FONTS AND FONT MANAGERS

 

Or, Use What We Introduced Last Week

As we mentioned in last week's Newsletter, there are many font manager programs. However, here at Keystone Keyboard, we use "XFonter" which is a very reasonably priced font manager. We have had great success with it. In this edition of KK, we'll explain the basic steps in using a font manager.

First, let's review why we use a font manager. In Windows, fonts have to be "installed" in order for you to use them. Start to get a lot of fonts - somewhere over 500 - and the Windows OS can start operating erratically or, worse yet, actually crash. Since we want to have as many fonts available for our use, we use our font manager to help us.

What You Need

Before you start to download fonts, create a new folder and label it "Uninstalled Fonts" or "Fonts Not Installed" or something to that effect. Create the folder wherever you find it convenient. This could be the desktop or perhaps under My Documents. Now, whenever you download a new font, you save the font in this folder instead of installing it directly. "XFonter," like most font managers, will first load up the fonts already installed in Windows. Then, you can direct it to your uninstalled fonts folder and it will load up those fonts as well. (We don't mean "install" the fonts, we mean it will load the fonts into itself so you can see and work with them.)

If you look at this screen shot, you will see three tabs on the left side. "Installed," "Browse/Find Fonts" and "Collections." If you look carefully, you will see that this shot was taken while viewing the installed fonts on our computer. Below that, you see a section titled "Font Name" and you can tell that we have highlighted the font called "Algeria." On the right side, under the "Font View" tab, you see an example of that font using the alphabet and numbers 0-9.

 

 

Once you've highlighted a font, you can do lots with it. You can install it, if it isn't installed already) print it and/or resize it to see how it looks. If the font is already installed, you can uninstall it, as well. Remember, Windows doesn't like a ton of installed fonts, so keep the number as low as possible. However, one word of caution, there are basic fonts that come with Windows which should NOT be uninstalled. You can find that list here:  http://www.keystonecomputerconcepts.com/downloads/fontstokeep.txt.  In XFonter, however, the fonts you should not remove are a different color in the list so that should help you even without our list.

Next week, we'll show you how to spruce up "stuff" on your computer!