4 ms·

Creating a handwritten TrueType font in Linux (2018)

98 points by tomrod 4y ago

muhehe 4y ago
Is there any way to have more glyphs for the same letter and choose one randomly? When I write I never have two letters exactly the same. That's the problem with all these "handwritten" fonts - they look too consistent to be written by real hand :) (It would be a really weird feature for a font, I admit)
- m_eiman 4y ago
  One thing you can do is use ligatures so that specfic combinations of letters look different. It won't be random, but at least there'll be variation. E.g. 'A' followed by 'n' could have one ligature that looks like "An", and 'A' followed by 't' could have another ligature that looks like "At" where the A part is different (and the 't' too, of course). Edit: here's an article about the concept: https://terrianncreative.com/using-ligatures-to-enhance-handwritten-font-displays/ https://terrianncreative.com/using-ligatures-to-enhance-hand...
  - muhehe 4y ago
    That's a neat trick!
  - tigerlily 4y ago
    I've always wondered how many ligatures would be needed to get a font to look just right? There can be so many permutations... Edit: that is an amazing website btw, thanks for sharing :)
    - ranting-moth 4y ago
      They're 15, according to the book "The Art of writing" by John Jenkins, from the year 1813 (yes, 1813) according to archive.org. Although In the book there's a text saying it's printed 1818. In the book he lists 15 groups of them and shows two examples for each. https://archive.org/details/JenkinsArtOfWriting/page/n25/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/JenkinsArtOfWriting/page/n25/mod... (page 26 in the built in browser, plate 33 in the book)
- cammikebrown 4y ago
  Open Type allows it: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/dotnet/netframework-4.0/ms745109(v=vs.100)#random-contextual-alternates https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/dotnet/n...
- TacticalCoder 4y ago
  > Is there any way to have more glyphs for the same letter and choose one randomly? Have the human write down not 1 but 50 times the font to be scanned and create 50 fonts. Then pick one of these 50 fonts at random for each character. I'd say that'd be the absolute simplest way (although not the most bandwith efficient).
blueflow 4y ago
Back in the days there was myscriptfont.com, where you could turn your handwriting into a .ttf file if you had a printer and a scanner. I was about to link it for people to do it themselves, but now they seem to have been bought and now its not available without registration...
sylware 4y ago
I wonder if there is an OpenType "compiler", namely a "vector" language (something similar but less kludgy than svg) which will translate its code text to an OpenType file.
postexitus 4y ago
I highly recommend Quantum Enterprises's handwritten fonts - they have multiple images per character and also randomizes spaces, endings, ligatures etc. When printed out with a high quality inkjet printer (preferably with a dark blue ink), it's hard to distinguish it from actual ballpoint pen. Shifted my "Thank you note" writing process to this for a while and I couldn't be happier. https://www.scriptalizer.co.uk/scriptalizer.aspx https://www.scriptalizer.co.uk/scriptalizer.aspx https://www.quantumenterprises.co.uk/handwriting-fonts/premium_ultra.htm https://www.quantumenterprises.co.uk/handwriting-fonts/premi...
- brainchild-adam 4y ago
  Thank you for pointing to this resource. I must say, I had not been aware of this market, and I find it quite fascinating for more than one reason. From what I have gathered, this service is not local-only, but involves both submitting samples and using their web application. How do you feel about another entity having access to your handwriting as a high-quality font, which in turn could at least in theory be used to possibly impersonate you by them or anyone gaining access to it? And how do you feel about having to enter all text you want to pseudo handwrite into their web application? Or maybe I misunderstood how it works? Didn't do a deep dive.
dark-star 4y ago
That reminds me of the Mikachan font, a TrueType font that was hand-written (and scanned/tweaked) by a single person and includes 1000s of Kanji (all of joyo and then some) https://web.archive.org/web/20150613112724fw_/http://www001.upp.so-net.ne.jp/mikachan/making.html https://web.archive.org/web/20150613112724fw_/http://www001.... http://mikachan.osdn.jp/win.html http://mikachan.osdn.jp/win.html
- claudiawerner 4y ago
  I accidentally installed this on Gentoo once when I was looking for a decent CJK font. Little did I know, somehow it was set system-wide as the default CJK font, and I couldn't reverse it. I lived for about a year at my PC seeing all CJK text in this font, which got a little grating after a couple of months.
tomrod 4y ago
I posted this because my child and I were curious about making our own fonts.

