The estimated reading time for this post is 5 minutes
The Wonder of Tech is honored to welcome Ashvini Kumas Saxena as a guest author. Today Ashvini writes about how to add fonts to your computer, giving you additional fonts for your word processing, photo editing and other software tools. He discusses his favorite source for free fonts, Dafont, which has thousands of free and premium fonts for you to download.
If you’re looking for fun and creative fonts, or didn’t know you could add fonts to your computer, Ashvini’s article will be very helpful for you!
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When you’re creating a design, logo, invitation, art project or website, you may want to use a custom font. You can download custom fonts to your computer in under a minute to use in software and on your website. Thousands of free fonts are available for you to use to maximize your creativity.
Dafont
I often search on the Internet for fonts that have a different look and feel that the ones that we use daily (such as Arial, Verdana, Georgia, etc.). There is no question that these standard fonts are also very good and can be used without any hassle because most computers and word processing programs have these fonts pre-installed.
However if you want to create a special design for an invitation, design, logo, signature or website, you may to bring a little spice to your fonts, instead of using where the standard fonts which would look very simple and ordinary.
There are a number of sites on the web where fonts both free and paid fonts are available for download. One of my favorite font websites is Dafont. Dafont has huge collection of fonts, both paid and free for all kinds of usage. The fonts are clearly divided among various categories so that one can instantly go their choice of category, for example Retro, Comic or Groovy.
They also provide very helpful instructions on their home page, below the category list, on how to install a font on your computer for Windows and Mac systems. They go into further detail on how to install their fonts on their Help page.
Search Dafont
Click on a category to see the fonts offered. You may find dozens of pages of fonts to choose from in a category. Frankly, the number of fonts can be overwhelming.
So they have really nice feature to search fonts based on your needs. With so many search options, it really gets very easy to search what you are looking for. You can also check how your text looks when used in a particular font.
Just type in your text in the Custom Preview field to see how the text will look in the fonts you chose. Isn’t it great when you want to choose the font that best serves your needs? I did a search with my string as “Hello” and here was the result:
If you want further options just click “More Options” and you get more search options:
So if you want to use paid fonts (some of them are really good), just tick that option (shareware) and search.
Cool isn’t it?
If you want to just search, use the search box located on the right hand side at the top of the page. You can also browse by the name of the font.
Sample Fonts
What I searched for? I am fan of Rock Music and my search showed some interesting fonts
Clicking on the Author links shows the list of Authors who have contributed to the site and which country they are from. Participation from my country (India) is rather low. That means we will have to work harder to be in the top.
Language Availability
The site is available in three languages
- English
- French
- Spanish
Font Identification
Dafont has a very interesting feature: crowd-sourced font identification where you can upload a picture of font that you find:
Forum members will answer which font they think is in the picture.
How to download and install a font on your PC or Mac:
You can install font into your computer in a number of ways. Follow the instructions at the Help page of Dafont according to your type of computer and operating system.
Here is a helpful video demonstrating how to download a font to your PC:
For more information look at these articles from WikiHow: How to Install Fonts on Your PC and How to Install a Font on a Mac
How to install a font on your website
(For advanced users)
You can install a custom font on your website, but readers may not be able to view it (see below). Let’s say you want to install a font “new-font” on your site.
a) Download the new-font.ttf from the font site and place in a web folder (for e.g. public_html/yoursite/webfonts)
b) Now you can use CSS identifier like this. Place this code in your style.css file:
@font-face {
font-family: new-font;
src: url(‘webfonts/new-font) format(‘opentype’);
}
Viewing Fonts
When you use a custom font in a software program such as Word, readers should be able to view the font when they open the document on their computers, even if they don’t have that font downloaded.
When you use a custom font on your website, your readers may not be able to view the font unless they have downloaded that font onto their computers. Instead of the custom font, readers who haven’t downloaded the font will see a default font, such as Times New Roman.
You can use your custom fonts on images, which readers can see even if they haven’t downloaded the font to their computers. Use your downloaded fonts in a software program such as Word, then use editing tools such as PicMonkey to create images using the new font, that any reader can see.
