Learn How to Use Extra Font Characters in Cricut Design Space Tutorials

In this third of Cricut Design Space tutorials, you will learn how to find and use the extra characters in fonts.

Creating unique and beautiful words and names is one of my favorite things about Cricut Design Space.  I’ll let you in on a secret if you don’t already know… most fonts have a bunch of extra characters you can use in replace of their standard ones!

How do you access them and how do you use them in Cricut Design Space?  Those are the questions we are tackling in the third part of Cricut Design Space 101.

There is a full video tutorial at the bottom of the post but you also don’t want to miss the other video Cricut Design Space tutorials:

Part 1: Cricut Design Space for Dummies – An Overview

Part 2:  Cricut Design Space Tutorial:  All Things Text and Font

Part 4:  How to Make a Split Letter Monogram in Cricut Design Space

What are Font Glyphs?

A glyph is an individual character and is a variety of designs of that certain character.  Some fonts will have up to 15 glyphs for every letter of the alphabet (capital and lowercase).  The glyphs usually contain pretty swishes or doodles that can make a name or word standout.

Unfortunately, most free fonts do not contain extra characters or glyphs.  However, you don’t have to spend a lot to get beautiful fonts.  In the last post (part 2), I told you where I get my premium fonts for free or for $1.  

Let me show you what I’m talking about.  One of my favorites premium fonts is the Samantha Font.  Now, this one was not a $1.  It does have a higher price tag, but you get so many extra characters.

In this first screenshot are the letters in the standard font.  I opened up a text box and typed the word in using Samantha font.  Then I ungrouped them, moved them together and welded them.

Now, this is what happens when you kick it up a notch and use the extra font glyphs available.  Beautiful, right?  This how I make a lot of my free and deal SVG files.

How to Access Extra Font Characters

If you are using programs such as Illustrator, you can access the glyphs from inside the program.  This is not the case for Cricut Design Space.

The easiest way I have found is using a character map.  Now, I am on a PC, so this is probably different for macs.

There is usually a character map app already installed on your computer.  If you search for it, it should pop up.  The one installed on my computer is really small and hard for me to see!

No worries, I found a bigger one that you can download and it’s so much easier to see and use.  It’s called Character Map UWP and is in the Microsoft store.  Once you click on the link, you can download it and use it on your PC.

You can see in the picture below that all of the fonts on my computer come up on the left and when I click on one all the extra glyphs come up.  

Then you’ll need to copy and paste the glyphs into Cricut Design Space.

Cricut Design Space Tutorials:  Video Tutorial on How to Use Extra Glyphs

All of this is much easier to explain to you while I am doing it on my computer, so I put together a video tutorial on how to use the extra characters. 

Also, if you don’t want to miss any other Cricut Design Space tutorials make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Please let me know if you have any questions.  Be on the lookout for more Cricut Design Space Tutorials and if there is something specific you want one on, comment below.

If you’d like to save this tutorial for later, hover over the top left of the image below and PIN IT now.

Thank you for stopping by.  Have a creative day!