Don't know much about typography...
 
Generally speaking, if you want to pretty up a document, one of the easiest ways to do it is to choose a reader-friendly font, and stick with it consistently.  Fonts are installed with Windows, and can be accessed in many programs as well as the standard Office suite (Word, EXCEL and PowerPoint).  But there are two main issues with Windows font families:
 
  1. They chew up considerable memory and can affect the performance of your machine
  2. People who receive your documents with special fonts installed won't see the fonts unless they already have the same fonts, or unless you've embedded the special fonts in your original.
 
There are some fascinating, free fonts available on the web, as well as great advice on how to control what may become an addiction to fancy fonts. The main principle is: go easy on the reader.  Too many fonts in one document inevitably distract from the content.
 
Have a look at these links that make some useful suggestions on how to vary your font diet.
 
  1. Search Free Fonts is a fascinating place to start. You'll find commercial and free fonts of every description.
  2. Everything about Fonts (About.com) will blow you away.  Where does this woman get the time to provide so much information so well organized?
  3. Kay's Kreations derives this page of information from the About.com source. The important thing is how to manage excessive numbers of fonts so that your computer doesn't go brain dead.
  4. Google Directory list of freeware and shareware fonts is overpowering. 
 
One caveat; many of the free font families do not use kerning, so the appearance of a free version of Lucida Handwriting, for example, may be less satisfactory than the commercial version.
 
 
FONT*
*Face it, It takes all types to make a font.  (heh heh)
 
Tue Jun-08-2004
[ Previous  |  Next ]     [ Up  |  First  |  Last ]     (Article 27 of 148)