When making a personal website, one will naturally include a personal touch. What could be more personal than creating a font from your own handwriting? That’s what [Chris Smith] has done, and it looks great on his blog, which also has a post summarizing the process.
Like most of us [Chris] tried to use open-source toolkits first, but the workflow (and thus the result) was a bit wanting. Still, he details what it takes to create a font in Inkscape or Font Forge if anyone else wants to give it a try. Instead he ended up using a web app called Calligraphr designed for this exact use case.
Fair warning: the tool is closed-source and he needed to pay to get all the features he wanted — specifically ligatures, glyphs made from two joined letters. By adding ligatures his personalized font gets a little bit of variation, as the ‘l’ in an ‘lf’ ligature (for example) need not be identical to the stand-alone ‘l’. In a case of “you get what you pay for” the process worked great and to the credit of the folks at Calligraphr, while it is Software-As-Service they offer a one-time payment for one month’s use of the “pro” features. While nobody likes SaS, that’s a much more user-friendly way to do it — or perhaps “least-user-hostile”.
All [Chris] had to do was write out and scan a few sheets that you can see above, while the software handled most of the hard work automagically. [Chris] only had to apply a few tweaks to get the result you see here. Aside from websites, we could see a personalized font like this being a nice touch to laser cut, CNC or even 3D printed projects. If you don’t want a personalized touch, the “Gorton” lettering of retro machinery might be more to your liking.
What about people who write in Pashto? It’s one of the most advanced alphabets there is and it’s more robust than european writing systems.
Very interesting – how would you go about it?
More robust? Most Advanced?
You might as well claim Rotokas as being the most precise Alphabet with only 12 characters. Or Taki Taki with only 340 words as being the most
concise language.
Its just silly flexing.
How about some metrics of significance.
With only 40 million and 60 million Pashto speakers worldwide, almost entirely in Afghanistan (12 million) and Pakistan (27 million) compared to 1.5 billion people speak English worldwide, English is an official language in at least 67 countries, but it is spoken and used as a common language in many more,
When you consider first and second language speakers, English is the MOST spoken language in the world. If you further consider the localized concentration of the vast majority of other languages speakers, Its also the MOST widely spoken language in the world.
Pashto in a novelty language of little use nor importance.
And that’s why, with by far the most personal computer installs, Microsoft Windows is objectively the best operating system.
In 40 years no other company has managed to release on operating system that has gained real significant traction. As of August, Windows held roughly 70-73% of the global desktop OS market share, followed by macOS with about 15-16%, and Linux with approximately 4-4.3%.
So yes, objectively, windows is the best operating system for desktop computers.
I see. Your error is in thinking that anything can be objectively “best”. This is a great example of emotional immaturity. Stick to arguing Star Trek vs Star Wars.
No, objectively, Microsoft is the best at selling operating systems. You have provided no evidence that windows is actually good, only that it is commonly sold. The two are often unrelated, because consumers are irrational and make bad decisions every day. Evolution does not correct this because the details of computer systems are relatively unimportant for their survival.
@Anonymous
” Microsoft is the best at selling operating systems. You have provided no evidence that windows is actually good, ”
IOS at least has the excuse of proprietary(ish) hardware intentionally hindering their widespread adoption.
1000 flavors of linux cant give away enough free copies to catch a significant portion of the market. So it really doesnt matter that Microsoft is good at selling operating systems.
In 40 years no one has done an OS good enough to put a dent in microsofts dominance.
Most home computer users don’t choose an operating system, unless it’s because of some features or “ooh, shiny” or snob appeal only available from Apple. People just buy a computer and they’re stuck with Windows.
If more control is needed and the user is willing and able to put in the effort, Linux is the best choice.
There’s some parallel to English there; many people are born into English and others need English for business. This is mostly due to the worldwide significance of England and the United States for centuries as connected civilization has become worldwide. Technically, English has more expressive refinement than most languages but is more vulnerable to ambiguity.
Wow, that’s… kinda racist, given that Pashto is a language spoken by real people in real cultures. All the various conlangs are novelties of little use or importance, but to say that about someone’s native language? Just wow.
