Garava - My First Proper Font
-
- Top Typographer
- Posts: 9878
- Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
- Location: Seven Kings, London UK
- Contact:
Garava - My First Proper Font
I have lots of experience editing fonts to add missing characters or accents, but relatively little in creating fonts from scratch. My most recent project came to a grinding halt when I found out that the fonts I had been given permission to edit were all forgeries of commercial typefaces.
So I decided that the only way to get good free fonts was to make my own. The project wasn't a complete waste of time, in fact it has proved very useful to learn more about font editing, and has given me the confidence to create my own fonts. As the fonts were missing several important characters, I had to learn how to create new ones using bits of existing characters, or from the geometric shapes on the Samples toolbar.
Garava is a Pāli word meaning “Respect.” Seven typestyles are now complete: regular, italic, bold, bold italic, Small Caps, Small Caps Bold, and Heavy. The font now includes the full Latin Extended Additional character set and extra symbols. The font is not yet ready for release.
As always, any feedback is much appreciated.
So I decided that the only way to get good free fonts was to make my own. The project wasn't a complete waste of time, in fact it has proved very useful to learn more about font editing, and has given me the confidence to create my own fonts. As the fonts were missing several important characters, I had to learn how to create new ones using bits of existing characters, or from the geometric shapes on the Samples toolbar.
Garava is a Pāli word meaning “Respect.” Seven typestyles are now complete: regular, italic, bold, bold italic, Small Caps, Small Caps Bold, and Heavy. The font now includes the full Latin Extended Additional character set and extra symbols. The font is not yet ready for release.
As always, any feedback is much appreciated.
Last edited by Bhikkhu Pesala on Thu Jun 08, 2006 6:59 am, edited 12 times in total.
If testimony were required to:
Heigh ho! How I wish I...............
The subject title proclaims:
"My First Proper Font"
What else is it possible to achieve?
Joe.
PS I am not enamoured with the 'a'. Well, you have to think of something!
- illustrate the efficacy, versatility and efficiency of FC5
- demonstrate what manner of professional results can be obtained when used by an expert user
Heigh ho! How I wish I...............
The subject title proclaims:
"My First Proper Font"
What else is it possible to achieve?
Joe.
PS I am not enamoured with the 'a'. Well, you have to think of something!
Hello!
Compliment, looks great! But the pictures aren't shown in Firefox (in IE, Netscape and Opera they work properly). Strange.
Kindest regards,
Laenglich
Compliment, looks great! But the pictures aren't shown in Firefox (in IE, Netscape and Opera they work properly). Strange.
I have stored all kinds of single stems, circles, serifs and so on in a file called "workspace.ttf" - this makes it very easy to re-use them for new glyphs by just copying them together and using the union function.I had to learn how to create new ones using bits of existing characters
Kindest regards,
Laenglich
-
- Top Typographer
- Posts: 9878
- Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
- Location: Seven Kings, London UK
- Contact:
I have just uploaded the initial release of Garava, which was kindly hinted for me by a forum member, to Garava.7z
I use a Page Plus template for printing font samples, and here you can see a PDF of its output.
The 7-zip file is 36% smaller than a ZIP archive. If your archive program is unable to open 7z archives I recommend downloading the latest beta of the free 7-zip program, which achieves excellent compression, and is now just as easy to use as other Zip programs.
I use a Page Plus template for printing font samples, and here you can see a PDF of its output.
The 7-zip file is 36% smaller than a ZIP archive. If your archive program is unable to open 7z archives I recommend downloading the latest beta of the free 7-zip program, which achieves excellent compression, and is now just as easy to use as other Zip programs.
Since I haven't sufficient reason for obtaining a premium Desk Top Publishing package, I thought my problem was solved when I discovered the free PagePlusSE. Alas no. PagePlus10 apparently ignores backward compatibility problems and the file Unicode Font Template refuses to open in PagePlusSE.
Heigh ho! Stuck again.
Joe.
Heigh ho! Stuck again.
Joe.
-
- Top Typographer
- Posts: 9878
- Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
- Location: Seven Kings, London UK
- Contact:
I guess I could have made the template in Open Office, but it would have taken me ten times longer, if I could have done it all.
