Activating a font makes it available for use so it appears in Font menus in your applications. To limit your Font menus to a manageable length and to conserve system resources, you should activate just the fonts you plan to use. Don’t worry. FontAgent lets you preview and compare your fonts, regardless of their activation status.
FontAgent® lets you activate just the fonts you need, and helps you to simplify bloated font menus, save system resources and maintain system performance.
Activation Sliders
Wherever FontAgent displays a font or set, it also displays an activation status switch. Click the slider to toggle the activation status of the font or set.
When you activate or deactivate a set, it activates or deactivates all the fonts contained in the set.
Activated
The font or set is active for use. To deactivate it, click the slider and it will turn grey.
Deactivated
The font or set is not active for use. To activate it, click the slider and it will turn green.
Auto-Activated
The font was auto-activated by another application or document and is available for use.
Activated by OS
The font is required to be active by the operating system and cannot be deactivated.
Partially Activated Set
Some of the fonts in the set are activated and some are not. To activate all the fonts, click the slider. To deactivate all of them, click it again.
Shared Set
The fonts contained in the set have been shared to the cloud so other users or computers running FontAgent can use them.
Some applications update their Font menus as they run, so newly activated fonts appear automatically after a short delay. Other apps load their list of available fonts only as they start up, so you must relaunch the apps for their Font menus to show newly activated fonts.
System Font Deactivation
The Windows operating system comes with hundreds of fonts, many of which are required for Windows to run properly. As a result, when you deactivate required fonts, Windows keeps them active, but hides them from appearing in Font menus in applications.
Activation Preferences
FontAgent provides a number of settings to help control its font activation functionality. To set these preferences, follow these steps:
1. Select the Options command from the About menu in the FontAgent menu ribbon.
2. Click the Activator tab in the Options dialog.
Use these preference settings to affect how FontAgent activates fonts in these situations:
- Activating fonts when FontAgent starts
- Auto-activating fonts in applications