So are you ignorant or racist?
Rotokas is a North Bougainville language spoken by about 4,320 people on Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea
“Taki taki” is a name for Sranan Tongo, an English-based Creole language spoken in Suriname and many in the Surinamese diaspora, primarily in the Netherlands. It is spoken by over 500,000 people
Neither are conlangs. Both are novelties of little use or importance. Pashto is only of marginally greater use or importance.
A language is a human communication protocol. There are many and they aren’t tied to race. Any human can theoretically learn/use any/ all of them.
There is nothing inherently about “racist” in comparing the attributes of one to another, so let’s not get triggered when somebody cites numbers.
THANK YOU! I’m so tired of “that’s racist” being thrown around for everything. A person’s genetics has little to do with their actions.
Talking about a language is not racist, get out.
Even if it is, who cares.
It can be if it’s done with intent to mock other cultures. That’s why it’s important to teach schoolchildren to speak in a way that doesn’t hurt feelings of other people.
@Dude
What if the other culture sucks though?
I don’t believe in “superior cultures”. That’s what nazis did and look how hitler ended up – dead and partially burned in a ditch somewhere. Still, if you want, just go ahead and kill yourself, you’ll make the world a better place.
Taki taki is a derogatory name for Sranan Tongo. While it has a limited vocabulary, it still has multiple thousands of words, not 340. Please keep your racist misinformation to yourself.
Google Language with the fewest words.
Write emails of protest to the myriad of websites that cite TAKI TAKI as having 340 words.
Sranan Tongo would be virtually unknown to the majority of the world if not for the “racist misinformation” they are spreading because its a novelty language of little use or importance and with your addition of thousands of words of even less significant and less worthy of note.
So you believe everything Google feeds you?
And because “websites” make a claim, you feel it is okay to spread their misinformation?
And wow, calling the centuries old language of an entire nation a “novelty language of little use and importance”?
Any more insults to make to the people of Surinam?
@Menno
Do I believe everything that a large number of websites on the internet report, No.
Am I willing to cite a random factoid to make an internet comment after seeing it is commonly accepted as fact by a significant portion of the internet, Yep.
Am I comfortable judging a language only spoken by a small handful of people with very limited geographic range of speakers a “novelty language of little use and importance”, Clearly I am.
Am I obsessed with running around the internet playing white knight to assuage my white guilt while trying to virtue flex to feed my fragile ego, Nah Ill leave that to you.
And finally since you request insult, Your mamas make Nasty Goreng thats somehow strangely both overseasoned and underflavored,
PS Your toads breeding cycle is the most disgusting thing Ive ever seen.
Open-source software to the rescue, in that case. The closed-source Caligraphr app [Chris] used might make things easier when using the roman script, but you can use Fontforge to create glyphs for a font in any script supported by UTF-8. Pashto, Hangul, Persian, Thai, Arabic, Hiragana, Cyrillic, the elder Futhark or even Shavian script — whatever floats your boat.
I’ve done this in font forge, and it’s doable, but a massive pain! It also assumes you understand a lot more about typography.
There may well be similar sites to calligrapher for other scripts, but I don’t know the search terms to use to find them.
But the good thing about open source if that if you want, you can use font forge to create such a service yourself. Or just do it from scratch, fonts are an open standard.
Sarcasm aside, as a broad generalisation, you’ll find most other scripts have much less concern about fancy artistic typefaces than the Latin scripts do.
But, what if my handwriting is illegible?
So then it has the added benefit of being secure. Seems like a plus.
It does bring up the idea of developing something that translates one font to another, though. I wonder if there is anything like that out there. It would have to be something OCR based, I guess, in order to be universal. I might try to see if ChatGPT can create one if there isn’t.
I’m developing a web open source application to create your own handwritten font. It’s already functional, and I have plans to add new features. I encourage you to try it out. https://ownfonts.cielo.ovh/ Here’s the source code: https://github.com/c4p0/OwnFonts If you’re interested in collaborating on the project, you can send me a message on GitHub.
Looks really interesting, as you seem to be bilingual will you be adding English?
