Cheap way to make fonts?

Out of context: Reply #18

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  • rasko40

    well its been 6 years but as I remember the best way I found is like this: (I use freehand but Illy will be the same.

    draw a line the will act as your baseline and one for your x-height, make sure that all your alphabet is drawn in exactly the right place along the baseline.

    Draw a square box that can accomodate your largest letter. Put it over your first letter to copy out...(now I say paste because that is what I did, however when trying to create a euro symbol for an existing font more recently I had trouble with copy/paste, see what works)...

    now move the box to cover your second letter making sure to shift click so that the vertical axis remains fixed, this is important or else your baseline will be out..

    Do this for all your letters, you use the box because it constrains the size of the letter and keeps the baseline constant... then in fontographer comes the fun part.. kerning.. what a bitch.. no short cut here, all I can recommend is trying to keep your letters with some kind of conformity but basically its a matter of adjusting those guide thingies and testing with different combinations of letters... sometimes in pasting in you will have trouble with compound paths.. sometimes it seems quite random but theres always a fix.

    Overall thats really the quickest, easiest way I found to do it.

    Hope it helps.

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