T 'n' T: A Font of Knowledge Font-Managing Tricks That Are Just Your Type Gregg Keizer
Mon 9/9/02 -- I love fonts. Big, bold fonts. Little tiny fonts. Fonts that are crystal-clear. Even fonts as unreadable as the old German-script Gutenberg set. But managing fonts -- now, that's a horse of a different color. Or, in keeping with the theme, a font of a different serif.
This week's tips 'n' tricks, then, focus on fonts -- how to wrangle and rope 'em into shape, using both Windows' built-in tools and some new tricks you can teach the operating system.
Times New Roman? Come on, you can do better than that. And so can Windows.
See all fonts. A quick way to view all the fonts installed on your system is to pick Run from the Start menu, type fonts, and press Enter. The Fonts folder opens.
Previewing fonts. Unfortunately for the above, font names tell you nothing; you really need to see what a font looks like, not what it's called. Windows XP has a nifty feature for this: open the Fonts folder and choose View/Preview. Move the mouse pointer over a font name, and a pop-up shows you The Quick Brown Fox Jumps in the font. In other editions of Windows, you'll need to double-click on the font in the Fonts folder. A separate window will open showing the font in various sizes.
Install new fonts. Manually installing fonts is straightforward in Windows. Once you've downloaded a new font -- or have a CD or floppy disk containing one -- open the Fonts folder, and from its File menu, choose Install New Font. Locate the font file(s) you want to install; make sure that the "Copy fonts to Font folder" box is checked; and click OK. You can select multiple font files to install at once with the usual trick of holding down the Ctrl key while left-clicking them.
Tired eyes. When you're using a big screen set to a high resolution, Windows' desktop font size may be too small for your aging eyes. The solution: bump it up a notch.
Right-click anywhere on the desktop and pick Properties. Click on the Settings tab, then on the Advanced button. In the "Font Size" box, choose "Large Fonts" (in Windows XP, look for "DPI Setting" and choose "Large Size"). Click OK here and in the next dialog.
If Large isn't good enough, return to the "Font Size" or "DPI Setting" field and choose "Other" ("Custom setting" in XP). A ruler appears. Click and drag to the pixel size you want. Click OK here and in the next dialog.
Temporary font trick. Having scads of installed fonts means your PC will take a long time to start up. But what if you have a font that you like, but use only occasionally -- do you keep it or dump it?
Keep it, and use this trick. Move the font file from the Fonts folder to another place (any other place, even the desktop). Now, when you want to use the font -- for that special project or quarterly newsletter, say -- just double-click on the font file.
A window opens to show this font in several type sizes. Minimize this window to the taskbar. Presto -- you've just fooled Windows into thinking the font's installed. Any application you open from this point on during your work session "sees" the font. When you're finished, just click on it in the taskbar and close its window.
