I am wondering whether there is a way to make an italic font set starting from a regular font sent create by your own, i.e.: once I made a “regular” font set, I must make the italic one “ex novo” or there is a way to make this automatically (for example, each character goes 3° clockwise inclined, or something else..)
thx
If you are using the Professional Edition (or the 30-day trial version, which is the same) you can do this with the Glyph Transformer.
In the Overview window, select all of the glyphs that you wish to skew, and copy them to the clipboard.
With the glyphs still selected, open the Glyph Transformer from the Tools menu, and from the folder icon on the Transform Wizard dialogue, select one of the Oblique transforms, e.g. Oblique05.xml to skew the glyphs by 5° and click OK
Paste the clipboard contents back in, and undo. Now you see why I asked you to copy the glyphs. There is no undo for Glyph Transformations. Now you can try different angles until you’re satisfied.
Save the file with a new TTF Filename when you’re satisfied with the result. The next stage is to change the font to an italic typestyle.
From the Format, Settings dialogue, click on the Metrics Tab and set the font style to italic
On the Post Tab, change the italic angle to the skew angle in degrees that you used (negative for forward slanting italic fonts), and on the General Tab, Calculate the Caret Slope Rise and Run.
If you’re using the Home Edition, you must use the Skew option on the Transform Toolbar to skew each glyph in the glyph edit window. A skew value of 8.75 will slant the glyphs by 5° (The toolbar uses tangents rather than degrees).
If you have the Professional Edition, version 5.6 now has an italic transform script that will skew the selected glyphs to the angle you want, and automatically set the Font Style, and other required metrics for an italic font. Just save the TTF with a new name and run the Autonaming wizard.