How to include a new font on Illustrator?

I just downloaded some new fonts on my PC from (fontfreak.com) and wish to use them on Illustrator. The freakin software is make it harder than it is...I did it many time on MAC but for some reason I just can't on PC.

I spent at least an hour looking at their help desk to see how it's done.
None of the fonts I have are OK on Illustrator. I keep going back to that option "find font" on the "type" tool bar. I get this useless window that don't let me import anything...
If anyone could help me fight this b*tch...I'll appreciate!

ps: all my fonts are for PC.

Well, you install them in Windows, not Illustrator

Have a read of this..

http://www.photosector.com/Sections+ind ... age-1.html

If you want my suggestion. Take your PC and toss it out the nearest "Window". Go back to your Mac, baby, yeeeeah.

Occasionally I find after installing new fonts in Windows, that I need to restart Illustrator so it loads them upon opening.

Othertimes I can be looking for them, only to find them way down the bottom of the font character drop down list. I'm unsure why Illustrator does this, but try looking right down the list for your font.

Yes, any application that uses fonts you will have to reload after installing a font - basically because software like illustrator, photoshop, word, etc. loads the current font set when the program loads - and it doesn't reload it again after.

In order to reload the font list, you'd need to restart the application.

IIRC, InDesign doesn't need a restart. Could be wrong though.

If that's true, that'd be brilliant and I wish other programmes would follow its lead (don't use InDesign, so can't test). Sometimes technology is like medicine: we can do all this amazing stuff, but can't cure the common cold; similarly, we can do all this amazing stuff with our computers, but we're still having to reboot and restart programmes after simple procedures. *grumble*

Well, 99.99% of times a font is installed, it doesn't happen when a program is running.

It would be a superfluous feature. (Almost) Nobody's going to have their applications constantly check if new fonts have been installed and update the list.

How long does it take to close a program and click on its icon to reload it?

I've never seen anybody need to reboot after installing a font

Just tested and InDesign CS1 does indeed recheck the installed fonts when you switch focus back to it.

Actually, with memory-intensive documents containing lots of high-res graphics it can take a little while. I currently have 1GB of RAM (will upgrade soon) and I experience pauses with Adobe software switching when two or three apps are open at the same time.

Checking the registered fonts on every refocus is a great idea. If you use InDesign's 'edit original' (or similar) feature it also updates any edited graphics straight away.

The only pause I get with Adobe products is when I ALT+Tab from another application and Photoshop has to import the clipboard contents.

I'm also on 1Gig of DDR ram, with an AthlonXP2500+ Barton, 80Gig ATA100 w/8Meg cache drive to boot from, 120Gig w/8Meg cache and 250Gig w/16Meg cache SATA drives for data, swap space, etc.

Perhaps your system is just not optimally configured for use with Adobe products? I know mine isn't (yet) either, but I'm not seing pauses and slowdowns. How much of your 1Gig is dedicated to Photoshop and each of the other applications? If you've got 500Meg dedicated to Photoshop, another 500Meg dedicated to Premiere, and another 500Meg dedicated to InDesign, then it's gonna be swapping to your hard drive a hell of a lot.

I can happily have Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere & Image Ready all running at the same time (as I do fairly regularly).

You can't just stick Adobe products on a stock PC and expect them to run at their best if you're trying using them in a more professional/advanced capacity.

It's not like I'm waiting there for minutes or anything; things only really slow down after a few heavyish documents have been opened and edited etc. (I was just making the point there is definitely an advantage to be had in rechecking the registered fonts without requiring a program reload.)

Photoshop is set to use up to 50% of my RAM, and I can't see a way to adjust memory usage of InDesign and Illustrator. Also have Dreamweaver open sometimes.

My virtual memory is set to a fixed size of 2GB on my second hard drive (Windows and applications on first hard drive).

If you have any advice on how to improve memory usage I'd be glad to hear it.

With 1Gig of RAM, I usually set Photoshop fairly conservative on the dedicated ram usage. around 30% or so.

It was happy running on 250-300Meg when I only had 512Meg of RAM, and it does just fine with that setting on 1Gig. Unless I'm compositing several NEF RAW files straight from the camera (3008x2000 pixels), and doing lots of huge editing with them (building up lots of history, layers, etc) I really don't notice any slow-down, even with Maya running too (which is a huge processor/memory hog).

Basically, here's how my drives are setup right now.

ATA Primary Master : WD 80Gig ATA100 w/8Meg cache - this drive contains my OS.
ATA Primary Slave : Seagate 40Gig ATA66 (my old primary master, which is basically only in the system as a "backup" in case I forgot to transfer something over when I setup the new drive) - once I know everything's fully restored, copied over, it's coming out of the machine and being replaced by as big as I can find ATA100 or faster drive.
SATA1 : 120Gig SATA150 Maxtor w/8Meg cache - this is my "Work" drive, where all my files are stored for graphics, clients, etc. (Secondary scratch disk in PS & Primary in Illustrator)
SATA2 : 250Gig SATA150 Maxtor w/16Meg cache - this is primarily used for video capture/storage, it's also my primary scratch disk in Photoshop & secondary in
Illustrator.

That way, when I have both Photoshop and Illustrator loaded, they're reading accessing different scratch drives when working.

Hmm.. looks like you're right about illustrator. I just double checked the preferences (I'm using Illustrator CS2), I could've sworn there was an option there in the past (previously I was using Illustrator 10). I don't know about InDesign, I don't have it. But, you can setup your scratch disks in Illustrator (can you in InDesign?), so those definitely need to be set to drives other than your system.

The "ideal" hard drive setup I've seen mentioned by a lot of pros for Photoshop is 3 separate drives, as fast as you can afford.

1) OS & Software
2) Work/Data drive
3) Scratch drive

Separate partitions on the same physical drive doesn't really affect performance in a positive way, separate drives is the way to go.

What are the interfaces/speeds of your two drives? What are the cache sizes on your drives?

99.99% of the time for me, it absolutely does happen when a programme is running. I'm mucking about in Photoshop, and making a sourpuss face because none of the fonts I have is quite doing it for me. I head over to one of my favourite free font repositories and find one that does. If Photoshop worked like InDesign, I could download, install, use... but it doesn't.


Too long, on my archaic rig. But even if it were nearly instantaneous, that's besides the point. The point I was making, really, was more about workflow interruption and the usability and accessibility of computers in general. I'm quite happy with how far the industry has come in just the past decade, but I'm looking forward to more improvements in usability vs. eye candy (as much as I love eye candy).


I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I didn't mean to imply that I have to reboot after installing a font; rather, my comment was a more general one about having to restart applications (after, say, installing a font) and reboot (after, say, installing an application that needs to replace a .dll currently in use).

Back in the day -- was it Win98? I don't remember now -- we used to be able to hit a key (Shift?) while rebooting that would simply restart Windows instead of rebooting the whole computer. I guess folks who've got über-kit and are back up and running in seconds couldn't care less, but that's something I rather miss. It was a good compromise, I think.

Erm... apologies for derailing the thread. =]

Don't be a hater, just upgrade

On an old PC, sure, it's gonna be slow, but an old PC is gonna be slow at a lot of things these days.

I'm not running on anything special. you've seen my hard drives listed above. Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe (Now a $60-70 motherboard - or less if you shop around), AthlonXP2500+ Barton ($50-60), and 1Gig DDR (around 80 bucks). 19" CRT ($130 @ OfficeMax a coupla weeks ago).

So it's not like I'm running a Dual Athlon 64 w/ SATAII RAID, 4Gig RAM, etc.... yet

Oh, I plan to. As soon as I land that elusive steady paycheque. =]