Does Windows 11 hide its font files?

[gophersnake]

Backstory: I was working my way through Frank Walters' GIMP Workbook (2023) and happened to come across a reference to a font called Rockwell. I hadn't heard of Rockwell before and didn't find it among the fonts that GIMP had access to, so I looked a little farther.

I'd been using Windows 10 for five years but recently upgraded(?) to Windows 11. Apparently the fonts in the C:\Windows\Fonts folder aren't the ones that Windows 11 actually uses. A note at the top of the folder window says:

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ATTENTION: This page is being decoupled from Fonts Control Panel.
For more font settings go to the Fonts page in the Settings app.
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I went to the Fonts page in the Settings app and found what looked like the same list of fonts, only in a different format. Rockwell wasn't listed in either place but the Settings app page offered a link to the Microsoft Store.  I downloaded "Rockwell Nova" and it apparently installed successfully. It now shows up on the Settings app Fonts page and at least one app (Open Office Writer) can now access it.

However: Rockwell still doesn't show up in the list of fonts that GIMP can access. In GIMP, Edit > Preferences > Folders > Fonts shows the folders where GIMP will look for its fonts and lets me add other folders if necessary. None of the listed folders contain the newly-installed font, I can't find fonts in any other folder that I have access to, and there's no "downloads" folder with anything in it that looks like a font. Is there any way to tell GIMP where to look for the new font? Or is Microsoft hiding their up-to-date font list somewhere where GIMP can't get to it, and only allowing access to the legacy fonts inherited from Windows 10?

I'm sure I could get along just fine without ever using the Rockwell font in GIMP. Still, might this foreshadow similar font-access problems for other GIMP and Windows 11 users?

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Windows 11 Home (64 bit)
GIMP 2.10.38 (revision 1)

[Ofnuts]

You have to either restart Gimp or refresh the fonts in the Gimp font list (open the list, hit the < icon at top right, then Fonts menu > Rescan fonts list).

If that doesn't work, you can try this:

• With your file explorer, navigate to C:\users\{your id}\AppData\local\fontconfig
  

• Erase the directory contents (in partocumar the cache subdirectory)
  

On next start, Gimp will rebuild its font list.

[rich2005]

It might be a Windows 11 thing.
User installed fonts go in C:\Users\"yourname"\Appdata\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Fonts Is the Rockell Font There ? Gimp should pick up fonts there ? It does here in Win10.

Alternatives.
First the font files, instead of Micro$oft Store there are versions of the Rockwell font for download
https://freefontsfamily.org/rockwell-font-free/
https://font.download/font/rockwell-nova

Put the font files in your Gimp profile fonts folder: C:\Users\"yourname"\AppData\Roaming\GIMP\2.10\fonts

   

[gophersnake]

(3 hours ago)rich2005 Wrote: It might be a Windows 11 thing.
User installed fonts go in C:\Users\"yourname"\Appdata\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Fonts Is the Rockell Font There ? Gimp should pick up fonts there ? It does here in Win10.

Alternatives.
First the font files, instead of Micro$oft Store there are versions of the Rockwell font for download
https://freefontsfamily.org/rockwell-font-free/
https://font.download/font/rockwell-nova

Put the font files in your Gimp profile fonts folder: C:\Users\"yourname"\AppData\Roaming\GIMP\2.10\fonts

At this point I strongly suspect it is a Windows 11 thing.

For me, GIMP currently has these three places in its list of where to look for fonts
(Edit > Preferences > Folders > Fonts) :

C:\Users\[My username]\Appdata\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Fonts
C:\Users\[My username]\AppData\Roaming\GIMP\2.10\fonts
C:\Program Files\GIMP2\share\gimp\2.0\fonts

When I locate and open those folders, each one says only "This folder is empty". GIMP obviously loaded its fonts from somewhere, so either it wasn't from those folders or the files in those folders are... somehow hidden from me? I don't see any obvious control for unhiding them, but I haven't looked very far.

The (legacy?) fonts are in C:\Windows\Fonts but Rockwell isn't among them. I tried temporarily adding "C:\Windows\Fonts" to GIMP's list of places to look. I got some error messages (apparently for fonts that weren't compatible with GIMP) and I may have gained a few fonts in GIMP that I didn't have before; no Rockwell, though.
I've since removed "C:\Windows\Fonts" from GIMP's list of places to look, but a full set of fonts still seems to be available whenever I launch GIMP.


Thanks for the download links. I'll try them after a good night's sleep. I'd already found some sites like those with Google, but also some warnings that downloading fonts from unknown sites was risky. This my first venture into fonts so for me, all font sites besides Microsoft are unknown.

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(3 hours ago)Ofnuts Wrote: You have to either restart Gimp or refresh the fonts in the Gimp font list (open the list, hit the < icon at top right, then Fonts menu > Rescan fonts list).

If that doesn't work, you can try this:

• With your file explorer, navigate to C:\users\{your id}\AppData\local\fontconfig
  

• Erase the directory contents (in partocumar the cache subdirectory)
  

On next start, Gimp will rebuild its font list.

I take it I've already restarted GIMP several times. I usually Quit after each experiment and relaunch when I'm ready for the next one. GIMP says each time that  it's finding brushes and stuff, and (very briefly) that it's finding fonts.

The only GIMP font list I've found so far is the one in the Tool Options for the Text tool. Is that the one you mean? I don't see a way to get from there to anything that looks like "Rescan fonts list".

I did find AppData\local\fontconfig but I'd better wait till I'm wide awake to start erasing stuff.