During TYPO last week, Erik Spiekermann, along with conference organizers Meghan Arnold and Michael Pieracci announced something new to change the way designers select and use fonts. With the new FontShop plugin you can try any of the fonts in our library without ever leaving Photoshop, and once you’re ready to buy, the plugin makes it easy.
To download the plugin, visit the FontShop Plugin page on our website and follow the instructions. Note that the plugin is for CS 5 and later, and if your computer’s operating system is OSX Lion, you’ll likely need to update your Adobe Extension Manager. Details are on the site.
After opening the downloaded file, Adobe Extension Manager should handle the installation for you. Start up or restart Photoshop and select ‘FontShop’ under the ‘Window » Extensions’ menu up top.
To see the plugin in action, just open a file with a visible text layer in it, make sure no text is selected, and click on ‘Preview’ under one of the fonts displayed.
The text is displayed in the new font. Scroll down with the down arrows, and search or browse categories to see more selections. To try a different font, make sure the original text layer is visible again, and repeat.
The plugin is still in beta, so please, let us know what’s not working for you, what is, etc.. We appreciate your voice in making the plugin a valuable tool for putting great fonts into the hands of great designers.