If you plan on writing documents on your Windows XP system and not sure which font to use, you can preview how your fonts will look onscreen. Font previews display the entire upper and lower-case alphabet (if applicable), numbers, and selected punctuation. You'll also see the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" and a set of numbers in multiple sizes to help you determine how the font looks in small and large forms.

To preview fonts:

1) Access your Windows XP Fonts Control Panel.

2) Double-click a font to preview it. A font preview window will appear.

3) Click the "Done" button on the font preview window to close the window.

Note that certain fonts, such as Wingdings, are symbol fonts. Thus, previewing fonts this way will not show all of the symbols they have to offer, such as smiley faces, clocks, arrows, and mailboxes. To see all of the symbols available for such fonts you can open the Character Map utility. There are two ways to do so:

1) Click "Start", selecting "Programs" - "Accessories" - "System Tools" - "Character Map".

Or:

1) Click "Start", selecting "Run".

2) Type in the following: charmap and press ENTER.

Once the "Character Map" dialog box appears, click the pull-down next to "Font" to choose a font to preview. You can scroll through the available characters, and then click the "X" to close the window when you are done.

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Return to the Windows XP and Fonts page.