Using Gerber Graphix Advantage to make ttffont

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pt_crusier_2002
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Using Gerber Graphix Advantage to make ttffont

Post by pt_crusier_2002 »

Spent most of the day trying to get Scanahand and Gerber to make a ttf font. This is what I did with only modest luck.

I imported the basic High-Logicalphabet template into Gerber and used Gerber to recreate one where I could input some of my fonts I created for Gerber to make them into a TTF. After several attempts of adjusting the narrow line width between character boxes and changing template to various colors would then print out a filled version of the form with my characters placed into the various cells from the Gerber program. I would then use scanner and the scanahand program to convert the scan into a ttf font. Some of the problems I ran into were that under several of the alphabet characters the scanahand program would add a black line beneath from the template, while numbers would come in with just the character outline, I am using a Brothers 3-1 scanner at 300-400 dpi when scanning. The characters quality should be of high quality, but the sides of several characters seem to be very rough and not accurate, not ready for prime time.

Please advise why I keep getting black line under characters, how to get rid of them. How to improve the quality of the finish ttf from what are high quality originals giving me vector outlines of poor quality.

Have tried using a demo version of ScanFont 5 that give a better output of outlines than I'm getting with Scanahand.

Please advise would like to produce some quality level fonts if possible.
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Re: Using Gerber Graphix Advantage to make ttffont

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

If you responded to your previous posts I would be more inclined to help.

You will get much better results if you import vectors into FontCreator.

If you're still undecided which program suits your needs then tell us what your needs are.

FontCreator Home is for personal use only
FontCreator Pro is for producing fonts for commercial use.
Scanahand can be used for commercial use, and may be the best for the non technical user who just wants to make hand-writing fonts quickly.

Scanahand will give better results if you scan at 600 dpi. Below is the results at 300 dpi (left) and 600 dpi (right) after running a template through Scanahand. The recommended size for importing bitmaps into FontCreator is about 500 pix, but even at 600 dpi a single glyph on the standard Scanahand template is only about 200 pix. You could probably get better results by creating a custom grid and spreading the font over more pages.

See the FontCreator tutorial on Import Images the Right Way
GG.png
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Erwin Denissen
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Re: Using Gerber Graphix Advantage to make ttffont

Post by Erwin Denissen »

Scanahand produces fonts with great quality, but it all depends on the quality of the template you feed it. The larger the image, the better the result.

If you want the most accurate and best result possible, and you have vector based source files (e.g. .ai or .eps files) then FontCreator will give far superior results as it will not convert from raster to vector.
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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Using Gerber Graphix Advantage to make ttffont

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Erwin Denissen wrote:Scanahand produces fonts with great quality, but it all depends on the quality of the template you feed it. The larger the image, the better the result.
Since the recommended scanning resolution is 300 dpi, a single glyph will be about 150 x 180 pix, which is not sufficient for a good result as my screen shot shows. The template was filled in using an installed font, so there's no question that the original was of the best possible quality — i.e. no jaggies due to bleed of ink into the paper etc.

On my old hardware, with just 1 Gbyte of RAM, a 600 dpi full page scan is about the maximum that Scanahand can handle, and using such large images impacts on performance.

To get better results, instead of using 10 columns x 11 rows on a page, which is designed for filling in with a pen at normal writing sizes, try using a template of 4 x 5 which will allow for larger glyphs, though they won't be at the size used for normal writing, so use a thicker nib if filling them in with a pen.
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Re: Using Gerber Graphix Advantage to make ttffont

Post by William »

> I imported the basic High-Logicalphabet template into Gerber ... .... would then print out a filled version of the form with my characters placed into the various cells from the Gerber program. I would then use scanner ....

I have not used Gerber Graphix so I do not know what is possible with it.

I am just thinking that it might be helpful if I mention that although Scanahand has the word scan in its name, one does not necessarily always need to use a scanner: it depends on the task.

For example, what I do is to export a template with light turquoise guidelines on it as a .png file.

I have found that a .png file is much better than a .jpg file for my purposes.

I then open the .png file in the Microsoft Paint program.

I save with a project specific filename, still as a .png file.

I then draw the letters in the boxes.

I then save the file.

I then load the .png file into Scanahand and make the font.

The process does not involve a printer or a scanner.

Now, I do not know whether a file can be exported from Gerber Graphix, so maybe printing and scanning is necessary, yet I thought that I would post the above notes in the hope that they might help.

William Overington

3 August 2013
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