It seems to me that many of those who are passionate about drawing letters and creating lettering at some point have the thought: shouldn’t we turn all this beauty into a font? So that you can not only admire a specific composition, but also print these beautiful letters on a real keyboard and create even more beauty... Well, at least that’s how it was for me :) When I realized that you can create a font yourself, it literally happened to me a revolution of consciousness (probably this is exactly what is called an “aha-moment” in English).

And I started trying to figure out how to do this. There was little information, and what there was was incomprehensible and complex. I got lost in this dense forest of terms and almost abandoned the idea of ​​learning how to create fonts. But by some miracle I didn’t give up, I continued to try and made my first font Bronks - far from ideal, but very valuable in terms of experience. By the way, I already wrote about how the Bronx was created. And today I want to tell you in more detail about the process of creating a font as a whole, so that it would be easier for you to understand whether this is “your” activity and whether you would be interested in trying it.

FONT STARTS WITH BRIEF

DRAWING GLYPHS IS THE WORK OF THE DAY :)

Having gathered my courage, that is, inspiration, I usually wait until I have at least half a day free (ideally the whole day) and sit down to draw glyphs. Glyphs are the characters in a font, both letters and numbers, and all those symbols like plus, comma, question mark, and so on.

How wide I draw a font - that is, how many glyphs I create - depends directly on target audience. It is clear that the more glyphs, the more valuable the font, but at the same time there are glyphs that are worth spending time on, and there are those that are not so much (for example, if you are creating a standard handdrone font for small businesses, wide language support will be much more relevant than all, all, all mathematical signs, many of which, to be honest, I saw for the first time in the Glyphs program :)). I will talk in detail about which glyphs should be drawn necessarily, and which ones additionally and in what quantities, in the workshop about creating a font that I am working hard on (about it at the end of the note :)).

I can briefly say that I would advise making the first font simple and concise, otherwise, if you immediately try to make both the initial and final versions of the letters, and add the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin alphabet, then you simply will not complete the font (and if you complete it, it is unlikely will pay off, because in type making you cannot do without mistakes, the ability to see small blots and details that affect the quality of the font appears only with practice). Therefore, at first it is best to get by with the standard set A-Z, a-z, 0-9, basic punctuation marks.

Why do I devote half a day to drawing a font? Because when you “catch the wave,” that is, you feel for a certain style, the atmosphere of the font, it is better to draw everything in one go, while the hand is being developed. This probably applies more to handwritten fonts (I haven’t tried others yet). If you put it aside and try to draw the rest of the letters later, they are guaranteed to be different, and it will take time to “tune your hand” again and start to fall into the general style.

Font rendering is the most creative process from all the action. If you naively believe that creating fonts is all about creativity and a celebration of inspiration, I hasten to disappoint you: creativity and drawing letters take up at most 20% (usually less) of the time it takes to create a font. The rest is technology: scanning, processing, alphabet alignment, tuning, export to a program, spacing and kerning, code settings, testing and all that stuff. Therefore, if you only want to draw letters, and it’s boring for you to even think about the technical part, then it’s better to create lettering.

DIGITAL PART OF THE PROCESS

Once the font is drawn, it's time to digitize it. My processing chain looks like this: scanner - photoshop - illustrator. In the scanner I set the maximum settings, in Photoshop I increase the contrast and clean up the contours a little, in Illustrator I make a trace, find the alphabet (that is, I arrange the letters in sequence, try to “assemble” a few words to check how everything looks) and clean-clean- I'm cleaning the letters.

About the cleaning stage - I used to think that “why clean, it’s handwritten font" But later this detail was revealed: the more points in the vector, the more likely the fact that the font will be buggy in every possible way - from the refusal of Glyphs (or another program in which the font will be compiled) to export the file, to the inability of end users to use it without errors. Therefore, a minimum of dots is the key to comfort, and yes, even fonts with texture need to be cleaned.

I clean letters in Illustrator in several ways: firstly, with a magic eraser from Astute Graphics (part paid plugin, which I'm talking about), unfortunately free alternative I don’t know of even approximate quality, secondly, with a standard illustrator’s pencil - I highlight the outline and make it more accurate.

After that, I prepare the font for export - this is a separate big story, about which there will most likely be several videos - and transfer the letters to Glyphs.

