Make Your Own Font
I love fonts. I have a fantastic collection of them, ranging from delicate script fonts to ones that look as if they’ve been stenciled. The most wonderful of all, however, are the fonts I made myself. The process is simpler than you might imagine; all you need is a bit of free time, some software (such as High-Logic’s FontCreator, Home edition, $79 direct; www.high-logic.com), and a scanner.
You’ll have to do some fairly tedious writing: all the uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, punctuation marks and other symbols you typically use. (Alternatively, depending on what kind of font you want, you could draw the characters in your graphics software.) Then you’ll scan the page into your PC, tweak the characters, and in less time than it would take to chisel the alphabet into granite, you’ll have your very own font. — next: Step By Step
1 PRINT A FONT BLANK
Fire up FontCreator and click on File | New font, then choose a name for your new font.
You’ll see a series of boxes, one for each letter, number, and punctuation symbol. These are called glyphs. You don’t have to fill in all the boxes (there are more than 600 of them, many of which you’ll probably find unnecessary), but err on the side of excess; you don’t want to have to rescan because you thought you’d never need an arrow or a diacritical mark.
Print the blank (the grayed-out characters won’t print; you’ll just have nice, empty boxes). Now, scan your handwritten sheets of characters.
2 IMPORT THE GLYPHS
In your graphics software, make a selection around the capital A and choose Edit | Copy. In FontCreator, double-click the Glyph box for the letter A to open it; right-click, and choose Paste. Adjust the size of the character so its top is set at 1,500 (size lowercase characters to reach 1,000). Before closing the Glyph box, see step 3 (below).
3 TWEAK
As you’re filling the font grid, look at each character carefully to see where it sits. Most characters sit on what is called the baseline. Some, such as g, j, and y, have lines that descend below it. You’ll need to position each character relative to the baseline. The characters must also fit inside the area described by the black horizontal bearings and the left and right bearings. If necessary, move those bearings to fit around the character so that it will sit at the right distance from the other characters in a document. Close the Glyph box and repeat the process for the other characters, numbers, and symbols in your font.
4 ADD SOME ACCENTS
To create a composite glyph such as an e acute (é), make sure that you’ve created the lower-case e and the acute accent mark, which are the two parts of the character. Right-click the eacute Glyph box and choose Complete Composites (this feature is available only in the Professional edition, $149 direct), and the two pieces will be assembled automatically. To do this manually, open the Glyph box, choose Insert | Glyph, and select the first character. Repeat and insert the second, and then move them into the correct position relative to each other.
5 YOUR NEW FONT
When you’re finished, choose File | Save. Next, install the font by choosing Font | Install; then, enable the checkbox for Install the font in Windows Fonts Folder and continue through the Font Installation Wizard. Now you can use your font in any Microsoft Windows program. You can also open the font again to make tweaks, then reinstall it—this will overwrite the previous version, unless you choose a new name for the revised font.
You’ll have to do some fairly tedious writing: all the uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, punctuation marks and other symbols you typically use. (Alternatively, depending on what kind of font you want, you could draw the characters in your graphics software.) Then you’ll scan the page into your PC, tweak the characters, and in less time than it would take to chisel the alphabet into granite, you’ll have your very own font. — next: Step By Step
1 PRINT A FONT BLANK
Fire up FontCreator and click on File | New font, then choose a name for your new font.
You’ll see a series of boxes, one for each letter, number, and punctuation symbol. These are called glyphs. You don’t have to fill in all the boxes (there are more than 600 of them, many of which you’ll probably find unnecessary), but err on the side of excess; you don’t want to have to rescan because you thought you’d never need an arrow or a diacritical mark.
Print the blank (the grayed-out characters won’t print; you’ll just have nice, empty boxes). Now, scan your handwritten sheets of characters.
2 IMPORT THE GLYPHS
In your graphics software, make a selection around the capital A and choose Edit | Copy. In FontCreator, double-click the Glyph box for the letter A to open it; right-click, and choose Paste. Adjust the size of the character so its top is set at 1,500 (size lowercase characters to reach 1,000). Before closing the Glyph box, see step 3 (below).
3 TWEAK
As you’re filling the font grid, look at each character carefully to see where it sits. Most characters sit on what is called the baseline. Some, such as g, j, and y, have lines that descend below it. You’ll need to position each character relative to the baseline. The characters must also fit inside the area described by the black horizontal bearings and the left and right bearings. If necessary, move those bearings to fit around the character so that it will sit at the right distance from the other characters in a document. Close the Glyph box and repeat the process for the other characters, numbers, and symbols in your font.
4 ADD SOME ACCENTS
To create a composite glyph such as an e acute (é), make sure that you’ve created the lower-case e and the acute accent mark, which are the two parts of the character. Right-click the eacute Glyph box and choose Complete Composites (this feature is available only in the Professional edition, $149 direct), and the two pieces will be assembled automatically. To do this manually, open the Glyph box, choose Insert | Glyph, and select the first character. Repeat and insert the second, and then move them into the correct position relative to each other.
5 YOUR NEW FONT
When you’re finished, choose File | Save. Next, install the font by choosing Font | Install; then, enable the checkbox for Install the font in Windows Fonts Folder and continue through the Font Installation Wizard. Now you can use your font in any Microsoft Windows program. You can also open the font again to make tweaks, then reinstall it—this will overwrite the previous version, unless you choose a new name for the revised font.
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