Fontcreator vs. Fontographer

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stinkykong
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2002 3:13 am
Location: Denton, TX

Fontcreator vs. Fontographer

Post by stinkykong »

I am trying out Font Creator. I currently use another more primitive font editing program. I want to upgrade to something better and Font Creator seems easy enough to use. Does anyone have any insight into how Font Creator compares to Fontographer. I hear Fontographer is the best program of its kind but it is so old and really not going anywhere new. Font Creator works only with Truetype fonts which may or may not be a hampering to me. It seems that Font Creator is alive and open to further development. Any comments from those familiar with both programs?

thanks so much,
Steve Horn
carterhouse
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 8:32 pm

Post by carterhouse »

I have font creator and fontographer. I'm just a hack, not a professional typedesigner. For a truetype windows font, I greatly prefer font creator. It is easy, windows-intuitive and full featured. It does a great job of importing graphics into a font - something that is a chore in fontographer.

If you want to convert fonts (type 1, mac, etc.) you will need fontographer. But if you stick with windows, truetype fonts, you will get all you need with font creator.

You may become frustrated with fontographer. It is old and doesn't conform to the current windows conventions. You lose right-click functionality, the gui looks like a MAC (neither good nor bad), and there is a bit of a learning curve beyond what you need to just create fonts. Fontographer does have some of the high end functionality geared toward postscript fonts. In fontographer, the drawing points have handles with Bezier control points on the end that fine tune the curves and help you see the orthogonality of the font (it looks like a line drawn through the drawing point - as you move it around the point, the font curves in response). In truetype, you just apply more drawing points and move them directly to get your curves. Fontographer does have a freestyle tool that allows you to draw fonts right on the computer screen. You can adjust the weight of the stroke and make it calligraphic too. The freestyle tool is easier to use if you have a pen stylus (hard to write with a mouse).

Real designers like to work in postscript and then convert them to truetype (or not convert them). If you want to become a high end postscript designer, then you will need fontographer, but if you want to have fun and make very impressive truetype fonts, you will probably appreciate font creator more.

In fact, I dare say if you pay the unreasonable retail price for the aging fontographer, you will very disappointed when you compare it to the appropriately priced and very functional font creator. Unless you are becoming a professional designer and need some serious highend functionality for postscript fonts, you will not see much advantage in fontographer over font creator. Font creator is so much easier to use, you will default to it more times than fontographer.

I agree with you that font creator is alive and has a promising future.
stinkykong
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2002 3:13 am
Location: Denton, TX

Post by stinkykong »

Thanks for the great information. I have other drawing programs that use bezier curves and perhaps could use them somewhat in creating bitmaps to import. With the information you gave, I think I will buy Font Creator now and maybe Fontographer later. Again, thank you for the help.
Steve Horn
artifax
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2004 12:39 am

I have FCP on my PC... and Fontographer on my Macintosh...

Post by artifax »

I have FCP on my PC... and Fontographer on my Macintosh... and even though I am 99.9% Macintosh... I am using FCP more and more frequently... to create the basic font... for a PC it is all you really need.

I need bitmap... and Postscripy Fonts for my Mac... but I find that I use FontStudio more often than Fontographer... and if you are new to computing... I think you'd find working with them difficult. I've been using programs like Fontographer and Aldus Freehand 3.1.1 since the early 90s... and I'm used to them... but FPC is really easy !!

SURE it has a few kinks... however it is really still in the developmental stages... and I've seen drastic improvements in the program... where as Fontographer isn't improving... and if you surf the Web... I think you'll find that a lot of the really great font designers don't even use it !!

If you email me... I'll send you a link I found to a "demo" version of Fontographer that is fully functional... and you cansee for yourself. It is 3.0.5... but not much different from 4.0

I also downloaded FiFoFo.exe for free from HL... it is a great little bonus... try it !!
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