Font selection in X6 - please help

[not2techie]

My computer running the Vista OS died, I had PSP X5 on that computer. Now I had to get a Windows 8.1 computer, and I went ahead and installed PSP X6 on this computer. The font selection is about 1/2 of what I had on X5 ... I have some huge projects coming up, and I really need more fonts than what X6 is supplying. Why is the selection of fonts so minimal? Shall I assume X7 and X8 have even less to choose from?
Most importantly, for my immediate needs, do I need to uninstall X6 and then install X5 if I want a bigger font selection? Or, can I have both of those programs installed on my one computer?

I have googled frantically trying to figure out how to add fonts, and none of it is making sense to me at this point.

[BrianCee]

All of the programmes on your computer use the same fonts - and while individual programmes may add some extras to those fonts they are all also installed in the 'fonts' folder on your computer - it is not the fault of PSP that you have less fonts - but the 'fault' of the Windows installation

on Win 8.1 you will find the fonts folder at -- C:\Windows\Fonts

to add more fonts to PSP you simply add more fonts to the folder - many of them are free but you may have to pay for some of the more unusual ones

do a Google search for 'fonts' and you will be presented with numerous choices - choose one and then download and install it to your computer


A word of warning - watch what you are downloading - as in all free downloads there are one or two unscrupulous sites out there who will try to give you things you do not want on your computer - - probably the safest place to start is on the Microsoft website here
https://www.microsoft.com/EN-US/search/ ... &form=apps

[Ken Berry]

All of the programmes on your computer use the same fonts - and while individual programmes may add some extras to those fonts they are all also installed in the 'fonts' folder on your computer - it is not the fault of PSP that you have less fonts - but the 'fault' of the Windows installation

Just to add a little to what Brian has said, in effect the fonts you were seeing on your old computer were almost undoubtedly a compilation of fonts installed by various programs over a long period. All of those fonts install in the same place and are available to all programs, including PSP. Changing computers means that you no longer have access to that collection of fonts. So I am afraid it is a matter of building up a new collection from scratch.

[not2techie]

Much Thanks for explaining that to me. I am not one bit surprised that I have one more reason to be furious with Win 8 ... (insert primal scream here)

And thank you for supplying a trusted website to begin my search of fonts to add. Wish me luck! I'll be needing it. lol

[hartpaul]

If you still had access to the hard drive on the old computer it may be possible to copy the fonts from there to your new one.
Another good reason to make backups of the things you rely upon . eg I use Lucida Handwriting a lot and having XP, Win 7, Win 8.1 I have copied that font to all of those systems as well as a backup Fonts folder.

[MarkZ]

In Windows 7 you can view the fonts by going to Control Panel/Appearance and Personalization/Fonts. I like this method because the display shows the name, the appearance of the font and the variations (bold, medium etc.) for each font. Perhaps 8.1 has such a route to the fonts.

[Ken Berry]

I can't talk about Win 8.1 anymore as all my machines are now Windows 10. But the latter has a direct Control Panel > Fonts entry which does the same thing.

[BrianCee]

In Win 8.1 - and if I remember correctly in many previous versions of windows - you do not need to go via the control panel - simply use Windows explore/my computer to go to C/Windows/fonts and when the fonts folder is open double click on the font an a display window will open showing all the characters in that font at different sizes

[not2techie]

Now I have been downloading and installing fonts like mad! Sure wish I had known how they actually worked many years ago, would have saved me a lot of headaches.

When my Vista hardrive crashed, I had forgotten to back-up only my last 'roll of film' on it. Pretty upset about loosing that particular shoot too. Had I known about fonts, they all would have been backed -up.

I did try to locate fonts on the 8.1 C drive, I could not find them that way. Which may not mean anything, the way this OS and I hate each other. But, I was able to locate my font folders in Control Panel, then Appearance and Personalization.

I do have another question in regards to fonts now...This particular computer has a lot more capacities than my Vista machine did (although I have not seen improved performance or speed, at all) So, I am curious, if and when I load up on a ton of fonts, is it going to slow down my speed and performance in PSP X6 ?

[Cassel]

It is not always a good idea to have tons of fonts available and installed, as it means they will all be showing up for other programs too. If you tend to work with some fonts, or like to have a variety to work on PSP only, you might want to use a font viewer and keep the fonts separate and only use them when needed.

I have a blog post about font viewers:
http://scrapbookcampus.com/2014/11/free-font-viewers/