Christmas / Xmas Fonts

Christmas / Xmas Font Shapes for PaintShop Pro, Indesign, Pages, Microsoft Word, Elements and others PC and MAC OS X

Christmas fonts - how to install / PC ?

Install the Christmas shapes TTF file via the control panel. On Windows 7 if you right click the TTF font file (say the Christmas trees or the baubles sets etc) you will see a selection of possible software to use to open the file but most of them will be totally useless for the task and I am not even sure why Windows attempts to associate the Christmas shape TTF files with Photoshop etc as Photoshop doesn't read the TTF format files via its open command.

No, the best application to select via the right click menu is the windows font viewer application. It is not a super hi-tech application but it does show you a preview of some of the designs included in the Christmas sets as well as offering to print the designs and more importantly an 'install' button. To install the font, click the install font. If you are on an admin account (not a great idea) then you should be able to install instantly but if you on a standard lower privileged account then you will be asked to enter your admin password (which you might or might not know). Once you have entered the password, the application installs the Christmas font in the control panel 'fonts' folder. This is perhaps a little slow if you have 20 or 30 fonts to install but with one it is fine.

The Christmas fonts can now be seen in the typeface dropdown of your software (though you will probably have to re-start the application so it can rebuild its menu).

Windows - Earlier versions installation for fonts

In earlier versions of windows you have the install option via the font panel in the control panel on the PC so you can go to the install new fonts and then browse to the folder containing the Christmas fonts and then select the fonts and the fonts will be installed. That has changed, there is no option (for some reason) in windows 7 to install a font via a menu - you can now just drag the Christmas bauble, tree etc fonts from a folder into the font panel and that will install the fonts. If, as before, you are not using a privileged account then you will be asked for your admin password.

Above example shows multiple snow flake shapes applied (the same design). The snow flakes can be re-colored as they are applied using the foreground color setting (in Photoshop) or properties in Paint Shop Pro etc. Other software vary how they change the color of the font characters but most software have some feature to do that modification. Many of the software can also, such as Word, apply different effects to the font designs and add a shadow or other effects

Above is a teddy bear Christmas font shape, this is applied to a blue background. The design could, of course, be applied to any background - not just a solid color.

How to access the Christmas shapes via charmap / PC ?

Charmap is a useful application for accessing the hidden characters (as well as the visible, better not forget those) in a font. To access most of the designs in the Christmas fonts just type the characters on the keyboard A B C D E etc but in some cases the fonts contain a lot more characters and these can be found via the charmap application.

All the Christmas fonts contain a PDF document showing all the Christmas shapes and the character code etc to access the shape and you can print this out and keep it as a reference if you wish.

The charmap does much the same thing. Access the charmap application on PC via the start menu. Sadly the small preview images of the font characters in charmap are fairly small - why ? surely a range of size options should be available by now ? Anyway, a bigger preview of the Christmas shape can be seen as you hold the mouse down and scan over the individual Christmas characters. Once you find your favorite shape, double click or press the select button and then copy and paste the Christmas shape or shapes into your favorite software such as Photoshop, Indesign, Quark etc

Christmas font shapes in Fireworks

The font shapes such as the Christmas baubles can be used in Macromedia Fireworks / Adobe Fireworks application. Access the font Christmas shapes via the text tool (T). Set the font via the Text menu followed by font command and set the size via the same menu. Type a character such as G or A etc via the keyboard as you would with any other font: the Christmas shape / bauble etc will then appear - while highlighted you can set the color of the design via the fill in the toolbox. Go to the window menu followed by properties menu command if the properties box is not visible and set the size etc via that panel.

Christmas font shapes and Fireworks and effects

You can also go to the properties palette and select the filters button to display a large range of live filters that can be applied to the currently selected Christmas bauble text box (select the individual shapes and you cannot access the live effects button). You can apply a single filter or have multiple filters applied to the character or characters. Live effects include blur, bevels, shadow, glows and also Photoshop live effects (which is basically most of the Photoshop styles panel - though it does miss the more interesting options such as the selection of patterns and gradients)

Christmas font fills in Fireworks - gradients and patterns

Select the shape and go to the properties panel and click the fill swatch button and - you can then fill the Christmas bauble font shape (or decoration etc) with a pattern or gradient - Fireworks has a wide selection of pattern fills, gradient options (a lot more than Photoshop in some cases) as well as adding texture to the pattern and gradient fill.

Christmas font - Fireworks convert to symbol

The Christmas font shape can be converted to a symbol. Use the modify menu followed by symbol sub menu and convert to symbol.

