Make a Font Sampler Book

Choosing the best fonts for your document is an important way to convey the right message and get the eye-catching look you want. You can preview fonts either by applying them to text in your document or by double-clicking the font files in the Fonts folder to open a window with font information and sample text. If you find these approaches too time-consuming, however, maybe what you need is a printed collection of your fonts.

Fortunately, making a font sampler book is easy. To print samples of your Windows TrueType fonts, choose Start, Settings, Control Panel and double-click Fonts (in XP, use Start, Control Panel, select Switch to Classic View if you're in Category view, and open Fonts). Hold down Ctrl and click each font you want to include in your font sampler book. Right-click one of the selected items, and choose Print (see FIGURE 3). At this point, you'll have to click Print or OK and Done a bazillion times to confirm the print command and close the preview windows.

When you finish, put your font samples into a binder that you can leaf through the next time you're looking for the right font. As you add and remove fonts from your computer, be sure to add or remove their pages to keep your sampler up-to-date.

If you have PostScript fonts, add them to your sampler. Adobe Type Manager is required if you want to use, view, or print PostScript Type 1 fonts in Windows 9 x or Me, or Adobe's Multiple Master fonts in any Windows version. You can download ATM Light, which is the free version. (The Deluxe version can also print TrueType font samples.) After installing ATM, open it and click the Fonts tab. Choose the fonts you want in your sampler, right-click one of the highlighted items, select Print, Sample Sheets, and click OK in the print dialog box.

In Windows 2000 and XP, you don't need ATM to manage Type 1 fonts. You should see them in the Fonts Window along with your TrueType fonts. If you have some that aren't visible there, locate their .pfm files on your hard drive, select the files, and drag them to the Fonts window to install them.

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