See, here's the thing: Fonts are out there. They're everywhere. Lots of sites will try to sell you fonts, and I've noticed that magazines when they talk about fonts will primarily give you links to sites with fonts for sale.  (My personal theory is that they don't want to point you toward too much free stuff, because it's all about sponsors and ad space -- but that's just me.) But dude -- there are HUNDREDS, if not THOUSANDS of fonts available FOR FREE on the Internet, if you just look in the right spot. And guess what? I have links for you to several of the places you can find them. Now if there's a certain really really cool font that you're just DYING to have, and it's special and unique and you think you'll use it all the time, then yeah, pay $3 to $5 to it and use it to your heart's content.  (Two Peas has a lot of really cool, reasonably priced fonts.  And you can now buy Creating Keepsakes fonts one at a time [instead of in packaged CDs] at Scrap N Fonts.com!!!) But seriously?  Aside from theirs, most of the fonts that are for sale, a similar free font is readily available.  You just have to keep looking.

For my list of font sites, including a few for purchase sites and TONS of free font sites, click here .

When you are downloading fonts, save them all to a folder in your desktop.  (Right-click on your desktop and choose New and Folder.  Name this folder something like "NewFonts" or whatever.  After a font is un-zipped and installed, delete the zipped download file.  You can save a backup copy of the un-zipped, usable file somewhere if you want.)  Downloading your fonts is just the first step: next you need to unzip and install them.  Read about Win-Zip, if you haven't already, in my entry "The Basics of Win-Zip."  Be sure to notice at the end about Temporary Internet Files, especially if when downloading a font you weren't given the option of where the file will save to.

I explain a lot of this backwards or round-about, so you may want to read the whole thing before you start TRYING any of this.  Oh, and I explain everything with the assumption that you're working from a Windows XP operating system.  Apple users and dinosaur operating systems, sorry, can't help ya.

Installing your fonts

Ok, so you have all your fonts you want to install downloaded and unzipped.  Now what?

There are two ways to do this. (1) One is copy and paste.  Open the folder containing the fonts you want.  Select them all, then copy (either by right clicking and selecting copy, selecting edit then copy from the file menu, or holding down control and then "c".)  Ok, now we need to get to the folder where you can install the fonts.  Double click on "my computer," then open the "C:Local Disk" drive.  Now choose "WINDOWS."  You may get a "do you really want to go messin' around in there?" prompt (or something like that), just click yes.  Now double click on the "Fonts" folder.  This will open up and show you every font that is currently installed on your computer.  Put your cursor in a white space inside the folder (you don't want to highlight one of the fonts, you just want to get the computer realize you're talking about hanging out there with the fonts), right click and select "paste."  This should install all the fonts you copied earlier.  (Or just do "edit" and "paste" from the file menu.)

(2) Here's another way to get the fonts installed. While in the C:/Windows/fonts folder, select "file" and "install new font."  (Seriously -- do this to see what happens.)  A new window will pop open and let you look for the fonts you want to install.  But you'll see that you can only select files within the C drive; your desktop isn't an option.  So before you can do it THIS way, you have to create a new folder WITHIN the C drive (and I wouldn't name it "Fonts" -- you want it to be something that is distinctive.  It can be NEWFonts or whatever.  Anyway, create a folder in the C drive, then copy and paste all your new fonts in here.  A bonus of installing the fonts this way, is you can store them all here for future reference and know where they are. 

Anyway, if you create a folder in the C drive, copy and paste all your fonts in there, then open the fonts folder again in Windows.  From the file menu, select "Install new Font" and when the "add fonts" window pops up, select your "NEWFonts" folder within the C: drive.  (You may need to double-click on the C: folder to see all the folders in the C drive.)  Double click on the "NEWFonts" folder, and your computer will automatically read all the fonts and list them in the "List of fonts" window.  To complete installation, just hit "ok."

Not all fonts work or install properly. Some are just bad copies, some won't like your computer (or your computer won't like them.)  Unless you've paid for the font, don't worry about it when this happens.  You can delete the font by clicking on it and hitting delete -- just don't delete anything you're not POSITIVE you yourself just installed.  You don't want to delete a Windows default font, you might screw somthing up. ;o)

It's easy to go crazy when you first start installing fonts, so think ahead to what you think you may actually use.  Installing a ton of fonts will make your font list HUGE, and whenever you want to change fonts in Word or Powerpoint or anything, you'll have to wade through hundreds of choices.  (And this just might make your husband insane if you share a computer.)  It's ok to HAVE a font and to not install it until you are actually going to USE it.