Summary
Check out Dafont to get new and creative fonts for your computer. Enjoy this awesome site to find fonts to use in your logos and signatures.
Have you ever downloaded a new font for your computer? Have you tried Dafont? What would you use a new font for — art project, invitations, logo, web design? Let us know in the Comments section below!
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Ashvini Kumar Saxena lives in Bangalore, India and has written at Thoughts on Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Motivation for the past three years. He loves to write on topics such as entrepreneurship, leadership and motivation. He also has interests in web technologies, music and book reading. He has created a plugin Share Juice Pro to help bloggers share their posts on social media.
Hi Ashvini, and welcome to Carolyn’s blog 🙂
Ah…yes, for a change I’ve tried Dafont earlier, but that was long back, and my memory seems to be fading as I really seem to have forgotten how I used to do it all! I’m glad you shared that video with us – it was nice to hear you in it too as we tend to see you all over otherwise instead 🙂
I think I’d better go and check out Dafont once again, though I normally prefer to just use the normal fonts that come in the WordPress site and the ones that our themes allow. I wonder if you can download any font, and if it would be taken up by our particular theme? I had this problem when I was setting up this new blog and wanted something different for my header – but then tried the ones I had with me and chose one of those.
Thanks for sharing. Have a nice week ahead, both of you 🙂
Hi Harleena, Yes, I am thrilled to have Ashvini here at The Wonder of Tech. I didn’t know about Dafont until he introduced me to it and then I asked him to write a guest post for me here to introduce Dafont to Wonder of Tech readers.
I was amazed at how many free fonts Dafont has. I have found a lot of fonts there I have used for images here at this site.
I use the Thesis theme which makes it very easy to switch fonts, but I stick to web-friendly fonts so everyone who views my site sees the same font.
I have used Dafont for images though, such as the one for Throw a Pinterest Party! https://wonderoftech.com/pinterest-parties/ The Pinterest font is unique and proprietary so I used a Lobster font to get as close as I could for that image.
You could use a font from Dafont to make an image for your header at your site, Harleena. That could work very well for you as there are so many fonts to choose from at Dafont.
Hi Harleena,
Thanks for your comment. Its really great to hear that you used dafont sometimes back. It is a great site for discovering the fonts.
Yes you can use the fonts in your website . This link provides a very easy explanation of how it does http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7961721/how-do-i-install-a-custom-font-on-an-html-site .
Basically you just need to copy the font to a directory on your webserver and the import it into your site with import command in CSS. Then you can just use it like any other font.
I hope that you will be able to use them with the instructions in the link.
Thank you and you too have a great day 🙂
Using a font on your webpage that some users perhaps can not see does not seem like a good idea. Is there some way to ensure that if they can not see that font, there is a fallback font?
Hi Johan, Yes, you’re right. It’s safer to use Dafont for images on websites, logos, word processing, and other designs.
My theme, Thesis, offers quite a few custom fonts, but also alerts you which ones are not “web-safe”. If you had a private website where you could use a custom font and be sure that everyone had the font downloaded, then that would be an option. For a public website, you’re correct, using a web-safe font is the best option.
I do love Dafont – especially their tool that allows you to type in what you want so that you can see it before downloading it.
Saves loads of time!
Hi Mark, Yes, you’re right, that is a very handy feature of Dafont. You can see how letters connect and how your text will look in the sample font before you download it.
Nice to see you here Ashvini and thanks for this insight into customizing and downloading various fonts for our website or laptop.
Dafont looks interesting and I would love to check it out now after reading your description. It always helps to have them ready when you would like to design some fancy headers or pin cards.
Hi Praveen, Yes, we are thrilled to have Ashvini here sharing his insights on Dafont. I think you’ll really enjoy this site, Praveen. I hope you find some fun and creative fonts on Dafont! 🙂
Hi Praveen,
Thanks for your kind words. Yes they are really interesting and there are so many of them . The search feature is really cool :).
