A note for web publishers and designers: Google’s launched a new feature for its font directory. A previewer has been added, so you can immediately see how your fonts will display on your website. The previewer acts as a segue for the Google Font API, allowing you to find, test and apply fonts to your website.

From Google’s blog,

Now, whenever you visit the font family page of any of the fonts, you will see a link saying “Preview this font” that will load your font selection into the font previewer.

Here you can edit the text, change its size and line height, and add decorations and spacing among other things. You can even apply text shadow to your text.

The previewer will generate the corresponding code for you so all you have to do to start using the font on your own website is to copy and paste the stylesheet link and the CSS into your pages.

There are only a handful of fonts available with the Google Fonts API, so you’re limited in that sense. The real benefit of the tool is being able to perform these functions with pre-filtered fonts, all for free.

The tool won’t replace your professional font tools, but the Google Fonts API is quick for what it is, and is simple enough for regular Joes to get what they need as well.