Google Web Fonts come to the Web Font Plug-in for Adobe Photoshop
November 8th, 2011 by Jim Kidwell
I’m happy to announce that today we have added Google Web Fonts to the Web Font Plug-in for Adobe Photoshop. This further expands the creative options available to web designers directly from Adobe Photoshop. With both WebINK and Google Web Fonts now available from the plug-in, designers have thousands of fonts to choose from the mock-up phase of website development.
The FREE plug-in can be downloaded at www.webfontplugin.com immediately.
You may ask why we’ve chosen to develop a plug-in for Photoshop? From our extensive surveys of web designers, we identified that the vast majority begin the website design process in Adobe Photoshop. While some may use other tools such as Adobe Illustrator and InDesign or even begin by actually mocking up in code, most designers surveyed chose Photoshop as their initial digital version.
The Web Font Plug-in provides a dynamic connection to the Google Web Font service to provide up-to-date fonts directly in Adobe Photoshop. With the plug-in, designers don’t need to separately download and install fonts to have them be available for use in Photoshop. When new fonts are added to the Google Web Fonts list, they automatically appear in the plug-in.
David Kuettel, technical lead of Google Web Fonts told me why they chose to integrate Google Web Fonts with the plug-in. ”Integrating Google Web Fonts into the Extensis Web Font Plug-in reduces the pain of creating website comps using web fonts. The Web Font Plug-in gives designers expanded creative options and makes Google Web Fonts nearly ubiquitous for web designers and developers.”
The Web Font Plug-in now includes many popular open-source font families from Google Web Fonts, including Lobster, Droid Sans and Ubuntu. WebINK fonts are also available and include thousands of high-quality fonts from foundries like Dalton Maag, Mostardesign and Paratype.
To learn more about how to integrate Web Fonts into the Web Design process, please join us for a Webcast on November 29: How to Implement Web Fonts On Your Websites.
I have just installed it and I love the solution! Will you make a plugin for Illustrator as well?
This is just a Beta release, and we are actively soliciting feedback. Thanks for putting in your request for an Illustrator plug-in, we’ll put it on our list to consider.
I use Google fonts a lot, so I love this idea. I downloaded the trial, but can´t get the Photoshop plugin to work. When I click on the Extensis extension, it starts loading but doesn´t connect. Could you point me to some instructions somewhere on how to get to the fonts? Obviously there is something I´m not doing right. I can get the Google fonts in the Suitcase Fusion 3 trial, though, but not in the PS plugin. I have CS5.
Carina, if you’ve clicked “Enable” in the Web Font Plug-in panel, this is what enables the Google Web Font connection, and why they appear in a new Suitcase Fusion 3 font library.
To utilize Google Web Fonts in Photoshop: 1. Create a text layer and enter some text. 2. Select the text layer in the layers palette. 3. Click on any of the fonts in the panel to activate them.
If you’re still having issues, please contact our support team: http://www.extensis.com/support
Carina, if you’ve clicked “Enable” in the Web Font Plug-in panel, this is what enables the Google Web Font connection, and why they appear in a new Suitcase Fusion 3 font library.
To utilize Google Web Fonts in Photoshop: 1. Create a text layer and enter some text. 2. Select the text layer in the layers palette. 3. Click on any of the fonts in the panel to activate them.
If you’re still having issues, please contact our support team: http://www.extensis.com/support
Thank you, Jim, for your reply and the link.
Yes, I have enabled it in Suitcase Fusion. But in Photoshop I don´t get the fonts in the panel. I can access CS Live and other extensions but when I click the Extensis extension, I get the panel and flash starts loading, but doesn´t ever finish.
I´ll take a screen shot and contact support.
That is odd behavior. Thanks for contacting support.