After you download
How to install your handwriting font
What you downloaded is two ordinary font files. Installing one takes about a minute, and after that every app that reads the fonts on your machine will offer you your own handwriting.
macOS
Double-click the .ttf. Font Book opens with a preview of your writing and an Install button. Press it. The font is now available to every app on the machine, but apps read the font list when they start, so anything already open needs restarting before it appears.
Windows
Right-click the .ttf and choose Install. If several people use the machine and they should all have it, choose Install for all users instead, which asks for an administrator. As on a Mac, an app that was already open will not see the font until it is restarted.
Word, Pages, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign
Nothing else to do. Once the font is installed, it appears in the font menu under the family name shown on your result page, alongside everything else on the machine. If you send the document to somebody who does not have the font, they will not see your handwriting, so export a PDF when it matters.
Google Docs
This is the awkward one, and it is worth knowing before you plan around it. Google Docs only offers fonts from its own catalogue, and there is no way to add one of your own to it. If you need your handwriting in a document, set it in Word or Pages and export from there.
Figma
The desktop app uses the fonts installed on your machine, so your handwriting is in the font picker as soon as you install it and restart Figma. In a browser tab, Figma can only reach your local fonts through its own font helper, which has to be installed and running.
Canva
Canva can use a font you upload, under its brand settings, and it keeps that behind a paid plan. Upload the .otf or the .ttf; either works.
Phones and tablets
Neither iOS nor Android installs a font by opening the file. On iOS a font has to arrive as a configuration profile, which is what the font installer apps on the App Store actually do for you. On Android there is generally no supported way to add one at all. Treat the font as something for your computer.
Which file, the .ttf or the .otf?
Either. Both carry the same outlines, written from the same letters off your page, so they cannot disagree about a letterform. If you have no reason to prefer one, install the .ttf: it is the format nothing has ever had trouble reading. Some design software prefers .otf, and if yours does, use that one.
If it does not show up
- Restart the app. Most of them read the font list once, when they launch.
- Check you installed the font rather than previewing it. On both systems the preview window and the install step look alike, and the button is easy to miss.
- Look under the family name printed on your result page, not under your own name or the file name.
These apps rearrange themselves every few years. The part that does not change is that your handwriting is now an ordinary font file, and anything that can use a font can use it.
Not made one yet? The method, or the questions people ask.