Fontleech: The best free fonts on the web.

Fontleech claims the have the best free fonts on the web.

You be the judge.

Ele-Fonts has free fonts

Ele-Fonts is a free font source.  Some nice ones here!

Free Fonts Download

ffonts for Free Fonts Download.

Recommended by MakeUseOf post.

Fontex for Free Fonts

Fontex has Free Fonts to Download + Premium Typefaces.

Typefaces we can all share : Open Font Library

Typefaces we can all share : Open Font Library has fonts you can download (free), create, share.

Free Music Notation Symbol Fonts

WebsiteTips has a page listing Web Sites with Commercial, Free Music Notation Symbol Fonts as well as Music Dingbat Fonts, Music Picture Fonts, and Band Fonts.

Take a look at the Ecofont

Ecofont is a font designed to save resources (especially laser toner) by printing a sort of draft font that is legible but not as heavy on toner.

Try it for your internal/personal use stuff that nobody else has to see, and save some toner/money!

Freeware.

flipping typical, ain’t it, guv?

flipping typical is, oddly enough, a font display website.  Well — pronounce it “type-ical” if that helps.

It checks the fonts installed on your computer and automatically generates a web page with examples of all of them.

Very simple, no software to download, and you can pick the font you want from what you have available.

Very neat.

Creating Your Own Fonts

MakeUseOf has a post on YourFonts.

YourFonts “is a free tool for creating fonts online from your own handwriting….  You simply download and print provided font template sheet. Fill in each character in your own handwriting and then scan and upload the template on to YourFonts.com. After that you can preview your own font online and if you like it download and use it on your computer.”

Another program is Fontstruct, which “is a web-based font generator where you can create your own text fonts. FontStruct is quite flexible and lets you specify the appearance of each letter. Creating fonts doesn’t require any technical knowledge, although it does take some time. Once the font is ready you can instantly save it to your PC and use it on your computer (i.e. office documents) or optionally publish them on FontStruct and share it with others.”

FontForge is “an excellent freeware program that lets you produce custom fonts. The program is slightly more sophisticated when compared with Fontstruct, and it is also teeming with options and tools.”

How to Embed Almost Anything in your Website

How to Embed Almost Anything in your Website is a Digital Inspiration post with practical instructions on how to handle RSS feeds, videos, audio, photos and slideshows, web albums, events from Google Calendar, very large photos, charts and graphs, animated gifs and screencasts, chat functions, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheet data, PDF files, Flash (SWF or FLV files), LinkedIn profile, Google Maps, another webpage, Windows Media or QuickTime movies, other fonts, and FriendFeed lifestreams.

Whew!

FontStruct – Build, Share, Download your own fonts

FontStruct “is a free font-building tool brought to you by the world’s leading retailer of digital type, FontShop.

FontStruct lets you quickly and easily create fonts constructed out of geometrical shapes, which are arranged in a grid pattern, like tiles or bricks.

You create ‘FontStructions’ using the ‘FontStructor’ font editor.

Once you’re done building, FontStruct generates high-quality TrueType fonts, ready to use in any Mac or Windows application.

You can keep your creations to yourself, but we encourage users to share their “FontStructions”. Explore the Gallery of fonts made by other FontStruct users and download them or even copy them and make your own variations.”

Wallpaper, Fonts, and Icons, oh my!

Okay, couldn’t resist that heading….

Lifehacker has the top 10 free wallpaper, font and icon sources they like.

[updated 2008/6/17]

Desktoptopia has some very nice wallpaper art, free.

Fawnt for free fawnts — I mean fonts

MakeUseOf has a recommendation for Fawnts as a source of free fonts.

Feature Overview

• Search and browse free quality text fonts.
• Download fonts from their respective developer / owner pages.
• Note: While all of the listed fonts are free, some might have restrictions, i.e. free only for personal use. So make sure to get familiar with usage guidelines.

How to install fonts ?

1. Download desired font -> Go to ‘Start’ -> ‘Settings’ -> ‘ Control Panel’ -> ‘Fonts’ -> Click on ‘File’ > Install New Font -> Point explorer to the location of the font -> click OK.

2. Mac: See How to Install Fonts on a Macintosh (eHow.com)

3. Linux: Download and Copy the font files (.ttf or .otf) to ‘fonts:///’ in the ‘File manager’.

CoolText for a little logo or button style

MakeUseOf has a review of CoolText, which can produce text in various styles for use as logos or as buttons on your web site. This has been used by the Boreham Library staff and works well. [By the way - use the link here, as the one in the review is incorrect.]

CoolText Features

• Create custom text logos and website navigation buttons.
• Download and save ready logos to your PC. No registration required.
• Customize: logo text color, select font style, background Color, text size, add order outline, glow effect, etc.
• Free font archive: Over 1200 downloadable text fonts for use in Photoshop or Office programs (i.e. Microsoft Word).

Installing a new font

Fonts are fun, but you do have to go to the small effort of installing new ones.

Instructions on installing a new font are available from Internet Fixes.

To find new fonts, of course, check the resources linked from Computer Helpers.

Font sources

• 1001 Free Fonts ( http://www.1001freefonts.com/ )
• barcode fonts ( http://www.adams1.com/pub/russadam/fonts.html )
• Blambot ( http://www.blambot.com/ ) comic fonts and lettering
• DaFont.com ( http://www.dafont.com/ )
• Free Font Fiesta ( http://www.maryforrest.com/fonts/fonts.html )
• Identifont free fonts ( http://www.identifont.com/free-fonts.html ) also useful for identifying similar fonts, including pay fonts.
• Keyboard True Type Font ( http://www.byte-sized.com/software/keyboard/desc.htm ) shareware font to put a graphic “key” with the character on it, which is handy when creating step-by-step instructions.
• Simply the Best Fonts ( http://simplythebest.net/fonts/index.html )
• 3D Text Maker ( http://www.3dtextmaker.com/ ) free online service conversion for text
• TV/Movie related fonts ( http://www.typenow.net/themed.htm )
• 25 Best Free Quality Fonts ( http://www.alvit.de/blog/article/20-best-license-free-official-fonts )
• Typadelic ( http://www.typadelic.com/free.html )

Find a similar font

• What the Font?! http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/ “Ever wanted to find a font just like the one used by certain publications, corporations, or ad campaigns? Well now you can, using our WhatTheFont font recognition system. Upload a scanned image of the font and instantly find the closest matches in our database. If WhatTheFont can’t figure it out, you can submit your image to the WhatTheFont Forum where cloak-draped font enthusiasts around the world will help you out!” Recommended by Gizmo’s Tech Support Alert newsletter.
• So, you know the name of the font you want — but it’s too expensive or otherwise unavailable. Try the Table of Font Analogs http://www.shorewalker.com/blog/fonts_listed.html or the Bitstream Font Analogue http://www.fontinfo.net/Font_Analog.html to learn about similar fonts you might want to try instead.