Illustrator is just one of several tools available from Adobe that makes the process of creating a design all the easier. There are so many things that you can do with these tools that the possibilities are nearly limitless.
One of these is adding fonts of your choosing. You might use a fonts free download site or maybe you have created your own custom font that you plan to implement into one of your designs. In any event, you now have your custom font and need a way to implement it into the software.
But how do you do this? Using Illustrator is something that takes time and patience to become familiar with and if you don’t know how to import those fonts that you have been eyeing, it can be a truly frustrating endeavor.
How to import fonts into Illustrator
The first step in the process is to make sure that your Illustrator program is closed. If it is running, even in the background, you won’t be able to find those newly installed fonts. This can lead to confusion and frustration so make sure that you have closed it out.
Make sure you have your fonts downloaded or saved
This may seem like one of those “duh” statements, but one of the most common issues that users run into when implementing new fonts into Illustrator is that they have not been downloaded or created already.
Take the time to do this. Know that all the fonts in Illustrator have to be complete. This means that they have to include italic, bold, and underline templates as well as a full alphabet of upper and lower-case letters. These files can be downloaded in .TFF, .OTF, .TTF, and .PFP formats.
The installation process
Go into your windows explorer (for Windows) or file explorer (for Mac) and find the zip folder that contains your fonts. From here, make sure that all of the fonts that you intend to use are extracted into the desired folder. You can’t use fonts that are compressed in Illustrator.
When your font has finished extracting, follow it to the extracted folder. From there, you will double-click on the font that you desire using and choose the install option. The file should unpack and install on its own, though there may be one or two prompts along the way.
Once it has finished with this process, your new font is installed! You will have to take the time to go through and extract and install each of your fonts, so this process can be something of an endeavor if you have a lot of fonts that you are trying to implement into Illustrator.
After you have installed all of the desired fonts that you wish to use, you need to fire up the Illustrator software once again. If the install has been completed successfully, you will now see your new font in the font dropdown menu in Illustrator.
The process is as simple as that. Adding fonts can really give your design a huge boost in terms of creativity and originality and make the design feel truly yours. Adding a custom font can especially give you a totally unique creative feel and it is worth the process.
Conclusion
Illustrator gives you a huge array of visual design options that can truly bring your imagination to life. Being able to add a custom font into the mix – or perhaps a font that you have seen elsewhere that will greatly benefit what you are trying to achieve in your design – you open a world of creative doors that may not have existed otherwise.
Fonts are a powerful visual design tool and having the ability to choose from a wide array of them is a tool that will become invaluable in your journey. Knowing the steps necessary to not only find the fonts that you desire, but how to implement them into your version of the Illustrator software are infinitely valuable things to know.
Try it yourself. The process is simple and takes no time at all. Best of all, you can add a huge array of fonts into Illustrator, giving yourself a wide array of options to choose from and opening the doors creatively to do so much more.