Install Fonts for Silhouette Studio: Tutorial for Crafters

Sharing a bit of information today on how to install fonts for use in the Silhouette Studio software. Well, any program really. Fonts are installed directly on the computer and then software programs pull from the Fonts folder on the computer hard drive to access.

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Font files are typically OTF or TTF font files. OTF stands for Open Type Font and if you have the option to install this, that is the one you should install. The OTF file is the newer font format and is the one that has all the special characters, also called glyphs, that we have seen evolve over time. Over time we have seen a shift in font development and are now seeing hundreds of characters in one font file versus the original 26 characters of the alphabet + numbers.

TTF stands for True Type Font and these are the older style font files that do not have as many special characters. If TTF is the only option you have to install for a font, that will work just fine. All it means is that the font file does not contain as many special characters.

How to Install Fonts for Silhouette

Check out the new video tutorial on the Silhouette Secrets+ YouTube channel as I’m sharing step-by-step how to install fonts for use in Silhouette.

As a Silhouette user we’ve been kind of spoiled in seeing font file thumbnails show up in the Fonts folder of the Silhouette library and with most of your basic fonts, the font will install on the computer when the font thumbnail syncs to the library. However, with the Silhouette website migration issues that started on 5/22/24, we have seen fluctuation in files actually syncing properly to the Silhouette library.

The fonts from the Silhouette Design Store, do NOT have to sync to the library for use. It’s just kind of a perk that we have gotten used to. Once things are back to working like they should with the Silhouette websites someday, we may see things return to normal.

The Silhouette Fonts folder only contains thumbnails for fonts that are purchased and synced to the library directly from the Silhouette library. Font files can be found in many online sites. Check out the Recommended Design & Retailers for the group for more options HERE.

The same steps apply for all fonts to be installed no matter what site you obtain them from.

I also have a written tutorial that I published a few year back called Let’s Explore v4 – Installing Fonts. In this tutorial I have provided additional details on things you might encounter such as extracting downloaded files and installation steps for a MAC.

As technology changes and we see updates from both Microsoft and Apple in the computer operating systems, there can be new ways they “hide” things or change things that users have to figure out. For instance, with the release of Windows 11, Microsoft hid the “Install for all users”. It is an important step in the process or the font file might not show up in all programs. That is also another change by Microsoft that occurred with Windows 10 release.
If you encounter any issues with installing fonts or see something different than my video tutorial shows, please check out the written tutorial HERE for more details.

If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments below.

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Enjoy !

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