Hi,
I am testing a font, but the characters resulting are not the same size as the standard fonts such as arial. I have created an example here, where both are 20 point:-
What actually determines the size of the font output? - is there a recommended x-height, cap height etc. so that the result is correctly sized? I have played with win ascent etc. without seeing a logical answer.
I’m not talking about line spacing, which is well covered in posts.
Times New Roman has a CapsHeight of 1356 funits, while Arial’s is 1466. You can use the Glyph Transformation wizard to stretch all of your glyphs by the same amount. If you’re using the Home Edition, try this method to enlarge all glyphs by 50%
Select All, Copy
Format settings, General, Units per em, change to 3072, OK
Thankyou both for your invaluable encouragement.
I played at some length, eventually deciding to use the parameters from Times New Roman (TNR), since I was creating a serif font. Came out beautifully for height and line spacing etc.
However, I was having some difficulty with the infrastructure. When the ‘show formatting’ in Word was turned on, I was getting small rectangles for my spaces, no proper para returns, and having great difficulty in selecting blank lines. Obviously I had not got some non-printing characters properly in place.
So I opened TNR, and replaced the glyphs with mine, so creating a fully working and functional font. I hope that doesn’t infringe a copyright - I’ve only used the infrastructure.
I did find the auto-kerning and the other wizards invaluable. It makes me very tempted to go the whole hog and buy the pro edition!
Job done!
When the ‘show formatting’ in Word was turned on, I was getting small rectangles for my spaces, no proper para returns
I understand the small rectangles (notdef glyph) for the paragraph returns as that character (¶) had not been defined in the font but why would you get the notdef for Spaces? I experienced this same thing looking at a font the other day.
ps: Using another font, even for such a nit as “using infrastructure” can be a violation of copyrights. There’s all sorts of stuff in a font that they “invented” that won’t be obliterated by replacing the glyphs… (I won’t tell though).
No need to use commercial glyphs or fonts, which are protected by copyright. Use the glyphs provided by FontCreator when you create a new font (include outlines), they are free to use in your fonts without restrictions. The paragraph return symbol ¶ is there, as is the non-breaking space (160), which is mapped to the space character (32).
The default new font also includes smart quotation marks to give you a quick start. You can easily modify the glyphs to suit your own font for size, shape, and position.
Any other glyphs you need can be copied from my fonts, which are released under GNU license agreement. This is only a problem if you want to sell your font including my glyphs, as the GNU license requires you to release any font containing the glyphs also with the same GNU agreement.
Although all essential tasks can be done with the Home Edition, even if you are not using FontCreator commercially, the Pro version is well worth its higher price.
Advanced contour operations (welding contours together), glyph transformations, and Complete Composites very soon pay for themselves. Just try running the italic glyph transformation on your font and see how easy it is to create a new typestyle. You will still need to create some lowercase glyphs, and a few uppercase glyphs, but the bulk of the work is done. Then run the Font Validator to fix the problems that skewing glyphs causes. Doing all that manually with the Home Edition would take ages. For good measure, insert the full set of Mathematical Operators, select them, and complete composites.
Bhikku,
I have really appreciated your advice and skill on this rather steep learning curve - thankyou.
I am pretty sure I’ll take the plunge for the pro version.
I was interested to see your fonts - including your handwriting; any professional observations you may have on mine which is at http://lackfamily.net/ (see bottom of page), I’d be grateful. I’m about to tackle it again using the recently learned lessons!
Warm thanks to all who have helped
The handwriting font is really nice. I can see you will soon be able to produce some professional quality fonts. It looks like you started with using another font though as there are some glyphs like Æ and Thorn that don’t belong. It is better to start with a new font from FontCreator and copy your own glyphs into that.
If you want the accented characters in Latin-1 Supplement at least, then you need a dotless ı and you need to design some matching glyphs for the accents. The default template accents don’t match too well, and ring accent has been replaced by a lowercase l. Position the accents vertically for lowercase, and then Complete Composites will position them roughly in the right place for all accented letters. Then Format, Metrics, Maximum, Recalculate to adjust the WinAscent to accommodate the accents.
WinAscent should usually be a good bit higher than TypoAscender and CapsHeight. This will increase the default line-spacing of your font. If you want to keep line-spacing tight, keep your accents fairly horizontal, or add low-profile accents for uppercase letters. (57365-57376)
Underline and strikeout lines are too thin. (See how they look in the font test window). They can be changed in Format, Settings, General, and Post.
Format, Classification, Panose should be filled in. Latin Hand Written, Flat Nib, Book might be near enough to start. See Dave’s Panose Tutorial for details. That can wait, though, just latin handwritten is better than latin text (the default for all new fonts).