A GOOD FONT PROGRAM IS IMPORTANT

Assembling a font, that is, turning vector letters into functioning ones, the kind that can be typed on a keyboard, in theory can be done in different programs. If you Google, you will find impressive lists of options for every taste and budget. I don’t list names here because I’m not ready to recommend something I don’t know/have never tried. I work in the Glyphs program and only know that all serious type designers (those who sell fonts) make them either in Glyphs or in Fontlab. This is most likely due to the fact that cheaper/free programs do not provide all the options that are needed to create interesting font stories.

At one time I chose Glyphs because I wanted, on the one hand, to immediately get used to the “correct” font program (that is, one that can be used to create really thoughtful, complex, element-rich fonts, and not stick around for a month in some free one). only to later find out that you cannot create conditional ligatures there), on the other hand, I was not ready to pay several times more for Fontlab. Apparently, the choice was the right one - I know people who switched from Fontlab to Glyphs and say that the latter has a clearer interface :)

A good font program is important because that's where the magical transformation just letters in a functioning font. If the program does not allow you to create language support, you will not be able to create it. If you can't add an alternate set of capital letters, then you won't be able to add them, even if you've already drawn them.

After exporting to Glyphs, I set up a lot of different things: letter groups, spacing (negative space to the left and right of letters, roughly speaking), kerning (distances between specific pairs of letters), adding language support, ligatures ( special options letter combinations), initial and final options (with long tails, swashes, flourishes and all that) and alternative sets, if required. Along the way, the code is configured so that everything works for the end user as I intended, and without problems. This stage, which I described in a couple of sentences, is actually what takes about 70% of the time when creating a font :) And I’m describing it briefly not because I’m greedy, but because about kerning alone you could write a note in three times longer than this, and it will still not be enough. In the course about fonts, I will dwell on all these points in great detail (right now I’m trying to find the line between “not detailed enough” and “too much information to digest”).

Instructions

Click the "Create new" button font"(for the English version - "New").

In the top line, select “Insert” – “Characters”. In the Fonts line, select font Arial or Times New Roman. Find the index of the first "A" font a (if you plan to create font, then “A” select Russian), which will be displayed when you select a character in the Selected Character field. Similarly, find the index of the letter "I" (or Z for font A).

In the “Add these character” field, enter these two numbers separated by a “-” sign (for example, “$0310-$034F”). The template is ready.

Draw your own set of characters in Photoshop, saving each letter in a separate graphic file. You can also write the necessary ones on paper, then scan them and save them in Photoshop as separate files.

Select the appropriate template in Font Creator and click on “Import Image”. Select “Load” and open the folder in which you saved the letters.

Adjust the letter settings in the appropriate fields (Threshold and beyond). After making all the settings and importing the letters, click on the “Generate” button.

Double-click on the square with the letter. Adjust all padding using the corresponding lines that will appear on the display (using the mouse). The most bottom line is responsible for adjusting the maximum limit for letters with additional elements(c, y, z). The second line from the bottom will serve as a support for the letter. The third from the bottom is responsible for small letters, and the fourth is the height capital letters and numbers. The fifth line indicates the edge line of the top line.

Please note

Creating and high-quality rendering of your own font takes a lot of time.

Sources:

• Typewriter font

Tip 2: How to make changes to the Photoshop font set

By default, the Type tool graphic editor Adobe Photoshop uses all the fonts installed on your computer's operating system. Therefore, the easiest way to add new fonts to the list is to install them using standard OS tools. However, this is not the only way.

Instructions

In modern Windows versions Installing a new font is very easy using Explorer. Start the procedure by launching this application - press the Win + E key combination, select “Computer” in the main menu or double-click the icon with the same name on the desktop.

Then navigate through the Explorer directory tree to the folder where the font file you want to add to the list of Photoshop fonts is stored. Such files most often have a ttf or otf extension, and right-clicking on them brings up a context menu that contains the “Install” item. Select this command and the font will be added to the set operating system and application applications, including a graphic editor. Depending on which tool is currently active in Photoshop, updating the font list may require restarting it or simply switching to another tool (such as the Brush tool) and back again (Text).

