Using Fonts

Introduction

Installing fonts is easy, but once they’re on your operating system, how do you access them? There are two main approaches that applications take that you need to be aware of to get the best out of the fonts that you’ve licensed.

Modern Applications

The presentation of font families in modern applications tends to be highly intuitive, and you get easy access to all family members and their OpenType features.

Legacy Applications

Using modern font families in older applications, such as Microsoft Word version 2308 and earlier, can sometimes be a little confusing. While all members of the family are present and accessible, it’s not always obvious where they are.

Just as in modern applications, style-linking is used, but families are split into virtual families to fit with the legacy view of a family being only four styles, strictly labelled Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic. For example, our extensive library typeface Aktiv Grotesk will map into legacy applications.

In the font family dropdown in legacy applications, each of the weights and widths becomes part of the family name, except ‘Bold’ and ‘Bold Italic’ which are part of the base ‘Aktiv Grotesk’ family. This allows for more reliable styling when editing an existing document or cutting-and-pasting text.