Hope you create something good and share that with all of us .
Wonderful to see an individual below Ashvini and also cheers due to this information in designing and also downloading different fonts for our web page or maybe notebook computer.
Hi Jakaria, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! You’re exactly right, it is wonderful to have Ashvini here with us giving us this helpful information about downloading fonts from Dafont.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts with us.
Hi Johan, Users can always see custom fonts, if it is correctly set up. For example http://diythemes.com use custom fonts completely for the page display and we are able to see them without any problem.The link in my reply to Harleena gives easy way to add the font. For fallback font, you can always use css like this body{font-family: \’your-custom-font\’, arial, verdana;}
Ashvini, nice article. I’ve actually been thinking about adding fonts to my website. Thanks for the tip.
Hi Frank, I’m so glad you found Ashvini’s article helpful to you. New fonts can distinguish your website and give it character. I hope you find some fonts you like on Dafont!
Hi Frank,
You are most welcome :). Do let us know how it goes
Hi Carolyn, Hi Ashvini!
What valuable information! It’s funny; my first career was as a calligrapher but I’ve not paid a lot of attention to fonts online! So much to learn online – and fun with good teachers sharing!
🙂
Lori
Hi Lori, Very cool that you were into calligraphy. What a wonderful art! I have been a fan of fonts for a while, and have noticed what a difference they can make to a document and website. I try different web-safe fonts here to see which one has the most appealing look for the site.
I didn’t know how easy it was to get new fonts at Dafont until Ashvini showed me how to do it. I have downloaded quite a few so far. Some I don’t even know what I’ll use them for, I just think they’re cool.
I hope you find fonts you like at Dafont, Lori!
Hi Lori,
There are so many things to do but we can only do a so few. I love this site and explored this sometime back. When I showed this to Carolyn, she asked me to write a guest post on it. This post was pending for a long time but it was always in the back of our minds. Fortunately we were able to finish it 🙂 . Carolyn and I are a good team :).
I hope you enjoyed this and I hope to see some cool fonts on your blogs soon 🙂
Hi Ashvini,
What a nice topic. Very interesting for creators, for artists and for people who don’t like monotony. Quality fonts can really make an unforgettable user experience.
The only problem is the one you mentioned above: sometimes when you use a particular font on your site (and on your word documents, too), the readers may not see the original font but a default one or even worse, strange characters that will make the text difficult to read.
I use different types of fonts only when I create pdfs in order to make sure the readers will be able to see everything.
I knew about Dafont but never used it. Until now. You made me curious. I will try it and see what I can find and use from there.
What a nice and unusual topic. Thanks.
Have a nice day
Hi Silviu, You certainly have an appreciation for and an understanding of fonts. You definitely should check out Dafont, you’ll enjoy checking out all of the fun fonts. It’s amazing how many they have there and most are for free.
You’re right about the websites. With all of the different browsers, operating systems, and devices, it’s better to be conservative and use web-safe fonts. But special fonts can be very useful for designs, text documents and images.
Have a great weekend, Silviu!
Hi Silviu,
It was nice to connect with you sometimes back.
I am sure that you will be able to use fonts on the site from the method I described. I agree there could be problems ( as web technologies get unpredictable sometimes) but we cannot escape from the lure of fonts :).
Hope you are having a great day
Fabulous! Sharing with my graphic design team – it’s always great to find new resources.
Hi Ruth, I’m so glad you found Ashvini’s article to be helpful. Dafont is a treasure trove of mostly free fonts. I hope you find some great ones there, Ruth!
Hey Ashvini,
Great to see you again here at Carolyn’s blog and I love this post.
I remember probably a few years back now that I learned how to add different fonts to my computer. I didn’t know before that you could do that so I’ve added some myself. I don’t have a particular site that I visit, I usually just do a search at that time to see what comes up.
Now I love what you shared about using them on our websites too but then if others don’t have them installed then it really does no good for us. Bummer, wish that wasn’t the case.
