Is "August format" a good idea?

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William
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Is "August format" a good idea?

Post by William »

Fontstruct (at the http://fontstruct.fontshop.com webspace) and High-Logic's own Scanahand and Yourfonts.com facilities allow production of TrueType fonts using some Unicode character positions.

OpenType format has facilities for ligatures and alternate glyphs.

As some readers know, I like producing glyphs for ligatures and alternates.

I am wondering whether a published format for using some of the code positions in a Scanahand font in a non-Unicode manner so as to include some glyphs for ligatures and alternates might be a good idea. As it is now August, this could be named "August format". I am thinking that some of the glyphs are not used in ordinary text and so could be used in this manner in some fonts if the font is intended only for setting text and ligature and alternate glyphs are desired.

It seems to me that if there were some consistency in this amongst various font producers that that would enable interoperability amongst fonts. Also, if the August format were widely used then maybe in the longer term, High-Logic might produce a "Convert from August format to OpenType" facility so that any fonts produced now in August format could be converted to OpenType fonts on an automated basis.

Is this a good idea? It would allow production of stylish printouts and graphics now and have the possibility of artwork being useful in the future by means of an automated process.

The specific details of August format could be discussed in this thread, even using a different name for the format if another name is preferred, so nothing is decided yet.

Here is a list of the assignments which I used with one font, but this is just for discussion and need not be included in August format if people want other assignments as I could easily change what I have thus far produced.

% ff ligature glyph
+ fi ligature glyph
= fl ligature glyph
~ ffi ligature glyph
# ffl ligature glyph
{ ct ligature glyph
} st ligature glyph
| Qu glyph
@ e alternate ending glyph

I have noticed that this perhaps favours those of us who use a United Kingdom keyboard layout, where ~ is above # and might look strange on some other keyboard layouts. However, I am trying to be inclusive so comments and alternative suggestions are welcome. Also, suggestions for other glyphs to include are welcome. I feel that an e acute alternate ending glyph would be useful, so that words such as café could be set stylishly.

William Overington

21 August 2008
William
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Post by William »

Thirty-six views so far, including some by me.

I have now uploaded to the web a font which uses the above assignments.

It was designed earlier this month using the FontStruct facility at http://fontstruct.fontshop.com and this morning I downloaded a fresh copy from the FontStruct webspace and processed it somewhat using FontCreator 5.6. The alterations are as noted in the following transcript. However, this is the overall result, there was testing along the way and decision-making as to how to proceed at various times. For examples, the item "Adjust the additional metrics on the Ranges page so that x-height is 1088 and Cap height is 1664." and the item "Change Units per em to 2048." each took me a while to realize what needed doing. The reason for the italic transform is that the font was designed at FontStruct with that in mind and I tested it with the various versions as I developed the font. The angle is that of a gradient of 1 horizontal in 16 vertical.

The reason for doing this was that I saw a font advertised which was described as an "upright Italic" and I thought that I would try to produce a font which is both a true italic and an upright italic using Fontstruct and FontCreator used together.

----

Monday 25 August 2008

08:14 am

At Fontstruct, download Garden007 as it stands to folder FONT GARDEN AUGUST FORMAT.

Open garden007.ttf in FontCreator 5.6.

Save as GARDEN.TTF Garden version 0.07.

Change the copyright messages.

Add postscript names.

Scale all glyphs by 400% in both directions, about the point (0,0).

Use the Glyph Transformer to make the font italic at 3.5800 degrees yet do not flag as italic and do not preserve side bearings.

Change metrics to 2048, -768, 0.

Adjust the additional metrics on the Ranges page so that x-height is 1088 and Cap height is 1664.

Change Units per em to 2048.

Validate the font. Six glyphs have problems, redundant points.

Validate with automated fixing of the problems. No problems remaining.

Install and test.

09:30 am

----

Here is a link to the font.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/GARDEN.TTF

So, the font really tests several separate ideas.

There is also the future possibility of making an OpenType font where the glyph substitution for the ligatures is automated and the alternate glyphs are encoded as such.

William Overington

25 August 2008
William
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Post by William »

I produced a test pdf so as to produce a display of the font in use in a pdf.

It does not include any use of the ligature glyphs or the alternate glyphs, yet I thought that some readers might like to have it available, so I have uploaded it to the web.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/g ... 7_test.pdf

The text is some creative writing of my own which I use within the Font Test... facility of FontCreator. I test fonts as I proceed, often after adding each glyph and I find it interesting how the words gradually appear.

William Overington

25 August 2008
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Post by William »

I have been experimenting and have produced the following font.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/POETRYAF.TTF

It is named Poetry August.

The font was designed and produced using the FontStruct facility.

http://fontstruct.fontshop.com

It was then processed using FontCreator 5.6.

Some readers may have read about an earlier version of the Poetry font in the thread about FontStruct.

viewtopic.php?t=2219

The Poetry August font has an e acute alternate ending glyph encoded at the ^ codepoint. This is so that the word café can be set in a hopefully stylish manner.

The font also has various long s ligatures at the codepoints of digits 1..9 and a copy of the long s glyph at 0.

0 long s
1 long s b
2 long s h
3 long s i
4 loing s k
5 long s l
6 long s long s
7 long s long s i
8 long s long s l
9 long s t

Some readers might like a copy of the notes about how I processed the font from the original poetry016.ttf font downloaded from the FontStruct webspace.

----

Notes about processing the font.

Open poetryt016.ttf in FontCreator 5.6.

Save as POETRYAF.TTF Poetry August version 0.16.

Change the copyright messages.

Add postscript names.

Scale all glyphs by 400% in both directions, about the point (0,0).

Change metrics to 2048, -1024, 0.

Change Units per em to 2048.

Adjust the additional metrics on the Ranges page so that x-height is 1088 and Cap height is 1536.

Validate the font. Twenty-six glyphs have problems, many are redundant points.

Validate with automated fixing of the problems. Seven glyphs have problems remaining.

Ampersand, B, j and j circumflex, u and u breve, Qu.

Validate. No glyphs have problems.

Install and test.

----

The font has various non-Unicode glyphs in it, yet the font is structurally a Unicode font, so it can be used as an ordinary Unicode font for English and Esperanto text where digits and special signs are not needed.

However, hopefully the font will also be of interest for any readers who would like to experiment with producing images of text using long s ligatures using the Microsoft Paint program.

William Overington

27 August 2008
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