98 points by tomrod 4y ago

Is there any way to have more glyphs for the same letter and choose one randomly? When I write I never have two letters exactly the same. That's the problem with all these "handwritten" fonts - they look too consistent to be written by real hand :) (It would be a really weird feature for a font, I admit)

m_eiman 4y ago
One thing you can do is use ligatures so that specfic combinations of letters look different. It won't be random, but at least there'll be variation. E.g. 'A' followed by 'n' could have one ligature that looks like "An", and 'A' followed by 't' could have another ligature that looks like "At" where the A part is different (and the 't' too, of course). Edit: here's an article about the concept: https://terrianncreative.com/using-ligatures-to-enhance-handwritten-font-displays/ https://terrianncreative.com/using-ligatures-to-enhance-hand...
- muhehe 4y ago
  That's a neat trick!
- tigerlily 4y ago
  I've always wondered how many ligatures would be needed to get a font to look just right? There can be so many permutations... Edit: that is an amazing website btw, thanks for sharing :)
  - ranting-moth 4y ago
    They're 15, according to the book "The Art of writing" by John Jenkins, from the year 1813 (yes, 1813) according to archive.org. Although In the book there's a text saying it's printed 1818. In the book he lists 15 groups of them and shows two examples for each. https://archive.org/details/JenkinsArtOfWriting/page/n25/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/JenkinsArtOfWriting/page/n25/mod... (page 26 in the built in browser, plate 33 in the book)
cammikebrown 4y ago
Open Type allows it: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/dotnet/netframework-4.0/ms745109(v=vs.100)#random-contextual-alternates https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/dotnet/n...
TacticalCoder 4y ago
> Is there any way to have more glyphs for the same letter and choose one randomly? Have the human write down not 1 but 50 times the font to be scanned and create 50 fonts. Then pick one of these 50 fonts at random for each character. I'd say that'd be the absolute simplest way (although not the most bandwith efficient).

blueflow 4y ago

Back in the days there was myscriptfont.com, where you could turn your handwriting into a .ttf file if you had a printer and a scanner. I was about to link it for people to do it themselves, but now they seem to have been bought and now its not available without registration...

sylware 4y ago

I wonder if there is an OpenType "compiler", namely a "vector" language (something similar but less kludgy than svg) which will translate its code text to an OpenType file.

postexitus 4y ago

I highly recommend Quantum Enterprises's handwritten fonts - they have multiple images per character and also randomizes spaces, endings, ligatures etc. When printed out with a high quality inkjet printer (preferably with a dark blue ink), it's hard to distinguish it from actual ballpoint pen. Shifted my "Thank you note" writing process to this for a while and I couldn't be happier. https://www.scriptalizer.co.uk/scriptalizer.aspx https://www.scriptalizer.co.uk/scriptalizer.aspx https://www.quantumenterprises.co.uk/handwriting-fonts/premium_ultra.htm https://www.quantumenterprises.co.uk/handwriting-fonts/premi...

brainchild-adam 4y ago
Thank you for pointing to this resource. I must say, I had not been aware of this market, and I find it quite fascinating for more than one reason. From what I have gathered, this service is not local-only, but involves both submitting samples and using their web application. How do you feel about another entity having access to your handwriting as a high-quality font, which in turn could at least in theory be used to possibly impersonate you by them or anyone gaining access to it? And how do you feel about having to enter all text you want to pseudo handwrite into their web application? Or maybe I misunderstood how it works? Didn't do a deep dive.

dark-star 4y ago

That reminds me of the Mikachan font, a TrueType font that was hand-written (and scanned/tweaked) by a single person and includes 1000s of Kanji (all of joyo and then some) https://web.archive.org/web/20150613112724fw_/http://www001.upp.so-net.ne.jp/mikachan/making.html https://web.archive.org/web/20150613112724fw_/http://www001.... http://mikachan.osdn.jp/win.html http://mikachan.osdn.jp/win.html

claudiawerner 4y ago
I accidentally installed this on Gentoo once when I was looking for a decent CJK font. Little did I know, somehow it was set system-wide as the default CJK font, and I couldn't reverse it. I lived for about a year at my PC seeing all CJK text in this font, which got a little grating after a couple of months.

tomrod 4y ago

I posted this because my child and I were curious about making our own fonts.