Unlike a Windows Forms application, XNA cannot use the TrueType fonts that are installed on your computer. In order to use a font, it must first be converted into a SpriteFont, a bitmap based representation of the font in a particular size that can be drawn with the SpriteBatch.DrawString() command.

Technically, any Windows font can be turned into a SpriteFont, but licensing restrictions on most fonts will prevent you from using them in your XNA games. The redistributable font package you installed in Chapter 1 is provided by Microsoft to address this problem and give XNA developers a range of usable fonts that can be included in XNA games. Following are samples of each of the fonts included in the font package: