I know nothing about font design, but want to create a I Ching font to start.
This font is very simple. It consits of 64 characters (hexagrams) made up of 6 lines each (either solid, or broken). The overall shape of the characters themselves is square. I would also like to add the characters for the trigrams (3 lines either solid or broken) which would be half the size of the hexagram characters. In addition I would like to add characters consisting of a single line each (solid or broken or solid with a circle in the center and broken with an x in the center). I would also like to be able to import some symbols (jpegs?) such as a yin/yang symbol.
Any pointers to the above would be greatly appreciated.
Also with regard to the above font:
How do you create a regular pattern of lines such as those above which are equally spaced and the same thickness?
I suppose it should be the size of captial letters
Anyway, I would love to have some help and information about design considerations for something like this.
Check out my free fonts such as Verajja or Odana, which all have a full set if hexagrams and symbols. You can see how the are designed and decide if the design works for your fonts.
I have managed to produce designs, for a different purpose, with lines that are equally spaced and the same thickness.
This was for glyphs representing colours. There is a method named Petra Sancta that was devised in the seventeenth century for depicting colours in black and white books about heraldry by using various types of shading with lines: for example, vertical lines for red, horizontal lines for blue.
I am no expert on font metrics, I do not fully understand them; however I have found that if I use Format Settings… Metrics and then use 2048 for Typo Ascender, Win Ascent and Ascender, and 0 for Typo Line Gap and Line Gap and a multiple of -256 for Typo Descender, Win Descent and Descender, then I get good results.
The way that I produce such designs is to draw, directly in FontCreator, using the Insert Contour… facility within the Glyph Edit Window for the particular character being drawn at the time, by hand using the mouse unit, a contour that is roughly the right size and shape. I then select each point in turn and use the keyboard arrow keys to move it to the correct position. I know when I have got the point in the correct position by looking at the numbers that are on the right-hand side of the status bar that is below the display.
An arrow key on its own moves the point ten font units. Holding down the Control key (often labelled CTRL) when pressing the arrow key moves the point one font unit. Holding down the Shift key (often labelled with an upward open arrow) when pressing the arrow key moves the point one hundred font units. Thus a sequence of arrow key movements can move the point to a chosen place with precision.
I have found that using a grid of multiples of 256 font units is good. If I wanted a more detailed design I would use a grid of 128 font units. This is because when using the font, the application will need to produce a pixel design for the screen. I find that using multiples of 128 font units within an overall 2048 font unit size at 12 point produces good results as long as I make the advance widths a multiple of 128 font units as well.
I prefer to use a grid of 256 font units when I can.
I have found it convenient when producing fonts to have the grid displayed. This can be achieved using Tools Grid Options… with Show Grid checked. I use values of 256 and 4 and the option Solid. I have found that the custom colour of an orange composed as red 244, green 209 and blue 11 works well for me. Other users of FontCreator may well use different settings or no grid at all, it is a matter of finding what one prefers oneself.
There are various ways to use Unicode fonts. Some are straightforward, some are more complex.
For example, if someone starts the WordPad program on a PC and starts typing on the keyboard, he or she is using a Unicode font, because a display of text is produced. The font being used, on this PC, is Arial. If he or she wants to use a character that is not on the keyboard, then getting that character onto the screen is more complicated, needing a method such as the Alt method using a numerical entry, or by using copy and paste from another document, often followed by reformatting the copied character to the font and the size being used in the document within WordPad.
For example, for the special characters used in the Esperanto language, I use the following pdf file.
Some other application programs, such as the desktop publishing program Serif PagePlus version X3 (there is a later version of PagePlus, but I have the X3 version) have a special facility for inserting any character that is available in a particular font, including those that are not available on the keyboard.
Serif PagePlus X3 has an Insert Symbol Other… facility whereby a person using Serif PagePlus X3 can choose a character from a display of the characters that are available within the program in the particular Unicode font that is being used. For the avoidance of doubt, the use of the word Symbol by the Serif company in Insert Symbol Other… is not the same use of the word Symbol by Microsoft in Symbol Font. Maybe Insert Character Other… might be better parlance in PagePlus. However, it is convenient to mention, in passing, that in my own experience, I usually avoid making Microsoft Symbol fonts, preferring to use Unicode fonts.
However, please note that although recent versions of WordPad can access characters from all of the Unicode map, some (many? most?) application programs, including PagePlus X3, cannot access characters from beyond plane 0 of the Unicode map. That limitation may well not affect most use of application programs at the present time, but is something to check when considering buying an application program.
If the Unicode fonts that you make are copied into the C:\WINDOWS\Fonts directory of a PC, then they should be able to be used with most PC application programs that use fonts as most PC programs use fonts from that directory. For example, Serif PagePlus X3 had some fonts bundled with it on the two CD-ROM discs, and I can use those fonts in WordPad and other programs as well. Also, I can use fonts that I have made using FontCreator in WordPad and in PagePlus and in other programs.
