Custom Fonts in PoliteMail

As with other applications including Microsoft Word, opening content that contains a font that you do not have will cause your device to revert to its default font instead (usually Times New Roman or Arial on Windows devices), and this can really throw off your design.

System Fonts and Web Fonts

There are two methods by which a recipient can see the message as intended:

System Fonts are fonts that are physically installed on the user’s device.  This includes TrueType (.ttf), OpenType (.otf), and Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg), among others.  Installing system fonts usually involves downloading the file (or multiple files if you are installing an entire font family) and manually installing on your system.  It is then available to all applications, such as Microsoft Office.

If a user does not have the system font installed that a message was composed in, the application will revert to another font in the font family (if provided) or to the default font (usually Times New Roman or Arial).

Web Fonts are fonts that are made available in the cloud, and are usually optimized for web use.   The most common file types are the Web Open Font Format (.woff and .woff2), the largest providers of which are Google Fonts, Adobe Fonts, and Monotype.  PoliteMail currently only supports Google Web fonts.  Web fonts are not installed (although they often provide the option to do so); instead, they have a URL which your application can access and download to render the text correctly.

If a user does not have a web font installed that a message was composed in, it will temporarily display in the default font (typically Times New Roman or Arial) while it uses the URL to download the font.  Depending on the speed of your connection, the text will then display properly.

Managing Custom Fonts in PoliteMail

PoliteMail allows Administrators to manage the system and web fonts that are available for users.   This can be found under Account > Settings > Workspace Settings.

Under the Custom Fonts section, you will see a list of all fonts currently added to PoliteMail.

• To delete a font, just select the font(s) and then click the ‘Delete’ button.  In the next section of the screen, you can add either a Web Font or a System Font.

Adding Fonts

Web Fonts

Adding a web font to the list means the font will be added to PoliteMail Online and chosen from the font list.

For a Web Font, you will need the Font Name and the CSS URL.

1. Go to www.fonts.google.com and use the various filters to find the font you want, and then click ‘Get Font’ in the top right.  Only Google Fonts are currently supported.
2. Click the ‘Get embed code’ button.  In the embed code generated look for the line of HTML that contains ‘href=’.
3. Do not use a custom name for the font as the name you give should match the font name.  The Font Name is usually the name shown when you browsed at all fonts, but you should check.   It is the first name after ‘family=”.
4. The CSS URL will be everything in the quotation marks after the ‘href=’.

<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com">
<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.gstatic.com" crossorigin>
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Sansation:ital,wght@0,300;0,400;0,700;1,300;1,400;1,700&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">

5. Click ‘Save’.

System Fonts

For a System Font, enter the Font Name and the Font Family it is part of, and then click 'Save'.

It is important to get the Font Name exactly correct (for example, do not enter ‘Bauhaus’ if the full font name is ‘Bauhaus Regular’) or the font will not display.  To determine the exact Font Name, you will need to access your computer’s Control Panel or Settings to view all of your installed fonts.   Every operating system is different for this, and Windows 11 recently moved this from the Control Panel to Settings > Personalization > Fonts, so you may need to look around.

• The actual font name will also typically display if viewing fonts in Microsoft Word.
• Format variations, such as ‘bold’ or ‘italic’, are not usually part of the font name.

The Font Family is the name of the font without any specific variations, entered within single quotation marks '  '.  For example, "Arial" is the Font Family and the specific Font Names are Arial, Arial Narrow, and Arial Black.

Using Fonts

Once added to PoliteMail as described, both system fonts as well as web fonts will be available in the font list.

• The Beefree Editor fully supports the use of web fonts, and will render as expected when used.
• The PoliteMail Builder does not yet support web fonts.  Although the font will show in the font list, the font name will display in Times New Roman or Arial unless it is installed as a system font.  Google Fonts, for example, has an option to download the font and install it as a system font.

It’s worth noting that if you compose a message using a font you do not have installed, it will still render in the desired font if the recipient has the font installed.