Windows XP Professional: The Missing Manual

Fonts

Some extremely sophisticated programming has gone into the typefaces that are listed in the Fonts dialog boxes of your word processor and other programs. They use OpenType and TrueType technology, meaning that no matter what point size you select for these fonts, they look smooth and professional—both on the screen and when you print.

Managing Your Fonts

Windows XP comes with several dozen great-looking OpenType and TrueType fonts: Arial, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, and so on. But the world is filled with additional fonts. You may find them on the CD-ROMs that come with PC magazines, on Windows software Web sites, or in the catalogs of commercial typeface companies. Sometimes you’ll find new fonts on your system after installing a new program, courtesy of its installer.

To review the files that represent your typefaces, open the Fonts icon in the Control Panel.

Tip

The Fonts icon in your Control Panel window is only a shortcut to the real folder, which is in your Local Disk (C:)→Windows→Fonts folder.

When you open the Fonts folder, you’ll see that for every font that appears in the Font menus of your various programs, there’s an icon on your hard drive—or several. As Figure 13-11 illustrates, it’s easy and enlightening to explore this folder.

Figure 13-11.  All of your fonts sit in the Fonts folder (top); you’ll frequently find an independent font file for each style of a font: ...