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SOFTWARE - FONTS - 16.04.2018

Choose a new font

Have you become a bit tired of the fonts supplied with, for instance, Windows 10 or MacOS? Where do you find extra fonts and how can you install and manage them?

With or without serifs?

If you want a document (CV, price quote, etc.) to stand out from the crowd, it may help to use a font other than Times New Roman or Arial. When choosing a new font, you will have to decide whether you want a font with serifs (a small line attached to a stroke in a letter (e.g. Times New Roman) or without serifs (e.g. Arial). Sans-serif fonts are said to be a bit harder to read but give your texts a modern look. Sans-serif fonts are generally for use in business communication.

Where do you find fonts?

There are lots of font websites, and most of these sell fonts. There’s nothing wrong with paying for a nice, professionally designed font, of course, but there are numerous free and equally good fonts available too. Two excellent starting points are Google Fonts ( https://fonts.google.com ) and Font Squirrel ( https://www.fontsquirrel.com ). There’s a wide variety of font categories (serif, sans-serif, display, script, calligraphic, comic, dingbat, etc.) and there are hundreds of fonts which you’re also allowed to use commercially. Normally speaking, commercial use of fonts isn’t allowed, so it’s best to check this before downloading and using a font.

How do you install fonts?

Fonts are offered for download as zipped TTF (TrueType Font) or OTF (OpenType Font) files. OTF fonts offer more refined typographical possibilities; the average user won’t notice the difference. Just unzip the files to a folder, select all the files, right-click on them and choose Install . Tip. You will have to close all running programs and restart them before you can use the font.

How to manage fonts?

Your installed fonts are located in the C:\Windows\Fonts folder. To manage your fonts, just open this system folder in Windows Explorer. You can open a sample of a font by clicking on Preview . You can Delete fonts permanently or simply Hide them, in which case they will disappear from the list of fonts available in, e.g., Word.

To manage a large number of fonts, it may be a better idea to use a standalone font management program such as NexusFont ( http://www.xiles.net ). This tool allows you to compare a user-defined string of text in different fonts, which makes it easier to choose the most appropriate font for a specific text. Moreover, the tool lets you install a font temporarily in order to try it out, and it can also make a backup of the fonts you uninstall. A comparable program for installing and managing Google Fonts is SkyFonts ( https://www.fonts.com/web-fonts/google ).

And on the Mac?

Lots of fonts are preinstalled on the Mac, but websites such as FontSpace ( http://www.fontspace.com/category/apple ) help you to find more fonts. Just download the font files, double-click them in the Finder and click on Install Font in the preview pane. After installation, the Font Book app will be opened. If a font is shown greyed, it means that it is disabled (Off) or that it’s an extra font which you can download from Apple. To do so, select the font and choose Edit ; Download . When you no longer need a font, select it in Font Book and choose Edit ; Disable . The font will remain installed but will no longer be shown in the font menus.

For more original fonts than the default computer ones, check out websites such as Google Fonts, Font Squirrel and FontSpace (which also has a section for Mac users). Managing fonts is easy in Windows 10 and MacOS.