For use in a program that you are writing, whether that can be done depends upon the programming language. For example, I did try learning Java some years ago and although using a variety of fonts was not something that I was trying to do at the time, I think (and here I am writing as a Java novice) that it was possible to select font but only from a choice of about eight, such as a Roman, a Sans Serif, and so on, though it might be that there were advanced ways of choosing a font. I do not know about that, but I am mentioning the issue as an indication that making a choice of a font with some particular programming language may not be possible.
Please note that there are various advanced issues relating to legibility and some advanced commercial fonts have various designs of a font for use at different sizes.
Please be aware though that resizing can produce strange results on screen sometimes depending upon the size being used and the design of the font. This is particularly the case when using designs that have horizontal and vertical lines. For example, my Quest text font is intended for use at 12 point, 18 point, 24 point and large multiples. It can look strange at 14 point.
This leads to the specialised technique of hinting being used in some high quality commercial fonts for use on screen displays.
An ordinary font can, however, often look good in a hardcopy print, because the printer has more dots per inch for rendering the design than does a screen display.
I have since thought that my previous response to the question as to how to use Unicode fonts was on that sentence alone and that maybe a more context aware answer is needed as well.
So, I am now trying to answer the following question as if it had been put.
How does one add a cell for a character or cells for characters from the http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2600.pdf code sheet to a new font in FontCreator that does not have any of those characters?
For example, let us use U+2615 HOT BEVERAGE.
Start a new Unicode font in FontCreator.
Insert Glyphs.. and use 1, which is the default number to insert, and select to insert it at after the last glyph.
A cell is added to the font, at the end.
Right-click on that cell. A dialogue panel should be displayed. The General sub-panel should be being displayed and the Mappings sub-panel is hidden, with just a title showing on a tab.
Click on the Mappings tab.
Microsoft Unicode BMP only should be highlighted: if it is not, click on it.
There is a box labelled Value, which should have a zero in it.
Add x2615 to it so that it shows 0x2615 after the adding.
Click the Add button.
Click OK
Add some more cells for other characters if desired, or just have the one if that is all that is wanted.
When as many as desired have been added, add Postscript names as follows.
Format Post…
The Include Postscript Names checkbox should already be checked: if not, check it.
Click on the Generate Names button.
Click OK.
A Postscript name should now appear in the heading to the cell.
The Postscript name for the U+2615 HOT BEVERAGE character is uni2615 and not something like hot_beverage.
If one is using the professional version of FontCreator one can use the Insert Characters… feature, with which one may add lots of character cells, all properly mapped, in one process.
However, convenient though that is for large numbers of cells, it may well be helpful to learn first using the Insert Glyphs… facility, even if that is just for a test font.
An interesting point that may affect some users is that the Insert Characters… facility is not useable with an 800 pixel by 600 pixel screen display. I habitually use an 800 pixel by 600 pixel screen display and find that I have to change the screen resolution of the display from the Windows Control Panel to 1024 pixel by 768 pixel if I want to use the Insert Characters… facility.
Although not directly on this topic, may I mention one other matter?
When making a font I make notes in a WordPad file as I proceed. I often find this useful for checking back on something later.
Something I have done sometimes is to copy some or all of such a file and post the notes in a post in this forum.
If someone learning makes such notes as he or she proceeds, then, if he or she encounters a problem along the way, it would be possible to paste a copy of some or all of the notes in a post in this forum when asking a question seeking to solve the problem.
An example of such a transcript is in the following thread.
In order to include the Tai Xuan Jing (four line) symbols, you cannot use only the Microsoft Unicode BMP only (Basic Multilingual Plane). You will need to go to Format:Platform Manager and add the Microsoft Unicode full repertoire platform and map these to U+1D300-1D35F. This allows you to assign characters to the Supllementary Multilingual Plane, Supplementary and Tertiary Ideographic Planes, Supplementary Special Purpose Plane, and Private Use Planes (U+10000 - 1FFFFF). This includes scripts like Linear B, Kharosthi, Ancient Greek Numbers, Phoenecian, Miao Pollard, Deseret, Mah Jongg tiles, Domino tiles, Cueniform, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Brahmi, historic Han characters, and will eventually include some interesting scripts like Mende Kikakui, shorthands, Sutton Signwriting; Oracle Bone, Bronze and Small Seal script Chinese; Mayan Hieroglyphics (REALLY eventually), and maybe even Linear A and Rongorongo (Easter Island writing).
The BMP is basically full right now - only 18 columns of 16 code points are left unclaimed in the Roadmap, and only eight scripts and extensions unapproved right now. Given the thrust of events, and knowing the people in charge of the Roadmaps, I would suspect that the last 18 columns will almost certainly be roadmapped to Latin and punctuation extensions, and we will almost certainly find some of these ending up in the SMP as well.
The following thread, which is entitled “High Plane Unicode Mapping”, may be of interest in relation to learning how to add characters that are mapped to one of the planes beyond the Basic Multilingual Plane (that is, beyond plane 0).
Thus far that thread only contains posts from me, though I am pleased to note that the various files that I have uploaded have been downloaded a good number of times, though one download for each being my provenance checking of the upload.
A related thread that is well worth studying is “Obtaining a hexadecimal dump of a Unicode Text Document”.
