Using the Samantha Font In Cricut Design Space

• Cliff Notes - 
• Download from Mighty Deals, Yes you have to pay for it
•  use Maintypes Character map
•  find the swirly option you want to use in the character map, choose copy, go to text box in Design space, Make sure it is set to the Samantha font,  choose paste.
• Free fonts that are similar to Samantha - http://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/2018/08/free-alternatives-to-samantha-font.html

It's not as hard as you'd think.
But it's also not as simple as just changing the font to "Samantha".

First, this font is $75.  Seventy Five Dollars. 
For a font.

But it does go on sale.  Never under $10.  But it was recently $17, with a coupon code that dropped it to $14.95...  so I ended up buying it.  I never pay for fonts.  But this one is the most used font for basically everything special.  And I was afraid if I didn't buy it while it was $14.95, I'd REALLY regret it when I wanted to use it next month and it was back to $75.  (Update, it seems to always be on sale, and there is always a coupon code.)

There are free versions of a font named Samantha on Dafont, and other font sites.  They are NOT this Samantha.  There is not a free version of this Samantha.  

The consensus seems to be that Samantha Upright is the only version you need.  Because there are a lot of Samantha options, and it can be confusing, and ridiculously expensive.  One is probably all you need - and Samantha Upright is the one everyone recommends.

But once you have the font, you will also want a program like Babel Map, or my choice,  Maintype.  http://www.high-logic.com/font-manager/maintype.html  Windows has a built in character map, but it's small and just more of a pain to use.

Open Design space, type into a text box, change the font to Samantha.

Next you'll probably want to change the letter space so that the letters connect:

Not only will you probably only want to do one word, not two (see the spacing between the two words?  It's HUGE.)  But to get the right spacing for your letters, you may need to paste some letters into their own text boxes.  So font could be spelled Fon t .

Or, you can select the text box, choose "ungroup" and each letter of Samantha will now be it's own text box.

Now open your character map app.  Scroll through the list to find the Samantha font, then scroll through the map to find the letter with the swirls you want to use. Right click and choose copy.  

Go back to design space, highlight the S in the text box, and replace it by right clicking and choosing paste.

You'll see that the "S" is now a box, but on the graphic, it shows up correctly.

That's the basics of how to use it - the hard part is deciding WHICH S to use, and how many letters you want to make extra swirly in one word.  :-)

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If you decide you don't want to spend the money on Samantha, there are a bunch of "fonts with tails" that are free.  I've listed some of them here:

http://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/2017/09/fonts-with-tails.html

http://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/2017/12/using-text-in-design-space.html

And if you are looking for fonts that the cricut can write single line, not as an outline, I have a few (twenty two!!) I have found, listed here: http://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/2017/11/6-single-line-fonts-that-will-write.html