Editorial Team Member - Dyan Cross


Select Artwork for Larger View and Item List "Ctrl P" to Print		Creating Your Own Handprinted Fonts Dyan Cross - Captain's First Mate Editorial Deck Crewmember Last month I showed how to create your own Dingbat fonts using Font Creator v 4.5 by (High Logic. It was extremely easy - just scan any drawing or piece of clip art and assign it to a letter of the alphabet. Dingbats are usually used one symbol at a time and don't need to line up. Handwriting, or hand-printed fonts are a completely different story since the letters are meant to be seen next to each other and have to line up properly. Font Creator will let you create as simple, or as complicated a font as you wish. You can create kerning pairs, ASCII symbols, position diacritical marks and add characters defined in the supplementary planes. Now, if any of that means anything to you, log onto the High Logic Forum and read to your heart's content. However, if you're like me and just want to create a simple hand-printed font without too much trouble, then read on. While Font Creator allows you to draw the various letters within the program, that is more difficult than scanning in your drawn alphabet. Draw the letters on plain paper using a black felt tip pen. Be sure to space them far enough apart so that you can separate them, and keep the letters approximately the same size. Decide if you want both Capital and lower-case letters, and if you want numbers and/or punctuation. Scan your sheet(s) of letters. I opened the scan in Paint Shop Pro, and used the Selector tool to draw a square around the first letter. I then copied the letter and pasted as a new image (CTL+C, CTL+V). The image should be about 300 pixels high. I then saved the file as a .jpg, calling it by the letter name. This is rather time-consuming but easy, but there is a way to import the entire sheet of letters into Font Creator (you can read about it on their Forum). Once all the letters are saved, open Font Creator. The beginning steps are exactly like those used to create the Dingbat fonts, but I will repeat them here. Click the FILE menu, New Name your font and click ok The Font1.ttf window opens, showing a character map (a complete listing of all the capital letters, lowercase letters, numbers and symbols available for your font), each in it's own individual box Curser down to the letter you wish to start with (I choose capital C) and double click the box. The Font1.ttf - Empty Glyph Index window opens Right click anywhere in the window and choose Import Image The Import Image window opens Click the LOAD button (on the left, toward the bottom). A window will open allowing you to navigate to any file in your computer. Double-click on the file you want to assign to the "C" in your font You will see your image in the window to the left (source image) and the image the program will use to generate the contours of your font in the right window. Click the GENERATE button The image will appear in the Font1.ttf - Empty Glyph Index window. Notice that the letter appears on the red baseline, right up against the red vertical line. There is a dotted line to the right of the letter (shown in the sample to the right) Very Important! Move your cursor over that dotted line until the cursor changes, and drag that line to the right edge of your letter. Should look like the sample on the right. Close that window by clicking on the red "X" in the top right corner Your image will appear in the Capital C box Repeat with the rest of the letters. (After a few times, you get into a rhythm and it goes quickly.) Letters that have parts that normally go BELOW the baseline, such as f, y, g, etc. must be handled a little differently. You can see in the sample to the right that the "body" of the "y" rests on the baseline, while the "tail" goes below. Close the Font1.ttf window by clicking on the red "X" in the top right A message will come up asking if you want to save the font Click YES and name the font, saving it into any folder on your computer Then you can install the font into your Windows Font folder, or store it in one of your other font folders. Now comes the fun part. Either install the font in your Windows Font folder, or open the Font File so that it can be used. Open your word processing program and type a few letters, assigning your new Handprinted font to them. I needed to change the font size to 65 and bold for the best view. (Making your initial letters larger should allow you to use the font at a smaller size, and I'll experiment with how large a size I can use). I found that many of my letters were not spaced properly. (Actually, when I first created the font, my letters had HUGE spaces between then and that's how I discovered that moving the dotted line to the edge of the letter removed the extra space between letters). I made note of which letters needed adjusting. You then must close both your word processing program and the font file in order to make the changes. Open Font Creator, click File, then Reopen. The most recent files will show and you can choose the font you want to fix. Double-click the letter and the window will open where you can make your adjustment. Close the window and choose any other letters to fix. When finished, close the file and you'll be asked to save changes to your font. Open the word processing program and the font file and test again. I found I had to repeat the process a few times until all the letters looked right. And here's my finished font! I created a "cute" font, only using the letters T-h-a-n-k-s, and used it to make this sweet little thank-you card. It took less than 10 minutes to scan and create the font and I can always add letters to my hand-printed font as I need them. Here's an alternative for you. For $9, Fontifier will create a font for you of your scanned letters. I haven't tried this, so I don't know what the results are. If you're looking to do just one font, this may be an option. However, since Font Creator is only $50, if you're planning to do several, or portions like I did above, this may be more economical in the long run. I found a site with the most wonderful calligraphy fonts created by Kevin King, as well as a grunge typewriter and unusual printers font at Kings Things. You'll definitely want to check this out! Hope you've enjoyed this tutorial on making your own handprinted fonts. Please email me if you have any questions. Dyan Cross dyancross@ssreflections.com Captain's First Mate Editorial Deck Crewmember S.S. Reflections, Inc. This entire web site © Copyright S.S. Reflections, Inc. Legal Statement *Disclaimers - While individual techniques may vary, always follow product manufacturers' directions and cautions for safety and best results. LINK TO NEXT PAGE**

Creating Your Own Handprinted Fonts