Need Help with Handwriting Font

[Psymon]

New issue here...

With my Walden font, I just noticed something I don't recall ever seeing in any of the fonts I've ever worked on before -- a new thingie in that main panel (whatever you call that panel) for "Troubleshooting," in which it lists some "Outline Issues" that I guess need addressing.

In there, I find my 6 uppercase N glyphs -- if there's a problem with them, though, I have no idea what it is! I don't see anything funny going on.

Oh, I was about to say that, "as always," you can download the latest version of my font via my first post in this thread -- but that's gone now, of course. Here's the link again...

http://www.psymon.com/fonts/fonts/Walden.ttf

And obviously once I fix this "Outline Issues" problem (whatever it is), that will then be reflected in that online version.

[Erwin Denissen]

It is just warning about a potential issue caused by a large negative right-side bearing. With your characters it is intended, so ignore the warnings.

[Psymon]

Oh, okay -- phew! Thanks!

[Psymon]

Not sure what else to say, other than... TA DA!

[EDIT: I've updated the "temp" link here to the final, official URL]
http://www.psymon.com/fonts/thoreau.html

I've been working on that web page for the past week, and now need to get back to more kerning -- kerning, kerning, kerning, endlessly kerning, every time you think you're done, you find more. But overall, I think my fonts are largely finished up and quite usable -- I just don't quite feel confident enough yet to come out with an official "version 1.00" just yet, though (hence the "temp" page).

I am, of course, interested in any feedback on anything at all (the fonts, or the web page -- without getting too off-topic here with the latter, of course), but I do have one question re something I only just noticed this morning in the Font Properties dialog...

Under the "Extended" tab, down toward the bottom there's "Additional Font Styles," one of which is "Oblique."

Two of the four fonts in my family are indeed "oblique," although as such I checked off the "Italic" checkbox in the first "Identification" tab. However, technically-speaking, my fonts ARE oblique fonts, not italic fonts.

So I'm not sure what, if anything, to do there???

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Handwriting fonts don't really need italic or bold versions. They are already italic, but should be defined as a Regular type style.

[Psymon]

Handwriting fonts don't really need italic or bold versions. They are already italic, but should be defined as a Regular type style.

Well, handwriting fonts may not "need" them, but mine have got 'em. I have regular, oblique, and then bold versions of both.

It was confusing for me to name these, actually, because as I explain in the text on that web page, the non-bold oblique version was the first font I made, and then I made the "regular" version of that out of the oblique, simply by skewing it over -- which is what an oblique font is (as I only just learned myself recently).

And so, ironically, my "regular" font is actually the oblique of my "oblique" font -- but for simplicity's sake I named them based on visual appearance.

Nevertheless, I do have essentially two different versions here, a "Regular" and an "Oblique" (NOT an "Italic" -- if one were to be technical about it), and then bold versions of each.

So wasn't my naming of the 4 fonts just fine?

Apart from my question about whether anything should be done in that "Extended" tab in the Font Properties dialog.

[Erwin Denissen]

Not sure what else to say, other than... TA DA!

This looks really amazing. Well done!

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

My Lekhana Typeface has an oblique, bold, and bold oblique, but it is calligraphic script rather than a handwriting font.

[Psymon]

Oh, wow, thank you, Erwin! And this was my very first attempt at a handwriting font (with letters connecting up and everything) -- I have to admit, I'm actually still a bit shocked that I managed to pull this off at all. As I say on the web page, for two decades I had a dream of creating a font out of Thoreau's handwriting, but just never pursued it because I figured it would simply be impossible.

But anyway, thank you -- 'twas very nice to read your kind words.

Do feel free to criticize away, too, though, if you see anything worthy of that!

[Psymon]

My Lekhana Typeface has an oblique, bold, and bold oblique, but it is calligraphic script rather than a handwriting font.

I'm wondering if you're referring to the right font here. I downloaded Lekhana, unzipped it, but what I see doesn't look calligraphic at all, it looks like a serif text font (like, closer in style to Times New Roman than to, say, my Thoreau font).

My apologies if my understanding of "calligraphic" is off, though! No offense intended, I assure you -- au contraire, your font looks like quite a nice text font.

Looking in the font properties, it would seem you named your fonts basically the way that I did? Like, your "italic" might be technically an "oblique," but just simply flagging it as an italic font keeps things simple -- and the name can be whatever you want, of course.

I was thinking -- or wondering -- that perhaps that "oblique" checkbox is for if/when a font family has both italic AND oblique versions? Like, so then you could differentiate between those two -- but if a font only has an "upright" and a "slanted" version, then just simply going with "regular" and "italic" suffices, as far as those checkboxes go.

I have a tendency to overthink problems -- hope I'm not dragging everyone else down into the quagmire of my confusion, too, now.

[Psymon]

Oh, to heck with it -- I just ran off all my fonts as version 1.00, and went ahead and released them. It's inevitable that I'll find more things that need fixing up, so even if anyone here does have suggestions for improvements or anything, those could come along with the next update.

In the meantime, you can get that first official release (which is pretty much the same as the 0.42 beta version I had up there earlier) at the real, actual link for the web page for my font...

http://www.psymon.com/fonts/thoreau.html

Of course, you can also just keep that 0.42 beta version -- who knows, maybe it'll be worth a fortune some day.

LOL

(PS. I'll edit my earlier post today, with the "temp" URL, to this more permanent link, if only to not send people off on a wild goose chase in the future.)

[PJMiller]

Why not put it in the Gallery ?

[Psymon]

Why not put it in the Gallery ?

Oh, because I hadn't thought of that! Can I just post a link to my site there in the gallery, so at least people will get the latest version? I was just looking at this page of "tips for sharing" from Bhikkhu...

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7461

I can understand the desire to have people post actual fonts to the gallery pages, but I'd rather have a link pointing to my site (for the aforementiond reason).

If that's okay??? I suppose I could also just post version 1.00 (as it is now) but also give the URL, too, if people want to check for an update. I'm virtually positive that there will be an update -- ugh, even last night, AFTER sharing my font's "premiere," I discovered things that I could fix up a little.

[PJMiller]

Can I just post a link to my site there in the gallery, so at least people will get the latest version?

Yes, Bhikkhu Pesala has many links to his site for the download of his fonts and links to his site for PDF sample pages, although they all seem to be coming back with a 404 error at the moment (I'm sure this is temporary).

If that's okay??? I suppose I could also just post version 1.00 (as it is now) but also give the URL, too, if people want to check for an update. I'm virtually positive that there will be an update -- ugh, even last night, AFTER sharing my font's "premiere," I discovered things that I could fix up a little.

Perhaps you would like to read the story of the chariot maker from Bhikkhu Pesala's other website (the one whose subject is religion rather than software).

[Psymon]

Perhaps you would like to read the story of the chariot maker from Bhikkhu Pesala's other website (the one whose subject is religion rather than software).

Ha ha, yes, considering the types of fonts that I've chosen to make, I've definitely become "skilful in the crookedness, knots, and defects."

I'll post something shortly to the gallery pages, probably within a few days -- I did jump the gun a bit in releasing it too soon, and there's a couple things that I'd like to fix up first (on top of those things I've already fixed up since I released it the other day).