Typophile

Digitizing handwriting

Patricia Fabricant

Does anybody here know anything about doing that? I used my own handwriting for a job and the client loves it, problem is they keep editing the text and I'm getting tired of rewriting it.

Is there a relatively inexpensive software that easily digitize handwriting? I don't need a full character set, just upper and lower case and punctuation.

Or is there someone here who has experience doing this? If you are interested, contact me through my page here. I'd need this done fairly quickly, as in the next week or so.

I'm also attaching a jpeg of my writing if anybody can think of a font that could reasonably approximate it and is not wildly expensive.

AttachmentSize
julian's mother.jpg440.22 KB
Lari Elovainio

You’d lose the ligatures and alternating forms, are you sure about this?

If you have only a week, the text can’t change that many times, or…?

http://www.fontlab.com/font-converter/scanfont/

mili

I have a font that was made from the AD's handwriting for a mutual client by a Finnish type designer (I heard her name once, but forgot it, typical!). It's an Open type font, with alternates like Hj, kk, os, st, aa, ta, ll, etc. I don't know how long it took her to design it, but it works very nicely and looks quite realistic.

Don McCahill

> problem is they keep editing the text and I’m getting tired of rewriting it.

Seems to me this is calligraphy, and you should be charging per word (or is it per letter). You might not mind redoing it at $2 a word.

Patricia Fabricant

Yeah, the reason I didn't originally look for a handwriting font was because I wanted the personal touches - ligatures, etc. But I'm foreseeing them driving me crazy with changes and edits.

Lari, I just looked at that link, looks way over my head and I don't have the other software you have to have. But thanks.

Don - you're right, of course. Problem is I kind of backed into it - my handwriting was just supposed to be a stand-in but now they want to use it.

Hrant H Papazian

What Don said. They like your handwriting? Then they pay for your
handwriting, not for a font that will necessarily be a poor imitation
of your handwriting.

hhp

typovar

Well, I bought "Eigen Handschrift Lettertype" (My own handwriting) for €10,-, but it demands a lot of finetuning afterwards.

Another option might be "My Font Tool for Tablet PC" although it's said it only works on Tablet PC's, once extracted from the *.MSI file (using 'LessMSIerables') you can run the programm and create a font by using a tablet... No OpenType in theze lowbudget-solutions.
here's some links:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/b/3/db3a39ab-58a4-4a7c-8f62-bf1...
http://www.nl.bol.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/nl/-/EUR/BOL_D...

But you might want to mail me...

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