Love this post so thanks for this lesson. You guys have a great weekend okay!
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne, Yes, I learned about Dafont from Ashvini and wanted him to write a post about it here. Dafont has so many amazing fonts that you can download to your computer in under a minute. How cool is that?
I hope you find some fun fonts there, Adrienne. I hope you have a wonderful weekend too!
Hi Adrienne,
Great to read your comment.
You can use fonts in your site. Look at the way for example diythemes.com uses it. There is special css for that. I will need to experiment a little bit more on it and I will let you know how it goes 🙂
This is a great find! I had never heard of Dafont before. That should come in handy.
As an aside, this post reminded me of a plugin that I use in WordPress to easily install
WP Google Fonts. (That’s what the plugin is called “WP Google Fonts”.) It’s working really well on a client site. I realize that we all are trying to limit the number of plugins we use but that one saved me a lot of time.
Hi Sherryl, That’s a great recommendation for a plugin for new fonts for WordPress websites, thanks!
I use the Thesis theme which gives me a lot of font choices, but I stick to the web-safe ones to make sure all of my readers are seeing the same font, no matter what browser or device they’re using.
I hope you find some fun and useful fonts on Dafont, Sherryl!
Fonts have always been a fundamental part of a content and reading this post, it made me realize how we can really enjoy using fonts. Thanks for a great content.
Hi Manish, I’m glad you like Ashvini’s article. You’re right, fonts are a fundamental part of content but so often we take them for granted. With Dafont, you can get custom fonts so your font can match the tone of your content.
Thanks for sharing your insights here, Manish!
Thanks Manish. It is really interesting to use different fonts than the normal ones.
Hi Ashvini Good seeing you here on Carolyn’s blog.
Well, this sure looks like fun! I can see where it can come in handy especially on a sales page where you want things to look special.
It is also great for just about anything. I’m going over to check it out.
Donna
Hi Donna, That’s a great idea, using special fonts for sales pages. You could bring a unique style to your page with a special font.
I hope you find a font you like at Dafont, Donna!
Hi Donna,
Great to see you too.
Sales pages will get boost with these awesome fonts. Do let me know how it works out for you :).
Hello Ashvini,
Your post is simply mind blogging and also making me to enjoy with the fonts.
Good post keep it up
Regards
Siddhartha Sinha
Hi Siddartha, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, Ashvini did a fabulous job with this article on fonts. I hope you find some great fonts on Dafont!
It’s actually my first time to read about Dafont. I usually go to MS Word to set up the fonts that I need for captioning. Never really had an idea that a site exist for custom fonts. It’s a really informative thing to share. Thank you for sharing this.
Hi Carolyn and Ashvini,
I am late in the game, but I love this post.
The first thing I messed with when I first approached a computer, years ago, was font. I thought it was a lot of fun… just like a kid.
Font tells a great part of the story, but sometimes, a specific font could also be a no-no. For example one of my clients, just yesterday, had her resume in Sans Comic. LOL that’s crazy!
Thank for this great info.
Hi Sylviane, Sorry I missed your comment earlier! Sounds as if you have been having fun with fonts for a while now.
Comic Sans would be a good font for a resume if you were applying for a job as an elementary school teacher. Otherwise, Comic Sans is a less than ideal choice.
I often visit Dafont too, anyway, I am actually so interested with fonts, and if there’s new to my sight, like I would see from greeting cards, I could not just rest my mind but to rummage Google to find that particular font. Thank you for sharing this, great post!
Hi Justin, I’m glad to hear you are a fan of Dafont too. So glad you were able to find great fonts at Dafont, Justin.
I use dafont too. Mainly to make nice 3d graphics, although not all fonts work. :/
Hi Roger, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m glad you like Dafont too. You’re right, not all fonts work on websites but they could work on word processing software.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts with us, Roger!
Haha no problem. I enjoy ready some articles. My first comment though! 🙂
Yeah, it’s great if you’re into photoshopping. And I do admire how some people come up with these fonts.
Keep up the good works!
~Roger