Monday, April 25, 2016

How to get Free Fonts (Easily)

Feel free to go directly to dafont.com, or read on for pointers on how to make this wonderful site extra wonderful...

If you have heard that "the best things in life aren't free?" or, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't" then you've been lied to. I am about to let you in on one of the best life hacks you have ever discovered. Ok, not true, but this site really is monumentally awesome. If you are like me, you remember the main fonts everyone used back in the 90's when computers were barely getting good, and you had very limited options to make greeting cards, write reports or letters with, etc. Comic Sans, Times New Roman, Papyrus, and there is this one that starts with a "J" that I remember using a ton, but the name is slipping my mind. Anyway, say goodbye to these boring choices. Dafont.com is about to rock your world (and it is totally, honestly FREE).

Did you know that you with the click of a few buttons you can add new fonts to your computer so that anytime you are in Word or Pages, or Photoshop, (or any other program on your computer that uses fonts), you will see that new font as an option along with all of the other boring, old fonts that all computers come with? This is life changing.

Gotta design a logo with an eye-catching font? Bingo. Need to create a birthday invite? Done. Not a wedding invitation, that is too daunting! Think again. Fonts for every occasion, every geek, student, cowboy, nationality...there is a font for you.

Here is how you get the fabulous freebies:

To more easily see the steps in blue, click on the image to see it larger.

  1. Go to dafont.com
  2. Choose from the many font families which category you think will contain the font you have in mind. Or have fun just perusing the most recently added font assortment lower on the page. Have fun, there really are millions to choose from. Some horribly awful, but most so exciting and creative.
  3. In the Preview box, type a word (or words) you would like to see the fonts showcase. 
  4. Choose how many fonts you would like displayed per page in the following box.
  5. Click Submit and start scrolling and downloading.
  6. Depending on your computer, once you click Download, your download starts and will show either at the bottom or top of your screen (typically). 
  7. Once it is downloaded you double click the download box and a box will pop up that will have all kinds of documents that are compressed (zipped). Find the "TrueType font file" that you want (if there are several) and double click on the name.
  8. Another box will pop up that will show a sentence about a quick brown fox and a lazy dog, going from small type to large type. This is a preview of how these letters will look in the font you have chosen to download. If you like how the letters look, click on the Install button (which for me is at the top of the box).
  9. Bingo. You are done. You can now do this for as many fonts as you like and they will automatically be on all of your computer programs when you search for the perfect font for whatever project you are working on
Note: Sometimes with older computers you might need to close all open programs, and re-open them before newly installed fonts are reflected in the font list.

Here are a few screenshots that I thought were fun to help you get an idea of how awesome this site really is:

These are under the Fancy > Decorative section. Thus you would go to the Fancy section (at the top of the dafont.com homepage, and then choose Decorative within the Fancy choices. 
See how eclectic these ones are?

Script fonts can be anything from fancy calligraphy, or handwritten fonts. Wouldn't the "Waltograph" font be great for invitations to all things Disney?


There are fonts for holidays, sports, typewriter, school, Celtic, and so on. So what are you waiting for? Check out dafont.com and you can kiss hours of your life goodbye as you blissfully peruse the endless choices of fonts that will make your life easier, more fun, and more creative.


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