Both my grandfathers were doctors, so I usually can’t even read my grocery list that I wrote 15 minutes ago.
I was about to say.. Unless I write in small caps to force myself to slow down, I have doctor handwriting and I think it will BSOD this thing. It’s worth a try… Well idk what I would use the resulting font for, other than confusing people.
Have you tried a fountain pen? Ballpoint pens are great, but supporting you to produce legible handwriting is not one of the things they excel at!
Fountain pens encourage slower larger writing and require careful nib control (velocity, angle against the paper as well as angle of the nib with respect to the movement).
If you can use it for any of your writing then try it! It’s not really as convenient if you need to write away from your own desk.
Great. Now anyone can send personal notes from “me”, in my own hand writing!
Identity absorbed by an AI hackbot in 60 seconds.
That’s probably the least of our worries.
I did exactly this with my wife. Many years ago I discovered Calligraphr and had my wife write down some lettering specimens. Since then, “You’re the best, I owe you ___” notes started appearing around the house all the time. Mysterious!
Brilliant, devious and, er, profitable…I like it.
In Windows XP, there was a built in “My Font Tool for Tablet PC” utility that would let you write each character and turn it into a font. It didn’t produce designer-quality fonts, but it was super easy to use, and definitely novel for it’s time.
Looks like there is now a “Microsoft Font Maker” too in their windows app store, which presumably is an updated tool for the same purpose.
In 40 years no other company has managed to release on operating system that has gained real significant traction. As of August, Windows held roughly 70-73% of the global desktop OS market share, followed by macOS with about 15-16%, and Linux with approximately 4-4.3%.
So yes, objectively, windows is the best operating system for desktop computers.
According to the ‘net, most cars in Russia are Ladas (followed by Japanese and the Korean imports.) By your logic, Ladas are therefore the “best” cars.
If I lived in that ecosystem, and if I had the choice, I’d always choose the Toyota or Hyundai over the Lada. Why? The engineering is better and they’re more reliable.
Come to think of it, that’s why all my machines run Linux.
You seem to be missing the obvious difference.
Beyond the fact that you are narrowing to a region rather than worldwide, You are ignoring that those vehicles are what is affordable and readily available there.
All your machines run linux, you are an incredible statistical rarity. Given that there are 1000 flavors of linux that are readily available WITHOUT CHARGE, yet only a few odd ducks like you prefer linux, which reflects and supports that WINDOWS is objectively the BEST operating system. In the last 40 years NO OS has managed to get anywhere close to the number of users active that windows has, EVEN WHEN GIVING THEIR OS AWAY.
Its funny, you say you would pick Toyota. Toyota is the car brand that sells the most vehicles worldwide annually, consistently holding the top position as the best-selling automaker. If Number 4 Hyundai, or even Number 8 KIa started giving away free cars to anyone who wanted one they would skyrocket to NUMBER 1 overnight. Not linux though, no matter how many distros drop theyll never be more than an odd ducks choice, but hey at least they can claim the most phones.
With respect, you completely missed my point.
Yes, your remark concerned the world, while mine concerned a country, but I wasn’t challenging your choice of region. Rather, I was pointing out the innate flaw your logic.
You’re conflating market penetration with “best-ness.” Betamax, for example, produced demonstrably better video than VHS, but lost the format war. Betamax units were never produced in the numbers VHS was.
Now, if you counter that this was because VHS units were mechanically simpler and therefore easier and cheaper to produce, (and therefore “better” ) you’ve not undermined my argument, you’ve essentially helped make it.
My point is that in order to classify an item as good-better-best you must first establish the criteria/parameters by which that judgement is to he made.
In the case of linux, I believe I specified design and reliability–not popularity– as my criteria.
Finally, as to your “odd duck” comment, most of the internet runs on LAMP stacks and Linux dominates in the supercomputer realm… so there are likely more ducks around than you imagine.
What you run on your own computer, I do no care. Enjoy the fact that you have multiple options.
LOL Linux users always love to shift the goal post with the “Most of the internet runs on LAMP stacks and Linux dominates in the supercomputer realm” but we are talking about Personal Computer OS’s. So lets stay in lane.
