Problem in importing fonts to ArcMap (GIS Software)

FontCreator - Font Editor FontCreator - Support
1

I broke down (ungrouped) a simple vector image (i.e. an EPS file) and used FontCreator to store each piece of the vector image as True Font Type format (each piece got saved in different glyphs).
Then I imported the True Font type to ArcMap (An ESRI GIS Software) and put every piece together to make it as one image and use it as a symbol for my points on the map. The reason why I broke it down as multiple
pieces was because I wanted to assign a different color for each piece.

However, I found it was very tedious and time-consuming to arranage each piece in the right spot and resize each piece by different factors to make them look the same as thier original look.
For exmaple, if I have 3 pieces of a simple image stored in 3 glyphs (i.e. outer frame of the image, inner frame of the image, a character inside the frame), I have to manually change the size and position of each piece
everytime I want to a change on the image as whole. I will have to set my outer frame as size of 10 when my inner frame has to be some arbitrary size like 24 to stay inside the outer frame and my charater has to be some other
arbitrary size to stay inside the innter frame (and same as positions)

(By the way, I copied and pasted each piece from the original image to 3 different glyphs to make sure each piece gets the orginal postion saved in new glyph)

So my question is, is there any way I can store each piece of a vector image as a True Font Type properly so that I can use same factor throughout all the pieces to make changes on their size and position in unison?

Thanks.
Jin

2

I do not have the same item of application software that you have, so I do not know if the idea suggested below will work. However, it might be worth a try as I have used such a method with other application packages.

What happens if a font is made with three glyphs as follows.

Glyph 1 has the outer frame, the inner frame and the character.

Glyph 2 has the outer frame and the inner frame.

Glyph 3 has the outer frame.

In use, first use glyph 1 in the colour of the character, then add glyph 2 in the colour of the inner frame, then add glyph 3 in the colour of the outer frame.

I know that this works in PagePlus, a desktop publishing package made by Serif, where one can use three text boxes and overlay one on top of the other.

For example, I did that some time ago with some of the fonts in my Galileo Lettering collection. Looking back in the forum it was in 2005.

http://forum.high-logic.com:9080/t/galileo-lettering-font/834/1

The following example shows the effect. Please note how the outer edge of the letters is in each of the three fonts that are used to build up layers. Only the topmost colour is displayed on the screen.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/mosaic.PDF

As I say, I do not know whether this technique would work in the application software that you are using.

I hope that this helps.

William Overington

2 July 2010