posted
I have a hand-lettered letterstyle that I "created" back in about 1991 after carefully studying some beautiful casual lettering done by our very own Rove Gratz that I'd like to turn into an electronic font. In his honor I'm calling it "Rover" and will post it on the board for anybody to use. I just need to know how to get it from being a vector file to a font. I figure if 12 year old kids can do it, I can muddle my way thru it.
-------------------- Ricky Jackson Signs Now 614 Russell Parkway Warner Robins, GA (478) 923-7722 signpimp50@hotmail.com
"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Issac Newton Posts: 3528 | From: Warner Robins, GA | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
RICKY: Some years ago there was a program called "Fontographer" I believe it was used to do what you are attempting. I don't know if it is still available, but someone here might be able to help you.
Bob C.
-------------------- Bob Cole American Sign Company 14163 Akron Canfield Rd. Berlin Center, Ohio 44401
A.K.A. Vinylman® Posts: 575 | From: Berlin Center, Ohio, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Ricky..Since you already have CorelDraw, you can do it with that program. It is kinda like gilding though. It is pretty easy to learn and do, but to "do it well" get the kerning and everything absolutely correct it takes a bit of practise.
Basically you choose each letter and export it as a TTF file and build the font.
There are tutorials on how to do it in CorelDraw available but at the moment I can't remember where I found them online.
edited to say I just did a Google search "creating fonts in CorelDraw" and there are literally dozens of tutorials that you can download
[ October 12, 2005, 07:13 PM: Message edited by: Dave Grundy ]
-------------------- Dave Grundy retired in Chelem,Yucatan,Mexico/Hensall,Ontario,Canada 1-519-262-3651 Canada 011-52-1-999-102-2923 Mexico cell 1-226-785-8957 Canada/Mexico home
posted
To use Fontogragher' you should have a LOT of time on yer hands because of the learning curve. Call Dave Simpson, "SignDNA" and he will give you the straight skinny on it. The Corel' deal will work but the font is not real clean in the end because lack of bezier work leaves straight lines between nodes. Daves # 1-530-795-1637 CrazyJack
-------------------- Jack Wills Studio Design Works 1465 E.Hidalgo Circle Nye Beach / Newport, OR Posts: 2914 | From: Rocklin, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 1998
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Fontographer is not that hard to learn, especially if you've already got the font vectorized. Creating fonts in Corel is pretty easy as well. The painfully detailed, tiring, monotonous part comes when you start defining kerning, and kerning pairs. You'll test, and tweak, and test, and tweak FOREVER (or be a complete slacker like me and kern manually everytime you use the font).
-------------------- Pat Whatley Montgomery, AL (334) 262-7446 office (334) 324-8465 cell Posts: 1306 | From: Wetumpka, AL USA | Registered: Mar 2001
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Patrick..That is exactly why I only created a couple of fonts!!
After all the effort I still had to manually kern the letters after I typed them in, and since they were for my own personal use anyway it was just as easy to use the "alphabets" I had and manually "place" them where I wanted them.
BUT, just like everything else in this life...it was a great way to spend some time learning how to do something new!!
-------------------- Dave Grundy retired in Chelem,Yucatan,Mexico/Hensall,Ontario,Canada 1-519-262-3651 Canada 011-52-1-999-102-2923 Mexico cell 1-226-785-8957 Canada/Mexico home
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Not intended as a tutorial but a few tips on Fontographer use from someone who has been through the process a few times..
1. Fontographer includes some automatic spacing and kerning routines ... useful but not a great solution.
2. The hardest thing to get right is getting each glyph (character) into Fontographer while preserving its correct relative size, position and baseline. The easiest way to do this is to line up all characters on a common baseline in Illustrator or Freehand and then make a box the total height of the cell on top of the character. Then select both and copy / paste into Fontographer. Once in place, just delete the sizing box.
3. Most professionally prepared fonts use a cell setup that is 1000 units tall. The baseline sits at 200 units above the bottom. The reference capital letter is 667 units so the heightline sits at 867 units above the bottom of the cell. If that sounds unnecessary or too complicated for you then save your time and don't attempt assembling a font in Fontographer.
4. Spacing and kerning can be accomplished in a reasonable time by importing both the spacing and kerning scheme from a similar professionally prepared font.
5. If you get the spacing right, most character pairs will not require any kerning at all and you can focus on those characters that lack a rectangular shape like "A" "C" "O" etc.
6. The Macintosh version is totally superior to the Windows version.
7. You will have a much easier time creating a font with Fontographer if you have either Illustrator or Freehand available to use as part of the process.
Hope this helps.
Gene ... on the Gerber font converter: You have it backwards. They have a utility included with Omega, and previously with Graphix Advantage, that will convert a TTF to Gerber's proprietary font format. It does not, however, work in the opposite direction.
-------------------- Fred Weiss Allied Computer Graphics, Inc. 4620 Lake Worth Road Lake Worth, FL 33463 561 649-6300 allcompu@allcompu.com Posts: 427 | From: Lake Worth, Florida | Registered: Feb 2003
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Fred, Oops, you're right. What I was remembering is that you can also create your own font with Gerber and assign keys to it. It still isn't an easy process.
There was also a part of the process that made things simpler. It was called a "macro". You would set it up, and it would handle the mundane, repetitive parts of the process for you. You would start it and it would kinda go into an "automatic" mode.
Do you remember macros, and is it still a possibility to use for that purpose (even in Fontographer or other programs)? I know there is a similar function in Adobe called "batch" when it comes to repetitious functions with photos. Not really familiar with programing it to work, but I have "batched" a few things. (also "botched" a few things.. but I digress.)
-------------------- Gene Golden Gettysburg Signs Gettysburg PA 17325 717-334-0200 genegolden@gettysburgsigns.com
"Art is knowing when to stop." Posts: 1578 | From: Gettysburg, PA | Registered: Jun 2003
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Yes the old Graphix Advantage ... going back to version 1.5 thru 4, and running on Windows 3.1 used a macro with their Font Designer utility. At some point Microsoft did away with the macro feature and Gerber had to follow suit.
These days you can make a TTF font into a fully functional Omega or GA font by using the "disjoin" feature of the TTF Converter utility and then assembling the font using Font Designer. The whole process takes two or three minutes once you know what you're doing.
Adobe keeps the macro idea alive with both their Batch commands and their Actions and Styles commands. CorelDRAW has some similar capabilities with their Presets feature.
-------------------- Fred Weiss Allied Computer Graphics, Inc. 4620 Lake Worth Road Lake Worth, FL 33463 561 649-6300 allcompu@allcompu.com Posts: 427 | From: Lake Worth, Florida | Registered: Feb 2003
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