what’s it called in Fontographer? correct path direction?

Are you saying there is a ‘correct path direction’ feature in Fontographer that will help me with my issue? Sorry, I’m not quite clear on your question.

Thanks so much,
Michelle

Hi Michelle. If you go to Element > Correct Path Direction, that should solve your problem. Essentially, the outside path of your ‘B’ and the 2 inside paths need to move in opposite directions. Every letter with a counter needs this same fix applied.

Hi Matterson,

Ah! That did the trick! Thanks so much for pointing that out to me.

I was wondering if there are some good books on creating fonts or some places online that would help me learn?

Right now I am wondering how to get the Large letters (Caps) to look larger than the small letters. I have no idea how to control the size of these when outputting. For some reason when I bring the EPS files into Fontographer it reads the sizes strange and some small letters are bigger than Capitals and things like the * symbol are really small compated to the - or _. I tried to fix these things by changing the weight but that doesn’t always work. Also is there a way to make a comma ‘sit’ in the right place, and things like that.
Here is an example of what things look like now:
irregular font sizes

Thanks,
Michelle

Check out this site:
http://briem.ismennt.is/

And this one:
http://www.typeculture.com/academic_resource/articles_essays/

And here’s a short Fontographer tutorial
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/twm/makefont/

Thanks so much LasseFernov!

I would strongly recommend Leslie Cabarga’s Logo Font & Lettering Bible (Amazon link).

Valuable (and unusual) mix of historical context, in depth case studies and practical how-tos (inc Fontographer specific stuff). Very readable.

While I haven’t come across the size problem (I’ve used Fontlab in my initial font dabbling) I think the answer to the size issue is mentioned in this book — haven’t got it to hand — and involves importing each glyph along with a consistently sized reference bounding rectangle - but I’m sure someone else knows the definitive answer.

I would contact Mike from Bowfin Graphics. He hangs around the Type Idenification Board. He knows resources where you can convert handwriting into type for something like $7.

http://www.fontifier.com/
I think Dan is referring to this website.
The size issue is to do with the way you import the streamline drawings into Fontographer as Elliot mention the best way to do this is to open all the streamline files in Illustrator (or similar vector graphics software) and create a box the same height (or slightly more) as the combined height of your ascender and descender and position each glyph in it on separate layers, adjusting the width to suit each glyph. Then cut and paste the glyph and the box into Fontographer then delete the box, which leaves the glyphs at the same scale, a rather long job but ultimately satisfactory. You might decide that speed dictates you spend the $9 to get it done by Fontifier, but it is worth doing to learn the basics of Fontographer.
Tim

> I think the answer to the size issue is mentioned in this book — haven’t got it to hand — and involves importing each glyph along with a consistently sized reference bounding rectangle - but I’m sure someone else knows the definitive answer.

That is indeed in the book. I know there are many who swear by Fontographer, but I’d recommend that if you can get your hands on FontLab, to do so. Cabarga also has a book called Learn FontLab Fast which is great as well.

I would also go the next step and say that in the future it can be much easier if you take vector art straight into your font application. Since you’re using Photoshop CS, why not use Illustrator CS’s Pathfinder tools? That’ll save you some time on your filled in forms if you like working with other programs before Fontographer or FontLab.

I wanted to also add…Illustrator CS’s Auto Trace tool makes Streamilne obselete.