Downloading fonts

Often, a spiffy font can pep up graphics and really give it that professional 'non-Paint' look. But most computers only have boring fonts like Ariel and Times. This little tutorial shows you how to download and (more importantly) use downloaded fonts. This is written for Windows XP, so please keep that in mind.

#1: Downloading fonts

This is the easiest part. Go to a Search Engine such as Google or Yahoo! and search for "Download fonts" or something of the like. But since it can be a pain to go about searching for the proper sites, I've listed a couple of the ones that I like. From my experiences these sites are 100% safe and virus free. However, its always safest to have a protection program on your computer just in case.

All these font sites have over 3,000 fonts each so I'm pretty positive you'll find something that tickles your fancy. Simply follow the instructions on the given sites and download the fonts to a new folder entitled "Fonts". Make sure you remember where that folder is, as you will need to go there later. Download only about 10-30 fonts otherwise it will take forever to prepare them all for use.

#2: Extracting fonts

This part is relatively simple, just very annoying. Press:
Start >> My computer >> Your "Fonts" Folder (the place you saved the fonts into)
Now you should have a list of Zipped folders. A zipped folder is a folder that has a little "zipper" on the left side. If your fonts are not in a zipped folder, you get to skip this part (be happy). What we are going to do now is "unzip" them. To do this, right click on the folder once and select "extract all" in the little menu you get. Now you should get a popup, guiding you through the extraction process. Once the extraction is complete, select Finish. Each extraction takes less than 10 seconds for me. It's the clicking that's annoying. Now repeat the process of extracting the files in each zipped folder. Once you are done you will have 2 folders for each font, one "zipped" folder, and one "normal" folder. You can delete the zipped folders once you have extracted the fonts from them; we won't be needing them anymore.

#3: Installing New Fonts

Don't worry, your almost done now. You can close the My Computer window from step 2 now. Press:
Start >> My Control Panel
Now, this is really important, make sure that your control panel is set to "Classic" view. Here's a little screenshot of what should be on the left side of your Control Panel, in the Gery bar. If you only see the "control Panel" part but not the option under, press the little arrow next to "Control Panel" to get the little dropdown window.

Once your Control Panel is safely on Classical View, double click on the "Fonts" folder. Here all the fonts you have currently installed on your computer are listed. Press:
File >> Install New Font >> The Folder you saved your fonts in >> One of the "fonts folders"
You may need to click on the font folder several times until your font appears in the "List of Fonts" part of the window. Once it has, be sure to select it and then press OK. Now you must repeat the process with each "font folder".

Now you are done! You can use your fonts in any program (yes, that includes Paint). You can keep downloading more fonts at your heart's desire. I strongly advise that you make a new folder (Fonts2 or something of the like) each time you download more fonts otherwise you'll forget which fonts you have already installed and that's just a pain o.O I hope this helped you and e-mail me with any questions at kathrin433@yahoo.com :)

~Kathrin