Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

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amorrison
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Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

Post by amorrison »

I am a new user of FontCreator (non-Pro) edition, and have 1 font I need to create/fine tune (Caps were imported from vector files). This is one that matches a Logo and which I will use mostly in Photoshop for design work. So the question...

I have the caps fairly evenly spaced, and the lower case fairly evenly spaced, but the Capital/lower combinations have too much space (Force, Georgia, etc). So should I increase the spacing for the lower case characters to match the upper case spacing or is there another way to solve this problem? I'm trying to stay away from kearning as much as possible.

Thanks for any suggestions you can provide.
Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

It would be easier to advise if you can attach the font. If you don't want to do that, you can send it to me by email.

The professional way to do this would be to use the OpenType feature, Capital Spacing. You would space the capitals correctly for use with mixed case, and add a feature to modify spacing for All Capitals.

However, this would require any applications that you wish to use the font in to support OpenType features. I am not sure if PhotoShop does or not, since I don't use it.

The font would be more versatile if you added kerning pairs, since most applications do support kerning. Otherwise, I would just increase tracking (letter-spacing) when using all caps.
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Erwin Denissen
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Re: Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

Post by Erwin Denissen »

You could decrease the left side bearing of the lowercase glyphs, and increase the right side bearing to match up.
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amorrison
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Re: Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

Post by amorrison »

Thank you all for the replies and assistance. I did try "sliding" the lower case characters to the left some keeping the bearings the same relative distance apart. That seemed to help. I tried to upload the font so you could look at it but it was rejected - something about it being a "possible attack vector". Do I need permission to do that? A bit more information on it - the caps were created from Illustrator vector images, and the lower case characters are from a similar but different font. Both were very bold oblique fonts and the upper/lower case character angles are just slightly different. While I could get by with just upper case probably, it would be nice to have the LC charaters too.

Also, is there any standard text that is used to test fonts?

Let me know if there is another way for me to attach the font.

Thanks again to all of you!!
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Re: Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

amorrison wrote:Also, is there any standard text that is used to test fonts?
Try Kern King

You should be able to attach TTF files directly — or try zip or 7z.

The italic angle can be adjusted using Skew on the Transform Toolbar. To create a diagonal guideline, select two nodes on a straight, but slanted, vertical contour, and press shortcut "G."
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amorrison
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Re: Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

Post by amorrison »

Thanks for the Kern King link - that was perfect. I have made some minor changes to the Logo Font (now attached) and would be interested in any comments you might have. Do you think a tranform on the lower case characters could help them match the angle of the caps? Any other suggestions on spacing?

Thanks again!!
Attachments
GeorgiaForceLogoV2.ttf
(28.83 KiB) Downloaded 461 times
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Re: Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

amorrison wrote:Thanks for the Kern King link - that was perfect. I have made some minor changes to the Logo Font (now attached) and would be interested in any comments you might have. Do you think a tranform on the lower case characters could help them match the angle of the caps? Any other suggestions on spacing?

Thanks again!!
Skew by -8 horizontally fixed the lowercase angle easily enough, but the spacing still looks wrong. It is too wide for the lowercase. There is no easy way to fix it. The suggested method to start is to use Capital "N" on each side in the Comparison toolbar, then scroll through the font adjusting each glyph.

Test font with Kern King will then show up any anomolies.
Attachments
GeorgiaForceLogoV2.ttf
(23.58 KiB) Downloaded 507 times
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Re: Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

Post by Erwin Denissen »

I've applied our upcoming optical metrics feature to your font.

Here is your original:
original.png
original.png (59.09 KiB) Viewed 14111 times
This is the result of our optical metrics feature:
opticalmetrics.png
opticalmetrics.png (55.61 KiB) Viewed 14111 times
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Re: Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

Post by Erwin Denissen »

And with capitals:

Your original font:
originalcap.png
originalcap.png (58.54 KiB) Viewed 14110 times
After optical metrics applied:
opticalmetricscap.png
opticalmetricscap.png (55.49 KiB) Viewed 14110 times
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Re: Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

Post by amorrison »

Hi Erwin - thanks!! The spacing definitely looks better. I assume that feature is going to be in the pro version only. I don't suppose I could get you to run it on the attached file (which was modified by Bhikkhu for lower case angle) and attach result file so I could look at it. Do you know when that feature will be available?
Attachments
GeorgiaForceLogoV3.ttf
(23.58 KiB) Downloaded 449 times
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Re: Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

Post by Erwin Denissen »

I'm sorry but you will have to wait until FontCreator 7 is released. I can't give you a release date yet, but expect to see it in Q2 this year.

I strongly believe balanced left and right side bearings, as well as kerning, are essential to ensure harmony throughout words, lines of text, and paragraphs. I hope this feature will take care of this. We haven't decided yet if the feature will become available for both editions. Maybe the full functionality will be available in the professional edition, while the home edition will have to do with auto left and right side bearings. In that case auto kerning will remain a feature for the professional edition only, like it is right now.
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Re: Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

Post by amorrison »

OK - I understand. Thanks for the information Erwin, and the demonstration of the new feature. I will be looking forward to it.
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Re: Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

Post by Mike Thompson »

Will these new features work for non-Latin characters such as Hebrew, Greek and Cyrillic?
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Re: Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

Post by Erwin Denissen »

The concept is now being implemented for Latin. If that proofs to work, we can look at other character sets as well. From my understanding this could be done fairly easy if we can get some help from someone who knows the specifics about these languages. Are you willing to help?
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Re: Spacing for Upper/Lower case combinations

Post by Mike Thompson »

Erwin,
I happen to be dealing with the Upper/Lower case combinations in my "Hebrew fonts" so I was carried away
with enthusiasm. Of course the problem only applies to the Latin characters in my fonts - the Hebrew doesn't
have upper and lower case!
Thanks anyhow - I look forward to the new feature.
Mike
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