Anyone have any experience making their own font? I would like to hand draw, scan, and edit a font for IM purposes. Only, it seems like a difficult process if you want to do it for free.

I digitized my own handwriting into a simple font back in middle school. Think I lost it in a HD failure at some point, though.

Don't recall which tool it I used, and I'm sure it wasn't freeware. *whistles*

I did.... more than 20 years ago when I programmed custom "tiles" for some games using Basic for my Atari 800XL computer...

The fonts that time were simply 8x8 bitmaps. Today, the situation may be different...

anyway, you can just copy any ttf fonts straight to the /usr/share/fonts directory. There are truly great fonts out there!!!! If you want to make your own font, just look for a ttf font application. I'm sure you'll find one.

Just did a bit of foraging via Google and as always, plenty of demo/shareware/trial apps. With more time one could test and likely find a freeware program capable of doing what you want.

Why not check this out? http://www.pentacom.jp/soft/ex/font/edit.html So many other processes are done online through coding magic, why not font creation - it even generates your very own ttf file. I realize it isn't your scanned handwriting, but it's a free alternative. If you're creative enough you may find a means to translate your scanned images into the font you want using this applet, although it will be a bit more tedious.

Another option may be to find a plug-in for a graphics program which does the TTF creation for you. There are free trials of fully functional applications out there (such as CorelDraw). I just saw this link while typing:

http://www.eftelibra.co.uk/ttf.html

This will be easier for you with a scanned image if you have some graphics prowess.

Good luck, and let us know if you find success.

Thanks for that online creation tool link. A very easy introduction.

This open-source program might be what you want:

http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/

IIRC, it can import SVG, so you can use inkscape (highly recommended!):

http://www.inkscape.org/

to create the glyphs and import them into fontforge.

Given that the Nokia is based on Linux, I'd assume it takes TrueType fonts.

Martin

In the old-days (Windows 3.1) I used Turbo FontLab for Windows -and- FontMonger. The first will create Adobe Type 1 Postscript fonts or edit existing ones (it's like a Postscript CAD program where you can start with a scanned image). The second one would convert postscript fonts to TrueType.

I haven't ever because its such a big headace.

justicejayant