Non-resident font preview

One or more computer-readable storage media having instructions stored thereon, which, when executed by one or more processors of a computing device, cause the computing device to:

• receive, by the computing device, input from a user indicating that the user would like to view a list of fonts that are similar to a selected font;
• identify fonts that are similar to the selected font, the identified fonts including resident fonts that are present on the computing device and non-resident fonts that are absent from the computing device;
• generate a non-resident font list comprising identifiers of the non-resident fonts that are absent from the computing device;
• transmit, to a font provisioning service, a request to preview the non-resident fonts;
• receive, from the font provisioning service, transmitted subsets of character information for one or more non-resident fonts on the non-resident font list;
• install, on the computing device, the transmitted subsets of character information for the one or more non-resident fonts, the transmitted subsets of character information enabling the computing device to display selectable previews of the one or more non-resident fonts using the transmitted subsets of character information;
• transmit, to the font provisioning service, a request for access to a chosen non-resident font selected via the selectable previews of the one or more non-resident fonts;
• and
• in response to the request, receive a delta of character information for the chosen non-resident font from the font provisioning service, wherein the delta of character information is based on a difference between a set of complete character information for the chosen non-resident font and a transmitted subset of character information for the chosen non-resident font.

A computing system comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• one or more computer-readable storage media, coupled with the one or more processors, having instructions stored thereon, which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to:
• receive, from a computing device operated by a user, a non-resident font list and entitlement information for the user, the non-resident font list identifying fonts that are absent from the computing device;
• identify one or more particular fonts on the non-resident font list that the user is authorized to access based on an access level associated with the entitlement information;
• transmit to the computing device, a subset of character information for each of the one or more particular fonts, wherein the subset of character information allows the computing device to display selectable previews of the one or more particular fonts using the subset of character information;
• receive, from the computing device, a request to transfer a chosen non-resident font selected from the transmitted one or more particular fonts via the selectable previews;
• determine a delta of character information for the chosen non-resident font, the delta of character information based on a difference between a set of complete character information comprising the chosen non-resident font and the transmitted subset of character information of the chosen non-resident font;
• and
• transmit, to the computing device, the delta of character information to enable the user to utilize the chosen non-resident font on the computing device.