Free typefaces

I posted yesterday on clip art. Today, it's time to look at typefaces. The right typeface can really enhance the look of a document (indeed, some graphic designers consider that typography is the most important part of good design). Conversely, inappropriate typefaces - or too many different ones in the same document - can work against good design. While Mac, PC and Linux systems all come with a range of typefaces pre-installed, they are fairly limited, and I draw on a big stable of others I have gathered over the years. These days, there are plenty of websites offering huge ranges.
One of the best collection of "classic" (ie, well-designed or well-known) typefaces is at http://www.fontcenter.de
SearchFreeFonts has more than 13,000 typefaces, including many classics.
Fontyukle claims to be the world's biggest repository of type faces, and has many that are otherwise hard to get. However, its procedure for locating and downloading is clumsy. (Hints: use the search engine to locate by name, and you will have to endure a Capchacode when you start to download.)
Betterfonts claims to have over 10,000 typefaces.
There are 6500+ fonts at WebPageFonts
And a big selection at this site.
Once you have installed all these fonts, how can you view them easily, to decide which to use? Word gives you a representation when you click on the menu bar, but it may not be convenient to go into Word to see the list. A better alternative is a little program called FontView. It finds all the typefaces in your system, and displays them in an alphabet or short sentence (you can type whatever you want, and it will display those letters).
Finally, a note about the difference between a typeface and a font. Technically, the typeface is the family (eg, Arial, Helvetica, Times). The font is the individual member within that typeface family (eg, Arial Bold, Times Italic). These days, the distinction has been all but lost, and people generally use "font" to mean "typeface".