You can add to the list of Adobe Photoshop fonts without installing the fonts into the operating system. To do this, you need to place the file with the new font in a special folder on the computer’s system drive, which is automatically created by the graphic editor during installation. This is also most conveniently done using Explorer - launch it, go to the directory with the new font file and copy it (Ctrl + C).

Then go to the system drive and in the directory called Program Files, expand the Common Files subdirectory, and in it - the Adobe folder. This folder contains a separate storage of Photoshop fonts called Fonts - open it and paste the copied file (Ctrl + V).

Removing any font from the list of the graphic editor is done in a similar way - you need to either uninstall the font from the operating system, or delete it from the folder of Adobe's own fonts specified in the previous step.

Video on the topic

For employees of design companies or for individual designers, an outstanding one is almost always required. Depending on the client’s wishes, the main emphasis is still placed on individuality in the execution of the work.

Of course, with the huge availability of custom fonts, which can be found in thousands on disk or downloaded from , creating a font seems like a waste of time. But you can spend even more time searching for the right font online, and store-bought font sets on disk may not be suitable for the project at all. Unfortunately, there are too many bad fonts.

Many beginning designers want to create a font themselves. This is commendable, because Helps develop a sense of style and individuality. Another thing is that this path cannot be easy. If the user is faced with such a task for the first time, then you can purchase a special computer program to create a full font. The most famous of them are, of course, Photoshop, as well as Illustrator, Flash, Corel and many others. But such programs are very expensive.

In such a situation, you can take a different path - or rather, a proven traditional one. You can draw the required font using colored pencils, paints, felt-tip pens, and then digitize it using special programs. At first glance, such an idea seems anachronistic in the age of global computerization. But when drawing the required text on paper, the designer immediately sees how it will appear on printed products (booklets, postcards, packaging, etc.).

If the user has artistic skills, then creating a font on his own is not particularly difficult. Completed in a similar way(digitized). It may need some processing after scanning, for example to remove halftones. To do this, you can select free utilities with which the user can perform the correction. In addition, utilities can automatically recognize minor defects and make the necessary adjustments to the drawing. The font is then imported in Tiff or Bitmap format into a curved font program.

Keeping up with the times, you can draw a font using a special pen (stylus). Included with the tablet, developers often include a disk with special programs that allow you to create a full-fledged font based on the user’s design, and adjust it or modify existing ones using a font editor.

Video on the topic

Sources:

• creating a font in 2018

In the Explorer menu, open the “File” section and select “Install font”.

As a result, a dialog box will open in which you need to select the drive and folder in which the font to be installed is placed (double-click the folder). The program will scan the specified folder and in the “List” window fonts» a list of found names will appear. Select the desired fonts from among them. You can select several fonts, located in different parts of the list - to do this, click each next one while holding down the CTRL key. Or you can select a group located between two lists - to do this, click on the first font of the group, then scroll to the last one in the list and click it while pressing the SHIFT key. If you uncheck the checkbox that says “Copy fonts to the Fonts folder”, they will remain in the same place, and if not, then their copies will be created in the system folder, and you can delete the original files.

Sources:

• In this tutorial we will learn how to install additional fonts

The authors of many Adobe Photoshop tutorials use English names of buttons, commands and program functions when describing them. In this regard, sometimes the question arises - how to make the text of the Photoshop interface in English?

Instructions

If you first installed the English version of the program, and then put the localization on top, you can use in the following way. Launch Adobe Photoshop, click the menu item “Editing” > “Preferences” > General.” In the window that appears, select “Interface”, in the “User Interface Text Options” field, find the “Interface Language” item, specify “English” in it and click the “OK” button in the upper right corner of the menu. If you try to change this setting by initially installing the Russian version of Adobe Photoshop, then nothing will work: the only option in the “Interface language” setting will be only Russian. In this case, you can use another method.

Close the program and open Windows Explorer and go to the directory C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5\Locales\ru_RU\Support Files. Keep in mind that instead of the C drive and the CS5 version in your case, there may be other options, depending on where the program was installed and what its version is. Create a new folder in this directory, which you can give any name. IN in this case Leave the default name – “New Folder”.