Live effects such as blur, bevel, adjust color can still be applied to the Christmas font shape even as a symbol.

You cannot modify the actual shape of the symbol design but you can double click the symbol design and then modify the character used by the symbol say from H to G (which in the case of the Christmas bauble shapes etc are different Christmas bauble designs).

Another advantage of the Christmas symbols is that the symbol design can be dragged from the symbol palette (document library) and used multiple times with minimal impact on the application. Also changing one of the instances of the symbol will change all the instances of the Christmas design throughout the document.

Fireworks and convert to path - right click Christmas font shape

Select the text box and then right click and you will see a menu pop-up offering options to change the size, edit etc - select the convert to paths option. The text will no longer be editable text and so you cannot change one Christmas bauble etc shape for another Christmas shape. Though there appears to be a weird glitch in the application in that when it converts to a path, an additional shape is also added to the text (in my version of Fireworks anyway, perhaps it is fine in others).

As with symbol, you can re-size, rotate the design. Now you can also modify the individual points of the Christmas shape by using the subselection tool. You can also use the Firework's Freeform tool (you can change the size as well as pressure setting of the Freeform tool via the properties panel).

You can also combine paths as well intersect and eventually combine the designs via the 'combine' button on the properties panel. You can also flatten the Christmas path (via the modify menu and Flatten command) to create a bitmap design. At that point you are far removed from the flexibility of the vector font shapes.

Additional examples of the Christmas font shapes

The above designs show some of the elaborate Christmas tree sets available in the graphicxtras sets. Many different swirl themed trees as well as snow flake fill trees are included in the sets. The shapes can also be warped and distorted by using the tools in the various software. The Christmas tree shapes can be rotated and sheared as well as re-sized. As the tree designs are vectors this does not 'damage' the quality of the shape.

Transformation of Christmas shapes

The above example shows a single Christmas tree shape rotated (180 degrees) as well as rotated at different angles. Other examples in the picture show the shape reduced in size and also increased in size to show only part of the Christmas tree shape. The Christmas tree has also be sheared by using the transformation tools in Photoshop (as well as in other software)

Christmas fonts and Photoshop styles

The fonts are applied as a layer and can have Photoshop layer effects applied to create super colorful designs. The above Christmas bauble example has had a color overlay of blue applied to the actual shape. A stroke of a lighter blue has been added and the size of the stroke has been set to fill most of the actual design. An outer glow of white has been added to give it that Xmas spirit and a drop shadow has been added to make the Christmas bauble stand out. You can set all those via the layer menu followed by layer style menu. You can, of course, just display the standard Photoshop styles dialog (found in the window menu and styles) and apply one of those styles to the Christmas bauble (or any other design).

Christmas font re-color shapes tutorial

1

Start Photoshop

Each application has a different way to color the font shapes - best to consult the user help documentation

2

File menu followed by New

You could, of course, just open an existing document

3

Type 'T'

This selects the horizontal type tool in Photoshop. You could just select it without typing the letter T

4

Go to the type dropdown (options bar) and select 'GX165_Christmas' font

This sets the current font to the font with all the Christmas designs (if you purchase pack 165). All the character designs are now available by simply typing A B C D etc via the keyboard. The sets also contain a document showing the design and character relationship or you can use charmap application (PC) to see the relationship

5

Set size etc

Set the size of the Christmas shape but you can always convert the character into a shape via the layer menu and type command and then re-size (generally I find this an easier way than re-sizing the type but it does mean the design is 'fixed' - you can't go back and change to a different character for that type shape). Keep the character selected - you will need that for the next step

6

Go to the toolbox - bottom section and double click the foreground color and change to red etc

This changes the selected character to the new foreground color.

Alternatively, you could always just set the foreground color to red (foreground color) before you select the type / text tool and then the color will be used for the text.

Free Christmas font sampler / demo

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Date modified: April 9th, 2012

Creating plugins and presets since 1995. Privacy - no details sent to third parties. After buying, you receive the download link. Unique items, commercial use, royalty-free.

Video tutorial: Importing EPS files into CorelDRAW X5 tutorial

All the font sets also include eps files and the eps files can be used in many different software such as CorelDRAW (there are a lot of others)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i3QlSyl7Ec

Video tutorial: PaintShop Pro X4 and basic text / type tool tutorial

Quick guide to some of the features of PaintShop Pro X4 text tool and their use with fonts and the shapes included in the font set

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbmwHE-rrG4