{"id":3079,"date":"2011-10-29T09:35:55","date_gmt":"2011-10-29T13:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=3079"},"modified":"2011-10-29T09:40:46","modified_gmt":"2011-10-29T13:40:46","slug":"unraveling-the-great-font-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/unraveling-the-great-font-mystery\/","title":{"rendered":"Unraveling the great font mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just about every week we receive an email from a reader \t\t\t\twondering why no one can see the fancy font they just installed \t\t\t\tand are now using in all their emails. And this past week we \t\t\t\treceived two such emails. We’ve covered this topic before but \t\t\t\tapparently we weren’t (SURPRISE!) making ourselves clear, so \t\t\t\twe’ve decided to try to clear up the great font mystery once and \t\t\t\tfor all.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of free font sites out there – some are good and \t\t\t\tsome are bad. Most of you who like fonts have found one or two \t\t\t\tfree font sites you like and have probably downloaded a few \t\t\t\tdozen or more fonts and installed them.<\/p>\n

Before we clear up the great font mystery, here are a few things \t\t\t\tyou should know:<\/p>\n

1. Installing a huge number of fonts on your computer is a great \t\t\t\tway to slow your computer down. We’re not talking about \t\t\t\tinstalling a few dozen or even 80 or 90 or 100 fonts. But some \t\t\t\tpeople go berserk with fonts, well, because they really like \t\t\t\tthem. TC is one such person. Installing 500 or 600 fonts on your \t\t\t\tcomputer pretty much ensures a long Windows boot time (unless \t\t\t\tyou have a lot of extra RAM) because Windows had to load all the \t\t\t\tfonts you’ve installed at start up. So don’t go crazy installing \t\t\t\tfonts on your computer. Install the ones you really like but \t\t\t\tkeep your wits about you. You may not be able to use those fonts \t\t\t\tas much as you were planning to use them … read on.<\/p>\n

2. Every Windows computer from Windows 95 through Windows 8 has \t\t\t\tcertain core fonts – like Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman, etc. \t\t\t\tThese are Web-safe fonts. If you’re building a Web site you can \t\t\t\tuse Windows core font and be pretty sure your visitors will see \t\t\t\tthe font you intended to see. Unless, of course, they’re using \t\t\t\tan Apple computer which has Geneva, Helvetica, and other core \t\t\t\tfonts. Which brings us to the point of this article:<\/p>\n

Generally, if someone does not have the font you’re using \t\t\t\tinstalled on their computer they won’t see the font the way you \t\t\t\tintended. This is true of emails, Web pages, and blogs. There is \t\t\t\tsomething called “font embedding” but we’re not aware of anyone \t\t\t\twho uses it – and it’s very old technology.<\/p>\n

So here’s what happens when you download those fonts you love \t\t\t\tand you sent emails to all your friends to show them your new \t\t\t\tfancy fonts. They’ll get your email and they will be able to \t\t\t\tread it, but unless they have the exact font you used installed, \t\t\t\tthey won’t see your fancy font – they’ll see your email in their \t\t\t\tdefault font – usually Arial or Times New Roman.<\/p>\n

Since this is a someone arcane subject, the best way to explain \t\t\t\tit is to show you.<\/p>\n

Here is a portion of an email we just composed:<\/p>\n

Dear \t\t\t\tEB,<\/span><\/p>\n

I just downloaded this great new font called Santa’s Big Secret.<\/span><\/p>\n

How do you like it? Pretty cool, eh?<\/span><\/p>\n

You don’t think I work hard do you?<\/span><\/p>\n

Your buddy,<\/span><\/p>\n

TC<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyone who has Santa’s Big Secret font installed \t\t\t\tshould see exactly the same font in the copy of the email above \t\t\t\tand below this paragraph. Everyone else will see two completely \t\t\t\tdifferent fonts.  Yes we know the font in the email below \t\t\t\tis a little bigger – it’s an image :). But it’s exactly the same font.<\/p>\n

\"Cloudeight<\/p>\n

If you \t\t\t\tsend an email to someone using a font they don’t have installed, \t\t\t\tthey’ll see the font as Arial, or whatever their default font \t\t\t\tis. So many people download a lot of fonts and use them to send \t\t\t\temails to others, and while the font looks great to them, the \t\t\t\trecipient wont see the font unless they have that particular \t\t\t\tfont installed. What’s the chances of a big bunch of you having \t\t\t\t“Santa’s Big Secret” font installed? Not very great. So very few \t\t\t\tof you are going to see first email in the font I used – but all \t\t\t\tof you will see how it was supposed to look (how it looks to me) \t\t\t\tbecause I made an image file of the font. <\/p>\n

We \t\t\t\thope this clears up the great font mystery. It should save many \t\t\t\tof you a lot of time figuring out why people are not seeing your \t\t\t\temail the same way you see it when you send it. If you’re \t\t\t\twriting a business email always make sure to use a Windows core \t\t\t\tfont like Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman, Tahoma, etc. Want a \t\t\t\tlist of Windows core fonts? \t\t\t\t Visit this page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just about every week we receive an email from a reader wondering why no one can see the fancy font they just installed and are now using in all their emails. And this past week we received two such emails. We’ve covered this topic before but apparently we weren’t (SURPRISE!) making ourselves clear, so we’ve decided to try\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1541,716,1138],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3079"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3079"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3085,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3079\/revisions\/3085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}