Find the file called tw10428, it is responsible for the Russification of the program. Cut and paste it into the folder you just created: right-click on the file, select “Cut,” right-click on the folder icon and select “Paste.” Open Adobe Photoshop and enjoy the English interface. Keep in mind that in earlier versions of the program, for example in CS2, a similar operation will also have to be done with the tw12508 file. Together with tw10428, it will be located in the C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5 (64 Bit)\Required directory.

Video on the topic

Please note

If you need to return the Russian language to the program, do the reverse: cut the tw10428 file from the “New Folder” and paste it again into C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5\Locales\ru_RU\Support Files.

Creating your own unique font is interesting not only for designers and developers, but also for ordinary Internet users. On the Internet you can find several software tools for this purpose - both professional and amateur.

The technology for improving the quality of screen fonts using the Microsoft ClearType anti-aliasing method in some cases has the opposite effect - the clarity of texts becomes unacceptable. This may be due to both individual characteristics the user’s vision (increased color sensitivity) and monitor settings (abnormal resolution, improper gamma correction, etc.). If you are not satisfied with the clarity of screen fonts, try disabling or adjusting ClearType settings.

Instructions

Start by right-clicking on your desktop background image if you are using Windows XP. Select the "Properties" line in the drop-down context menu, and the system will launch the component with settings related to the image on the screen. You can also do this through the Control Panel, which is opened by a link in the menu on the “Start” button. In the panel, select the “Appearance and Themes” section and click the “Screen” link.

In the Screen Properties window, select the “Appearance” tab and click the “Effects” button. Next, you will have a choice: disable font anti-aliasing altogether or disable ClearType anti-aliasing.

Uncheck the "Apply the following screen font antialiasing method" checkbox if you want to disable antialiasing completely.

Leave the “Apply the following screen font smoothing method” checked and select “Normal” from the drop-down list below if you decide to disable ClearType only.

Click OK buttons in both open windows and the procedure will be completed.

If you have Windows 7 installed, start the procedure by pressing the win key or clicking the Start button. In the main OS menu that opens, enter the text ClearType in the “Search programs and files” field. In the search results, click the “ClearType Text Customizer” link, and the system will launch the “ClearType Text Customizer” component.

Uncheck the Enable ClearType checkbox and click Finish.

If you decide to try other ClearType settings, instead of the previous step, click Next and follow the instructions in the Screen Font Smoothing Setup Wizard. When it is finished, close the window by clicking on the “Finish” button.

Video on the topic

Windows tools allow you to use external fonts to create documents and graphic images in different styles. To set the required character set, an automated interface is used, implemented in the system by default. To set the font, like on a typewriter, you will need to download the TTF file and copy it to the system directory.

Instructions

Download a typewriter font online. Today, there are several resources that allow you to download character sets stylized for different typewriters. Go to the site you like and download the desired file.

Fonts are usually supplied in RAR or ZIP archives. To install the character set, you will need to unzip this document. After the download is complete, right-click on the resulting file and select “Extract”. Select the folder where you would like to extract the symbol set in the window that appears and wait for the extraction procedure.

Once the extraction has been completed, navigate to the directory where the extracted font files were saved. Click on the TTF document and select the “Install” option. After the operation is completed the right set characters will be copied to the system.

If you have downloaded several typescript fonts, use the Fonts tool, which is located in the Start menu - Control Panel - Appearance and Personalization. By going to this section, you will see all the files installed on your system.

Select the typewriter character sets in the folder where you extracted the downloaded archive and move them to the Fonts tool window. After the operation is completed, all files will be installed and you can close the manager window.

Launch the program through which you edit and create documents. In the window, select the font to use and start typing. The installation of the typewriter character set is complete.

Useful advice

If you don't like the downloaded file, you can use the Fonts tool. To do this, select the name of the unnecessary character set and click on the “Delete” button located at the top of the window. After clicking the button, unnecessary fonts will be permanently deleted from the system and will not appear in the programs you use.

Sources:

• Typescript fonts

When typing a test, creating a program interface or website pages, sometimes it is necessary to make all the text or a certain fragment of it transparent. Text transparency on a computer is very conditional and is implemented according to the same principle in different programs. The implementation of the principle can be considered using the example Microsoft programs Word.

You will need

• Basic computer skills.

