Font Forum

I have been participating in the viewtopic.php?t=2151 thread and have been inspired to produce an italic version of my Whiteboard Venetian font, which font is available from the Whiteboard Venetian thread in the Gallery forum.

Deciding to try to produce a bold and a bold italic version, I remembered that I may have read somewhere that there is a length limit to the font name of a font as 28 characters including spaces. Does anyone know if there such a length limit and if so what is the length please?

I began to think that maybe needing to be able to include names such as Italic and Bold Italic in font names is why most font names are not as long as some of the font names which I have used. For example, I have used Sonnet to a Renaissance Lady as a font name. That is 28 characters including spaces. Have I painted myself into a corner by using such a long font name in that if I want to produce an italic version then the font name would be longer than is allowed? I can always resolve the situation by using a font name such as Sonnet to a Lady.

However, before starting this thread I tried an experiment with producing a bold version of the font. Having been using the italic effect transform, I was expecting that I might find a checkbox for "Set font subfamily and font design to bold" in a similar manner to the checkbox for "Set font subfamily and font design to italic" which is in the dialogue for the italic effect.

I am still trying to work out quite what is the effect of checking a Preserve side bearings checkbox. I did not check it when making italic fonts. Maybe I should have done, maybe not? As there is a choice that seems to imply that sometimes one might wish to preserve side bearings and sometimes not.

William Overington

10 March 2008

Take a look at this earlier thread.

Thank you for your help.

William Overington

11 March 2008

Yesterday evening I was thinking that in order to try to learn how to use the bold effect transform properly I needed a very basic font upon which the effect of the transform could easily be analyzed. That font could perhaps also be useful for learning about the effect of more complicated transforms.

Well, maybe one solid rectangle. Yet what about descenders?

In the event I produced the following font.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/IMPRESSR.TTF

Please note in particular the glyph in the place of the % character as it includes a counterclockwise contour.

I have tried producing two versions of a bold version using the glyph transformer, one using the Preserve side bearings checkbox unchecked and one using the Preserve side bearings checkbox checked.

I have done a preliminary experiment using bold italic, by first making a bold and then an italic of that font. I have also experimented with using the font with autometrics.

I am unsure as to whether the font will be of interest to assist in learning: however, I feel that it has helped me learn and maybe some readers might also find it of use.

William Overington

11 March 2008

I have now managed to produce bold and bold italic versions of my Whiteboard Venetian font.

The fonts are available from links in the following thread in the Gallery forum.

viewtopic.php?t=1989

In this thread I am mentioning some problems which I experienced during the making of the bold version of the font. I was stuck for some time. The answer was within the help system of the FontCreator program.

These are the first bold and bold italic fonts which I have produced. I produced the bold first and had problems trying to get it to become known to Windows as a bold font. The problem was that although I had set the font as bold in the Font Settings... Metrics dialogue panel, I had not added the fact that the font is bold on the Format Settings... General panel as well.

In the Help system, Contents and Index facility, Index panel, if one searches for Font Type and then clicks on the Display button, the information about what is needed is displayed.

Also, from the Font Type help page I found the desirability of setting the font as bold in the Format Settings... Classification panel as well.

One point that does arise on that page is that for italic one is told about the need to set various items. In fact, if one uses the italic effect of the Glyph Transformer and checks the "Set font subfamily and font design to italic" checkbox, then all three items are set as part of the transforming process working from the angle value which one provides to the glyph transformer.

William Overington

15 March 2008