Solutions to Common Problems

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Erwin Denissen
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Solutions to Common Problems

Post by Erwin Denissen »

Problem
I'm left-handed, and while writing down the characters, my hand moves over the wet ink.
Solution
When you are left-handed and use a fountain pen, or calligraphic pen, you could try to write from right to left.

Problem
The ink bleeds
Solution
Either try another pen, or use coated paper.

Problem
I'm lazy
Solution
Only characters that are written down on the template are added to the font, so if you only need a few characters, then only write those down.

Problem
I find it hard to write the characters on the imaginary baseline, so I now have a font of an uneven handwriting.
Solution 1
Enable the colored guide line that represents the baseline through the Template page on the Options dialog.
Solution 2
With a pencil and a ruler, draw a very light line through the baseline guidelines. Then when you've drawn all characters, erase the line.
Solution 3
Draw the character on another piece of paper, cut it out with a pair of scissors, and glue it back onto the completed template.
Solution 4
Save the scanned template onto your hard disk. Open it in your paint software, and move the floating characters up or down. Then load it back into Scanahand.

Problem
The pen slipped a bit when I did a figure 8 and it ended up too thick and it was not possible to rub it out.
Solution 1
Draw the character on another piece of paper, cut it out with a pair of scissors, and glue it back onto the completed template.
Solution 2
Save the scanned template onto your hard disk. Open it in your paint software, and edit the character. Then load it back into Scanahand.
Solution 3
Save the original scan to a file (file 1). Draw the character on another piece of paper, and scan it in, then save that scan to a file (file 2). Open file 2, select the artwork of the character and copy it onto the clipboard. Open file 1 and paste from the clipboard into the correct place on the image. Save file 1 and then use file 1 to produce the font.

Problem
The line spacing it too large.
Solution
The line spacing depends on minimum and maximum of your characters. If all your characters are drawn in the right size and position, then most likely one or more contain unwanted dark pixels, that are included in the font. The problem will be solved when you clean up cells, e.g. remove all unwanted dark pixels, and generate the font again. You could also decide to generate the font with a "Low (light)" threshold, as that will skip more light colored pixels.

Problem
I've stored a template on my hard disk, and I've noticed it becomes more degraded each time I open and save it to make corrections.
Solution
Scanahand uses a "low compression, high quality" factor when storing your template in JPEG format (.jpeg or .jpg). So the quality of your template will be very high.

However when you edit your template in your paint software, it adds more and more color leakage beyond the edges of objects every time you open and save it. When that software uses "high compression, low quality" factor, it adds even more artifacts. To make sure the quality of your templates remains the same, it's wise to avoid the JPEG graphics format, and other formats that use lossy compression.

We suggest you use BMP, as your original image will then be stored without compression.
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
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