Is an error?

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1

When i make my font on the ‘Font Creator 5.6’, i see one error on this font. Look to this image:

We perceive, this font is a bit ‘blurred’ is applied, then, is not pixelated if it is used in browsers, text, and other programs. The question is: How i transform this font stay like the ‘Arial’ font, for exemple? (explain: how the way to tranform this font in ‘pixelated’ type?)

OBS: I make this font, based on the Japenease Font. Being that i use normal symbols (like, ‘a’, ‘b’), but, i modificate this glyphs and adding my symbol glyph.
OBS²: Sorry for my ‘english’, i not american. I’m Brazilian…

2

Welcome to the forum.

Fonts such as Arial use a technique called hinting that makes the font look good at small sizes on screen.

However, a hardcopy printout does not use hinting as there are many more “dots per inch” in a printer than on a screen display. So, a printout can look better than a screen display.

FontCreator 5.6 does not have facilities for hinting.

However, there is a technique that I devised that I named mathematical pseudohinting.

In 2006 I produced a pixel font named Pixel Polka.

The font is available free and there is a link in the Pixel Polka thread in the Gallery forum.

http://forum.high-logic.com:9080/t/pixel-polka/1221/1

The Pixel Polka font is available from the first post in the thread.

At 12 point, 18 point, 24 point the font gives a crisp display.

At 14 point it is blurred.

So, mathematical pseudohinting is not as good a hinting, but it can be useful at times.

If you so choose, please try the following.

Download a copy of the Pixel Polka font to your computer.

Double click on the font to temporarily install it.

Try the font in Microsoft WordPad at 12 point, 18 point, 24 point.

Is the display crisp like you want it to be?

I do not know what point size a web page will use, so how the font looks in a web page may depend on the point size that the browser uses.

Open the font in FontCreator 5.6.

Try the following sequence.

Format
Settings…
Metrics

Observe that the values 2048, 0 and -1024 are used.

Click Cancel.

Open one of the glyphs by double clicking on it: for example, a letter f.

View
Mode
Point

Click on a point and notice that its coordinates are each a multiple of 256.

Try looking at more complicated glyphs, such as those for o and for e and for w.

If you wish, you are welcome to save a copy of the Pixel Polka font with a new name and then change the author information and then change the glyph designs to be what you want for your font. If you wish to change the width of a glyph, then it is best, for this font, to use one of the following values for the advance width of the glyph: 256, 512, 768, 1024, 1280, 1536, 1792, 2048, 2304, 2560 … . Changing the advance width is by using right-click, Properties, General and then changing the value for advance width and clicking OK.

I hope that the above suggestions help.

If you do try the above, please post your results here if possible please.

William Overington

6 September 2010

The edit of 7 September 2010 is to change the word a to as so as to produce the following line and thus correct an error.

Try looking at more complicated glyphs, such as those for o and for e and for w.

3

You have run in to the problem of hinting, which is a feature found in high-end fonts. FCP does not support hinting, but will retain it in a font that you add characters to. However, if you modify any characters, the hinting instructions will be lost for that character and any composites made from that character.

Hinting is essentially a computer program written into the font that changes the outline of the character depending on the size. There are utilities out there that will allow you to add embedded bitmaps to a font - useful at screen resolutions, and I believe that Erwin has indicated that embedded bitmaps will probably be added to FCP in a future version, but you’d have to ask him when that will happen. If you try to print your characters on paper, though, you will find that they are crystal clear and beautiful. There will be no fuzziness of the computer trying to represent a pixel it thinks should be filled to 43.809%

If you don’t care about the weight of lines (ie, a 100 funit vertical bar is two pixels wide on the left side of the character, but only one wide on the right), but only want to maintain the basic shape, you can go to Format:Grayscale, grayscale rendering. You might also try out gridfitting either way, as I’m never really sure what the outcome is going to be. This dialogue is your playground, though, unless you are willing to put in the effort to embed bitmaps yourself.

4

Oh, thanks for help me. I’ve been try most times. I’ll try again with your font, thanks for share for me.

5

You may find it helpful to use the following.

Tools
Grid Options…

Then check the Show Grid checkbox.
For the two values that are in the “Minimum distance between grid points” panel, set the following values.
Set the upper value, labelled “Between grid points in units” to have a value of 256.
Set the lower value, labelled “Between grid points in pixels” to have a value of 4.
Select “Solid” as the option for “Line Style”.
The colour that I use is an orange colour, Red 244, Green 209, Blue 11. The colour is a matter of personal choice. I use that colour because, for me, it means that the design of the glyph in black is clear against the grid.
grid_and_an_e.png
William Overington

7 September 2010