I wrote a post some time ago about how to install fonts in GIMP, though I only covered how to do it in Windows. This left a lot of you requesting how to install fonts on a MAC since the process is a bit different. Well – consider your requests answered!
Thankfully for everyone, installing fonts on a MAC is just as simple as installing fonts for Windows. In this GIMP Help Article, I’ll be showing you how to do install third-party fonts on your MAC computer.
Of course, to start this process, you’ll need whatever font you intend on installing in GIMP. For this tutorial, I have decided to use a great, free font from Pixelsurplus.com called Henrik. You can use that same font as well to follow along (and use in future projects), or you can use whatever font you’ve downloaded online.
If you scroll to the bottom of the Henrik font page that I linked above, you’ll simply need to type in your name and email to get the free download (this will add you to their mailing list – which you can opt out of at any time).
Step 2: Download and Locate Your Font
After you have clicked the download button, you can click on the downloads folder at the bottom of your desktop window (the Download folder should pop up in your dock – the thing that has all your app icons for you to easily access – as the file is downloading).
You should see a folder that is labeled with the name of your font (or whatever the author named the folder containing your font). Click on this folder to open up the font folder (denoted by the red arrow in the image above).
Upon opening your font folder, you should see a couple of files inside of the folder. Usually there is some sort of license for the font, as well as the actual font file. The font files for MAC will typically be .OTF files. In my case, the font folder only contains one font – Henrik-Regular.otf (red arrow in the photo above). I’ll double click on this font file to bring up the built-in Font Book application.
Step 3: Install Your Font
Font Book comes with pretty much all MAC computers by default and is the go-to application for handling fonts on your computer. After double clicking on the font file to open it into Font Book, you should see the title of the font at the top of the window (which I labeled “1” in the photo), as well as a dropdown of the different styles of the font included in your font file (labeled “2”), a preview of the font (“3”), whether or not the font is installed on your computer (“4”) and a button in the bottom right corner that says “Install Font” (denoted by the red arrow). The W font was missing in the preview for some reason here (in the photo), but I tested it afterwards in GIMP and it worked fine – so don’t worry about that.
Click “Install Font” to install the font to your computer.
A status bar will appear that says “Validating” as the font is installed (as shown above).
Once finished validating, the font should now appear in your Font Book under the “User” section (where the user-installed fonts reside – denoted by the red arrow in the photo above).
Step 4: Open GIMP and Refresh Fonts
If you already have GIMP open, you will need to open up your Fonts dialogue by going to Windows>Dockable Dialogues>Fonts.
From the fonts dialogue (highlighted in blue on the right side of the photo), click on the Refresh icon at the bottom of the dialogue (denoted by the red arrow in the photo) to re-load all of your fonts in GIMP.
Note: your font dialogue might pop up in a slightly different location depending on how your GIMP is set up (in other words, it could pop up in the lower part of the sidebar instead of the upper part as mine did here).
Scroll through the fonts until you find the new font you downloaded and installed in GIMP (in my case, I was searching for the “Henrik” font).
That’s it! You should now have your new font installed on GIMP for MAC. If you liked this tutorial, I recommend checking out my other GIMP Help Articles, GIMP Video Tutorials, or Premium GIMP Classes & Courses. I also offer Inkscape Tutorials if you want to improve your vector graphic design skills.