Edit It is not that difficult though the latest beta crashed on my first attempt. Two problems to overcome. How to enter "=" into a table cell so that it is treated as text, not as a formula? How to automate entry of code points with quick fill so that I don't have to type 32,33,34,35, up to 9,999 manually.
Edit It is not that difficult though the latest beta crashed on my first attempt. Two problems to overcome. How to enter "=" into a table cell so that it is treated as text, not as a formula? How to automate entry of code points with quick fill so that I don't have to type 32,33,34,35, up to 9,999 manually.
- Attachments
-
- Unicode Font Template.odt
- (48.63 KiB) Downloaded 372 times
Last edited by Bhikkhu Pesala on Mon Aug 08, 2005 11:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
-
- Top Typographer
- Posts: 2038
- Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
- Location: Worcestershire, England
- Contact:
> Two problems to overcome. How to enter "=" into a table cell so that it is treated as text, not as a formula? How to automate entry of code points with quick fill so that I don't have to type 32,33,34,35, up to 9,999 manually.
I don't know the package which you are using, however, it sounds like a spreadsheet so it might be worth trying what works in Excel 97.
> How to enter "=" into a table cell so that it is treated as text, not as a formula?
Try '=
That is, put an apostrophe in front of the equals sign.
> How to automate entry of code points with quick fill so that I don't have to type 32,33,34,35, up to 9,999 manually.
Suppose that the 32 is to go into cell C7. The following might be worth a try.
Put the number 32 into cell C7.
Into cell C8 put the following.
=C7 + 1
Copy the contents of cell C8 into C9 .... cell Cn, where n is a large number of your choice within the capability of the software.
The way Excel 97 works is that C9 will thus have =C8 + 1 in it and C29 will have =C28 + 1 in it and so on, yet will display the numbers not the formula in the main array.
I do not know if this will work in the software which you are using: however, it might be worth a try.
William Overington
I don't know the package which you are using, however, it sounds like a spreadsheet so it might be worth trying what works in Excel 97.
> How to enter "=" into a table cell so that it is treated as text, not as a formula?
Try '=
That is, put an apostrophe in front of the equals sign.
> How to automate entry of code points with quick fill so that I don't have to type 32,33,34,35, up to 9,999 manually.
Suppose that the 32 is to go into cell C7. The following might be worth a try.
Put the number 32 into cell C7.
Into cell C8 put the following.
=C7 + 1
Copy the contents of cell C8 into C9 .... cell Cn, where n is a large number of your choice within the capability of the software.
The way Excel 97 works is that C9 will thus have =C8 + 1 in it and C29 will have =C28 + 1 in it and so on, yet will display the numbers not the formula in the main array.
I do not know if this will work in the software which you are using: however, it might be worth a try.
William Overington
-
- Top Typographer
- Posts: 9878
- Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
- Location: Seven Kings, London UK
- Contact:
-
- Moderator
- Posts: 11160
- Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
- Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
- Contact:
Those of us of an impecunious (or maybe just 'mean') nature do not posses these applications. I have MS Word 2000 because it was cheaper bundled with the MS Works 2000 suite!
How is it possible to achieve this result in a MS Word table? I cannot get the Table/Formula function to work.
This is related to FC5 to make a template - honestly!
Joe.
How is it possible to achieve this result in a MS Word table? I cannot get the Table/Formula function to work.
This is related to FC5 to make a template - honestly!
Joe.
-
- Moderator
- Posts: 11160
- Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
- Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
- Contact:
Here is a Word Document with a table that has 9999 rows. The cells contain values 1..9999.
postedfiles/9999.zip
postedfiles/9999.zip
-
- Top Typographer
- Posts: 408
- Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 11:10 pm
- Location: Massachusetts
- Contact:
A little crit
The font family is most impressive.
I have issue with the numbers. I would like the 3,5,6,8 to pass a little
below the baseline as do the c and e. The number 4 is the only number
not to reach up to the top line - I would prefer that it would unless
maybe you make 1 similarly small.
Mike
p.s. I'm taking the summer off from font work. Back when the
nights get longer!
I have issue with the numbers. I would like the 3,5,6,8 to pass a little
below the baseline as do the c and e. The number 4 is the only number
not to reach up to the top line - I would prefer that it would unless
maybe you make 1 similarly small.
Mike
p.s. I'm taking the summer off from font work. Back when the
nights get longer!