MstnFontConfig.xml Wildcards

Just out of curiosity: why do you have those variations of fonts? iI it just the name and the fonts are really different or are they pretty much slight variations?

Hi Tim,

Unfortunately I don't think this approach will work in this instance, according to this link, the <Name> node is a "Comma-separated list of TrueType font names to which these settings apply." therefore it sounds to me like you have to explicitly provide a list of font names to show or hide.

However, this task can be made easier:

1. Below is some Powershell code:
   

   [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Drawing")
   (New-Object System.Drawing.Text.InstalledFontCollection).Families | Out-File -FilePath "C:\FontList.txt"

   
   
2. Open up Notepad, Copy and paste the code into a document and save it with a .ps1 extension e.g. List TTF Fonts.ps1
3. Right-click the ps1 file and choose 'Run with Powershell'
4. Your TTF font names will be written to a text file at the root of your C:\ (you can edit the script to change to a path of your preference)
5. Open the text file, copy the contents (except the Name header and any spaces) and paste into an Excel worksheet
6. Select Cell A1 and then press Ctrl+Shift+Down Arrow to select all the font names, then press copy
7. Select Cell B1, press Paste Special and choose Transpose
8. Delete Column A

At this point you now need to make a decision, you either make a list of all the fonts you want to be visible, or a list of those you want to hide.

1. Once you've deleted the fonts that aren't needed in the list, save the document as a CSV file.
2. Open the CSV file in notepad and paste the string of font names into the <Name> node within <TTFontInfo>
3. Set <Hidden> to True or False, this depends on your choice as mentioned above.

Gerd,

I don't know what the difference is between them.  However, this is the second customer to supply me with fonts in this type of naming convention.

The first customer gave me all variations on Engineering*.ttf.  That was only eight fonts, so no big deal; I just wrote them all out.  The second customer gave me the variations I described above, but this time there were 22 different fonts in that naming convention.  I invested a bit of time in getting a wildcard to work, but I was unsuccessful.  In defeat, I wrote them all out again.

I assume wildcards work in this file and that I'm just getting something wrong with the syntax.

Barry,

I like this idea a lot, especially if wildcards are not possible.

I only dabble in PowerShell; clearly, you are on a whole other level.

I am going to take your code and tweak it to my needs but follow the same workflow.  I have never installed the fonts on my PC; they reside in the font folder for that specific customer.  So, I should be able to output a list of files to a text file and then follow the workflow from there.

This was great insight, and thank you very much for the detailed procedure.

Tim Letcher said:

I only dabble in PowerShell; clearly, you are on a whole other level.

Oh I wouldn't go that far, it was actually as a 2nd resort; My initial thought was to use a VBScript:

Const FONTS = &H14
Const ForReading = 1
Const ForWriting = 2

Dim objShell, objFolder, objFolderItem, objFSO, Folder, Font, FontList()

Set objShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
Set objFolder = objShell.Namespace(FONTS)
Set objFolderItem = objFolder.Self
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set Folder = objFSO.GetFolder(objFolderItem.Path)

i = 0
For Each Font In Folder.Files

    If Right(LCase(Font.Name), 4) = ".ttf" Then
        Select Case i
            Case 0
                ReDim FontList(i)
            Case Else
                ReDim Preserve FontList(i)
        End Select
        FontList(i) = Font.Name
        i = i + 1
    End If
Next

For a = UBound(FontList) - 1 To 0 Step -1
    For j = 0 To a
        If UCase(FontList(j)) > UCase(FontList(j + 1)) Then
            temp = FontList(j + 1)
            FontList(j + 1) = FontList(j)
            FontList(j) = temp
        End If
    Next
Next

Dim FSO
Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set OutputFile = FSO.CreateTextFile("D:\FontList.txt", True)
'OutputFile.Write (Join(FontList, ","))

For Z = 0 To UBound(FontList)
    OutputFile.WriteLine FontList(Z)
Next

Set OutputFile = FSO.OpenTextFile("D:\FontList.txt", ForReading)
strLine = OutputFile.ReadAll
intlength = Len(strLine)
strRemainder = Right(strLine, intlength - 1)
    
If InStr(strLine, ",") = 1 Then
    Set OutputFile = FSO.OpenTextFile("D:\FontList.txt", ForWriting)
    OutputFile.Write strRemainder
End If

Set objFSO = Nothing
Set objShell = Nothing
Set objFolder = Nothing
Set objFolderItem = Nothing
Set Folder = Nothing
Set OutputFile = Nothing

However this results in output like this:

462364.ttf
AGENCYB.TTF
AGENCYR.TTF
ALGER.TTF
ANTQUAB.TTF
ANTQUABI.TTF
ANTQUAI.TTF
arial.ttf
arialbd.ttf
arialbi.ttf
ariali.ttf
ARIALN.TTF
ARIALNB.TTF
ARIALNBI.TTF
ARIALNI.TTF
ARIALUNI.TTF
ariblk.ttf
ARLRDBD.TTF
ArtifaktElementMedium.ttf
ArtifaktElementRegular.ttf
bahnschrift.ttf
BASKVILL.TTF
BAUHS93.TTF

The script also lists TTF files which aren't visible in MicroStation, but the file name not matching the Full Name of the font was the main reason for switching to Powershell:

The Powershell output does match the font pulldown however, the only issue is that the Asian fonts prefixed with the @ symbol don't get listed by either script and need to be hand written to have them hidden from view.