Font FAQs (Help with all these new free fonts you downloaded)
Click on the help topic to expand it further.
First off... Downloading the fonts on Font Mania is quite simple...
- Click on the desired font's graphic
- A menu will pop up asking what to do with the file, open? or save? Click on save to disk.
- Another menu will pop up asking where do you want to put it? Put it in a directory that you will be able to find easy at a later time. I suggest creating a folder called "New Fonts" on your desktop.
- Save the .zip files as the original name. This saves any hassles later on.
- When the file is finished downloading, a menu will pop up saying its done. Click "OK".
That's all there is to it!
How to download...
- Double click the fontmania.zip file icon. This will start the Un-ZIP program that you have installed.
- Highlight the files inside the WINZIP and click extract.
- It will ask you where you want to put them. I suggest placing them in a separate folder called "Extracted".
- Do so for each fontmania.zip you have.
- Remember to read the txt files that come with the fonts. They have important creator information on them, such as payment for commercial use, other fonts they've created, and possibly special instructions on how to install the font.
Now you're ready to put them where they belong... continue on to the next step
Extracting them...
After you have your nice stockpile of fonts unzipped, you'll need a home for them.
For Windows Vista/ Windows 7 and Newer OS's
Simply Double click the font file and click the "Install This Font" Button. This will automatically place the font file in its correct location. You're all done! You can skip the rest...
For Windows XP and older OS's
- Open your "My Computer" icon at the top left corner of your desktop.
- Click on your Hard drive.
- Click on the Windows folder. (This may be hidden, you'll need to unhide system files in folder view if it is)
- Lastly, click on the Fonts folder.
- Now... open the folder that has your new fonts in it.
- You can do this next step 2 ways, either highlight the new fonts and drag them to the windows/fonts folder, or highlight them all and select edit/copy from the toolbar, and then paste them into the windows/fonts folder.
- This is the important part. In the windows/fonts folder, click view and then refresh on the menu toolbar. If you don't do this, the new fonts won't appear in any programs.
- Lastly, If you had a word processor or graphics program open, you will need to close that program and restart it in order for the new fonts to be usable.
Where to put them...
That's all there is to getting the fonts from Font Mania! Now for a few pointers on how to use them... Continue on below...
Now that you have a few dozen new fonts on your computer, what to do now? Well there's numerous uses for them. Creating graphics, webpages, and word processor documents are a start. There are a few things to remember though. When you create webpages that contain special fonts, the browser wont see the font, if they don't have it installed on their computer. Thus the need for graphics. For example; the following statement is created using a font called FADE TO GREY...
*** FADE TO GREY IS A COOL FONT ***
If you don't have the Fade To Grey font on your computer, then all you'll see is the default browser font, New Times Roman. To get around this, you'll need to create a graphic with the typing on it instead.
Now you can see the font. This same principle applies for word documents, or other files that use special fonts. If the end user doesn't have the font on their computer, they won't see the font when they get it. There is some revolutionary things happening in the computer industry that is trying to fix this problem. Embedding fonts into documents, and having server resident fonts is in the works from Microsoft. Within the next few years, any document you create will have the exact font that you created it with. Until then, the need to exchange fonts will be necessary. If you have a favored font, give the person the address to get the font themselves (Here at Font Mania for instance, hint hint... ;) or place it in the package you are sending them, and tell them they need to install the font.
Using new fonts...
Well, that's about all the info I can give out now...
You are now a graduate of the School of Font Maniacs! Go get them Fonts!


