fonts in MS Word (where the drop down is 10x bigger than PSP unless you guys know a way to enlarge PSP’s) and writing them down. This pathetically slow.  It would be nicer to be able to click them away while I can see a sample. Or highlight and hit the delete key while I can see a sample.

As an aside - Where do fonts go when you uninstall them? Are they deleted or do they go to an “inactive” folder?

 

 

 

[Cassel]

You would have to uninstall them, one at a time. I found a detailed step-by-step tutorial for that:

https://www.creativefabrica.com/the-ultimate-font-guide/how-to-uninstall-and-remove-fonts-in-windows

Interestingly, you can "view" the fonts so you don't have to rely only on the name.

And as they mention, when they are gone, they are gone.

[Suzy]

Oooh, nice!! Very nice! I shall spend the weekend doing this. 
Many thanks for this resource, Cassel!

[Cassel]

Someone told me that you might be able to select more than one font and right-click to get the option to Uninstall. Worth a try.

[Suzy]

5 hours ago, Cassel said:

Someone told me that you might be able to select more than one font and right-click to get the option to Uninstall. Worth a try.

Yes, this is what I sort of ended up doing because the CF way was tragically slow. It was torture to get just one deleted, much less go on to the next!

By going right into C:Windows/Fonts, you can select 25+ at a time, too. Then hit delete. The deletion is a little slower than deleting a zip file, for example but not too bad. They’ve fixed it (probably a long time ago) so you can’t delete system files.  Which is about 100 or even 150 fonts. 

 How you count fonts. I believe fonts are counted by the number of fonts, not the number of files. So I went from 635 to 509 last night. The 1335 I quoted in the other thread was the number of files I had.

Bitstream fonts are a pain in the butt. BT extension is Bitstream, which is what all those fonts that Cassel showed when she did the screen shots of the 50 fonts. (And I already own all of those, so I still question if they are the 50 MODERN fonts.)  You have your BT fonts with the font name, say, BroadwayBT, but then you also have your numbered fonts, something like tt0168.ttf which might be code for Broadway So I might have 2 instances of Broadway on my computer and not realize it. I have to go through those numbered fonts, maybe today. There is some sort of marriage between Corel and Bitstream, so those New Modern fonts might indeed be the bitstream fonts she showed, BUT if they are, they are misrepresented by being called New and Modern.

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by Suzy