Instructions

First, pay attention to the background color on which you plan to type your text. Find out the code of this color. To do this, select “Format” in the main menu of the program, in the submenu that appears, move the cursor to the “Background” line, then select the “Other colors” line. In the window that appears below the spectrum, the code of the selected color is written. This is what you need to remember or write down.

Next, open the “Format” line in the main menu, then “ Font". In the font properties window that appears, activate the " tab Font". In it, click on the color selection bar (under the line "Text Color"), then select the line "Other colors". In the color selection window that appears, enter a pre-known background color code. After this, the text will merge with the background, that is, it will be transparent .

Useful advice

To see transparent text, simply select it.

Inconvenient small font- Very current problem for people with low vision. Indeed, small font size makes the user strain his eyesight, it becomes impossible to perceive information, and using a computer causes discomfort.

Instructions

If the small screen resolution causes discomfort, then you should set the necessary parameters in its settings. Enter the desktop menu by right-clicking on free space and select the “Desktop Properties” menu item.

You will be offered a choice of fonts in three sizes with sample letters. Check the appropriate “Large font” box. Click the "Apply" button.

If the changes do not suit you, return to the previous tab again and select other options, increasing the font to “Very Large”. Click the Apply button again.

If you are not satisfied with the font in the text editor, you need to go to the “Fonts” menu item. This can be done either in the page control panel or by right-clicking on the page. Select the desired font from the drop-down list.

If you do not need to change the font in the document, but need to increase the page resolution on the screen, use the “Scale” tab in the “View” menu. By clicking on the “% to real resolution” icon, assign the desired page parameters.

All browsers also provide the ability to change the font size. To do this, go to the “View” menu in the settings, open the “Page” section, then the “Scale” subsection. Select right size font. In some browsers, this function is duplicated in the form of CTRL and “+” hotkeys. They need to be pressed at the same time. You can also increase or decrease the font size by pressing the CTRL key while scrolling the mouse wheel.

Video on the topic

To create fonts I recommend using an editor FontCreator from High-Logic. I’ll say right away that the program is paid, but this is the best option that caught my eye. If you need a free font editor, pay attention to the program Type light from cr8software and online service Glyphr Studio. I'll stick with FontCreator (if I'm not mistaken, it was version 6.0).

Step 1: and so, launch the editor and using the command: File > New(File > New) - create a new font. In the window that opens New Font (from English) New Font) , you will need to specify a number of parameters:

• Font family name- name of the font family, i.e. just the name of the font, something like that Times New Roman, I indicated My Font.
• Character set- a set of characters included in the font, I recommend choosing Unicode (characters).
• Font style- font style, for each style here you need to create separate file. For regular (default) font style, select the option Regular.
• Predefined outlines- built-in circuits. I recommend selecting the Don’t include outlines option, which will allow you to create a clean outline of silhouettes.

Step 2: A window will appear in front of you with a form of silhouettes of some symbols, numbers and Latin letters. For adding Cyrillic alphabet to the font, you need to do the following:

2.1. Using the command: Insert > Characters… (Insert > Symbols...)- open the window Insert Characters(from English) inserting characters).

In this case, you may receive the following message:

This operation is not undoable. Do you want to continue?

It informs you that the operation is irreversible and to complete it you need to confirm your action, press the button “ Yes».

2.2. Next, a table of symbols will appear in front of you. For convenience, in the list Fonts select font Arial. On the list Go to Unicode Block select Cyrillic. Using the field Selected Character, looks at the code for the letters “A” ($0410) and “I” ($044F). In the field Add these characters and/or character ranges… we add the necessary characters and/or range of characters, in our case it is: $0410-$044F . Click the button " OK».

2.3. Symbols of Cyrillic letters will be added to your font form. In the same way, but separately, you can add the letters “е” ($0451) and “Ё” ($0401), which were not included in the range of characters specified in the previous step.

Step 3: Now you can start creating symbols. Here, in addition to vector editing, using the appropriate tools, FontCreator allows you to create characters from pictures by converting them into a vector image. Obviously, for each symbol you will need to draw a separate picture.

3.1. As an example I draw capital letter"A".

3.2. In principle, after scanning, this image file can be used for import. To do this, select the image of the desired symbol in the form. Then using the command: Tools > Import Image… (Tools > Image Import)- open the window Import Raster Image (from English) import bitmap) .

