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I find manually collecting fonts to be a tedious, detail oriented job, is there a plug in or script or something that has thumbs up to do this tedious job for me?

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What OS are you using? When you say "collecting" fonts, are you talking about archiving or grouping them? – lawndartcatcher Dec 20 '11 at 21:55
@lawndartcatcher: He's talking about collecting all the fonts used in a particular project, for example when you need to deliver the project to a printer or another designer. – Lèse majesté Dec 21 '11 at 7:11

4 Answers

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Illustrator doesn't have an analog to InDesign's Package feature, so collecting (packaging) the fonts used in a document has to be done by scripting. There is a packaging script written for AI CS2 that will work at least as far as CS4 (single art board), which might do the trick. Otherwise, your best bet would be to ask on the Adobe Illustrator Scripting forum if anyone has a script that will do what you want. Scripters being incredibly helpful folks, even if there's no existing script the chances are that someone, or more than one, will write one for you and post it.

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This was a great answer until about a month ago. :) This is no longer true with the AI 16.3 update. One of the trickle-down features was packaging. So.. if you have the Creative Cloud subscription, and Illustrator CS6, you have file packaging now. :) Of course, it's doubtful Otterjoy will ever know this since this appears to be a drive-by question. :) – Scott Jan 4 at 17:26
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It's worth noting that this feature has been added to CS6. Maybe this is the excuse you need to convince your boss, or yourself, to upgrade. I don't work for Adobe, I'm just another geek.

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Welcome to GD Prescott. A very useful answer, thanks for adding it! – Yisela♦ Feb 27 at 4:23
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Certain font managers like Extensis Suitcase Fusion come with plugins for Illustrator and other design programs that allow you to collect fonts as well as dynamically activate fonts when you load a document that contains fonts you have but aren't permanently active.

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I copied and pasted all of my live fonts from Illustrator CS5 into a new document in InDesign CS4, selected "Package" and lo and behold it collected the fonts. The fonts weren't "live" but InDesign collected them anyway. Trial and error, in this case it worked like a charm!

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