How do you decide the right fonts for your prints?
Do you want to print promotional material, a thesis, or other important print work? Then the layout of your prints deserves some extra attention. With the right font, you make sure that your prints look sharp and attract attention. Below you can read 5 tips on how to choose the right font for your print work.
Which fonts match well?
For a consistent style, we recommend you choose a different font for headers. You can use different forms of the same font. For example, you can make the headers of the text bold and larger than the body of the text. You can also choose to use different fonts for the headers than for the rest of the text. Some examples of combinations that we think look good:
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Did you already choose one font that you definitely want to use? Then google which fonts match well with that one. There are many blogs and forums about nice font combinations.
Adding and downloading new fonts
In most word processing programs, such as Word and Pages, many default fonts are offered. Do you want another font? There are many available for download online. Do make sure that no licenses or royalties are connected to the use of the font.
Do you have an Adobe subscription? Then you can easily activate fonts via the Creative Cloud, without any worries about licenses.
Embedding fonts in your PDF file
To ensure that nothing changes in the layout of your file during printing, it is best to save your file as a PDF. When you do this, fonts are often automatically embedded in the file. That way, you can be sure that the fonts are printed correctly. You can read more about this on our pages on embedding fonts in Word (Windows en Mac), InDesign en Illustrator.
Printing fonts
When printing common fonts, errors occur almost never. The software that is used to print your files recognizes these fonts easily and prints them correctly. Are you using your own font or a font that you downloaded online? Then we recommend always embedding the fonts during the saving of your file as PDF. This minimizes the chances of any errors during printing.
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If you don't embed your fonts properly, as explained above, they might not be printed the way you expect. The software used for printing simply won't recognize the chosen font and can't convert it to the right print. Instead, the printer automatically chooses a different font, or it prints all text as dots or crosses. It is therefore very important to embed the fonts properly when you save your file as a PDF to print, especially when you use a rare font or you designed your own.