3.3. In the window that opens, click the button Load…» (from English) download) and select the image file you need.

3.4. Moving the slider Threshold (from English) threshold) Set the darkening level of the image to create a clearer outline. You can also use filters:

• Smooth Filter- smoothing filter.
• Erode- blur, makes the symbol bolder.
• Dilate- stretching makes the font thinner.

Import Mode (from English) import mode) better leave it Trace, to convert to curves. WITH Negative (from English) negative) , I think everything is clear. So click the button Generate».

Step 4: By switching to editing mode, double-clicking on the symbol in the form, all you have to do is correct the irregularities, adjust the size and set the indentation line. You will need to do the same for other symbols.

In general, the process of creating a font cannot be called particularly difficult. This requires patience and a lot of time. Using the FontCreator font editor, this time can be saved in many ways by importing and converting a character image into a vector. However, even this option is a lot of work. That's all I have. Thank you for your attention. Good luck!

High school and university students often have to do large number writing exercises. For example, our social studies teacher gives us an assignment every lesson, which requires us to find material in the library or the Internet and write it by hand (only for this we can get an “excellent” grade), even if the material found is correct, but printed on a computer, don’t expect anything higher than a B...

Based on all of the above, I came to the conclusion: I need to make a font for the computer that duplicates my handwriting. In my opinion, I did it successfully. My own mother would not be able to tell where I wrote by hand and where I typed it on the computer. Many of my friends liked this idea, and they began to ask me how I did it all. And so as not to explain it to everyone a hundred times, I decided to write this article - a plan for completing the work with detailed comments.

So in this article I will tell you how to make a font that imitates your handwriting.

For work we will need:
1) sheets of blank paper in A4 format;
2) black gel pen;
3) printer;
4) scanner;
5) High-Logic FontCreator program (I suggest downloading from the official website of the program).
To download, click on the provided link.

1 step

Take album sheet paper and write on it all the letters of the Russian alphabet (lowercase and uppercase), numbers from zero to nine and punctuation marks: period, comma, semicolon, colon, quotation marks, dashes, parentheses, etc. If anyone needs, you can add other symbols that will be useful to you when writing, such as @, №, $, #, ^, %, *, etc. Write beautifully, display each letter so that later all your work does not go down the drain.

Step 2

Scan the sheet with the letters written. And those people who managed to fit all the characters on one page will eventually receive one big picture.

Step 3

Then open the FontCreator program from the manufacturer High-Logic. Her window looks like this.

In the window that appears, you need to enter the name of your future font.

Click “OK” and the following appears. window.

In this window, open a picture with your letters. Select the letter “A”, copy it and return to FontCreator, open the cell with the letter “F” and paste your letter there. The red dotted lines can be moved, arrange them as shown in the following figure.

The letter must be on the Baseline and must NOT extend beyond the top horizontal line (WinAscent), and must NOT extend beyond the bottom horizontal line (WinDescent), otherwise it will be cut off. The vertical left line should be where the letter begins, and the vertical right line should be where the letter ends. If the letter extends beyond the vertical lines, then when printing there will be an overlap of one letter over another, this also does not suit us.

Now I’ll explain why we inserted the letter “A” into the cell with the letter “F”. This program designed for creating fonts using Latin letters. On the contrary, we need to make a font for Russian letters. Therefore, the RUSSIAN font we made will be on the LATIN layout. To make it more convenient, we will insert Russian letters into cells with in Latin letters, according to the keyboard.

Insert the letter “Y” into the cell with the letter “Q”
Insert the letter “C” into the cell with the letter “W”
Insert the letter “U” into the cell with the letter “E”
Insert the letter “K” into the cell with the letter “R”
Insert the letter “E” into the cell with the letter “T”
Insert the letter “H” into the cell with the letter “Y”

After you place all the letters in the cells, you will get a picture like this.

Now you can test the resulting font. This can be done by pressing the “F5” key, or by going to “Font - Test...”

If you are happy with everything, save the resulting font and place it in the “C:\WINDOWS\Fonts” folder. The font is installed and you can now select it in e.g. Microsoft Word and print text for them. Below is the text printed in my font.