Due to incompatibility issues with MacOS Sonoma, Universal Type Client (UTC) will NOT be deployed for Spring semester. We have been working with Extensis for the last few months to try and come to a workable solution, but as of this week, they have told us that they will likely not have their solution ready for Universal Type Client in Sonoma until February or March.
In the interim, we will be deploying an alternative font manager - FontBase - which provides most of the same functionality that Universal Type Client does. FontBase is available to faculty and staff now on your computers through the RIT Self Service App. After logging in, just look under the Utilities section or search for FontBase. FontBase will be in lab computers for the beginning of the semester.
Learn more about FontBase here: https://fontba.se
THE BAD NEWS
FontBase does not give us the ability to manage and protect our licenses. After some discussion, we have decided it is best to NOT deploy our current font sets out without the ability to secure them from theft.
This means that a number of fonts frequently used will temporarily be unavailable for use. We very much understand that this is less than ideal for everyone, but is the best course forward to protect our font licenses.
We are in frequent contact with Extensis and we plan on redeploying UTC as soon as it is compatible with Sonoma.
THE SOLUTION (for now)
While our pre-existing fonts will be temporarily unavailable, there are two primary font sets that WILL be accessible ASAP for Spring Semester that can be managed through FontBase.
1. GOOGLE FONTS - Fontbase has a direct connection to Google Fonts Library directly through their interface, enabling easy access to thousands of fonts.
2. ADOBE FONTS - RIT’s Enterprise license gives students access to the Adobe Fonts Basic Library. You can click on the link below to see what fonts are included in that set. While nowhere near a complete match for our older font libraries, it will at least provide a uniform set of fonts that all RIT students can use. Students just need to find, select, and activate the fonts through the Creative Cloud app.
• https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts?library=basic
FontBase is available to faculty and staff now on your computers through the RIT Self Service App. After logging in, just look under the Utilities section or search for FontBase.
FontBase will be in lab computers by the beginning of the semester.
We KNOW that this is a major inconvenience, and we have tried our best to find the least impactful way to address this technical issue. We are planning for this to be a stop-gap measure until Extensis provides an update allowing Universal Type Client to work on Sonoma.
The following Helpdesk document provides more step-by-step directions for activating fonts, using Fontbase, and more:
How to use FontBase
https://helpdesk.cad.rit.edu/kb/articles/how-to-use-fontbase
How to Activate Adobe Fonts:
https://helpdesk.cad.rit.edu/kb/articles/how-to-activate-adobe-fonts
Thank you so much for your understanding.
- CADTech