How to : How to Add Fonts to Illustrator

Close Illustrator if it’s open. You won’t be able to find your newly installed fonts in Illustrator if you install them while Illustrator is running.

Download fonts to install if necessary. If you haven’t yet downloaded the fonts that you want to install, find and download them before continuing.^[1]

Press ⊞ Win+E to open File Explorer

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. Alternatively, you can open File Explorer by clicking the Windows Start menu and clicking the icon that resembles a folder with a blue clip.

Go to your font’s ZIP folder. Use File Explorer to navigate to the zip file that contains the font you downloaded. By default, files you download can be found in the Downloads folder.

• You may have to open additional folders in the main window to find the ZIP folder itself.

Extract the contents of the zip folder. Use the following steps to extract the contents of the zip folder:

• Click the font’s ZIP folder.
• Click the Extract tab at the top of the File Explorer window.
• Click Extract all on the right side of the toolbar at the top.
• Click Extract when prompted.

Double-click the font file. Doing so will open a window previewing the font.

Click Install. It’s at the top of the preview window. This will install your selected font for any application that uses fonts on your computer, including Illustrator.

• If there are separate font files for bold, italic, and so on, you’ll need to double-click and install each of them in order for the font to work in Illustrator.

Install a font manually. If the font you want to install doesn’t have an automatic install function or you are having problems with it, you can easily install a font manually by copying and pasting it in the Windows Font folder. Use the following steps to install a font manually:^[2]

Open an Illustrator file in Illustrator. You can open an Illustrator file by double-clicking the “.ai” file to launch the file in Illustrator. Alternatively, you can create a new file by launching Illustrator and clicking File, followed by New.

Use the Text Tool to add text. The text tool has an icon with a “T” in it. It’s in the toolbar which is generally to the left. Click the Text Tool and then click anywhere in your project to place a text cursor. Start typing to add text.

• To adjust the size of your text, you can either use the font size drop-down menu at the top of Illustrator, or you can click and drag one of the corners of the text box around your text. Hold Shift while clicking and dragging to keep the text proportional while resizing the text.

Use the drop-down menu next to “Character” to select a font. Illustrator can access and use all compatible fonts that are installed on your computer system. Fonts are listed in alphabetical order.

• Use the drop-down menu next to “Character” to select an alternate format, such as Bold or Italic.