Simplicity of operation, software compatibility/availability, and the odds of the computer you encounter running windows will be my criteria for bestness. (Im typing on a 16 year old windows system that hasnt rebooted nor crashed in the last 2 years, pretty reliable in my book)
If linux design, reliability, and user experience was so vastly superior to windows it should have a greater marketplace penetration ESPECIALLY considering the ZERO COST of most distros but the VAST majority of Personal Computers are running windows because windows works reliably, easily, and is MOST likely to run whatever software you are looking for WITHOUT emulation.
24 years of giving linux away hasnt put a dent in windows dominance because Linux is a mess of third tier OSs that are only of appeal to a small segment of the overall personal computer market. I get that FACT is tender for linuxfanbois but it is still the reality of the world.
PS betamax had to sacrifice their “superior quality” to match VHS “superior recording times”. Betamax tapes typically offered a recording time of one to two hours, a limit that was a key factor in VHS’s eventual market dominance due to the latter’s longer initial recording times. Beyond that, Betamax was a victim of Sony’s poor attempts to dictate the video recording market. Where Betamax was locked into Sony licensing VHS was open to any manufacturer to pursue. Poor Television resolutions and small screen sizes in the vast majority of homes made the marginal advantages of betamax insignificant to the greater market.
I can’t reply to NaH as there seems to be a nested limitation so I’ll reply here to the following comment.
Windows market penetration has absolutely nothing to do with it being good or reliable, it’s simply because it’s what is available on the drive when you purchase a computer.
If Linux was an available option on every PC sold and the price of the PC was $100 lower due to Linux being at no cost the market penetration would be much much larger.
@Tim
Linux IS an available option on every PC sold, FOR FREE.
If Linux was “THE BEST OPERATING SYSTEM EVER, VASTLY SUPERIOR TO WINDOWS” people would buy their PC and Install Linux OVER the included windows. A $100 discount isnt whats holding linux back from domination.
Look at IE/Edge. Its included in every windows computer, yet only ~5% of users actively use it, instead opting to download one of the better alternative browsers.
Interestingly this logic stops working when applied to food, music, cinema etc
Technically the most personalized font is your own handwriting PER RECIPIENT ! ;-)
meaning with emotion put in.
Aggressive for companies.
“Sonntagsschrift”[1] for family/friends/etc.
[1] https://dict.leo.org/forum/viewUnsolvedquery.php?idThread=96422
Literally “Sundaycalligraphy” (fck English and it’s aversion to compundwords)
Yeah, I guess portmanteau words (podcast brunch radiotelegraph electrocardiograph ) never took off in English Sorry Humpty Dumpty and Lewis Carroll!
(On the bright side the wildly polyglot origins of English allow us to spell “fish” as “ghoti” -see Shaw, George Bernard)
20 years ago when I was a kid I went through the arduous process of making a font of my own hand writing, and even published it online. It’s a really good lesson, I wish more students did this, perhaps during an art class.
Back well before this we tried to do a little “custom font” routine for dot matrix printers (you specified each pin etc.). I think we got about nine letters in and found something useful to do instead.
The difference is obvious.
haha that’s what i came to say too. the computer-generated one is kerned wrong — all the letters are touching eachother, even overlapped. while the hand-written one has a little space between all the letters. it completely changes the personality of the writing. there might be promise here but it still needs a lot of fine tuning
15 or so years ago there used to be a site called MyScriptFont.com that would do similar. It was so simple too. Write your letters, scan, upload, get your font in a moment.
Somewhere, buried in the DOS/OS7 era boxes of stored junk but never disturbed from retirement, I have a 1.44Mb floppy of my handwriting. Process was write out a template, post to Russia with payment, and about a month later a disk with my gont arrived. Still using the font.
gont = font (hopefully obvious :) )
Windows XP Tablet Edition Power Toys came with a utility to make your own TTFs with handwriting
ChatGPT says it can do this:
https://chatgpt.com/share/68bf1e71-083c-8001-945d-1e6fdfbfd0d9
I figured it would be able to assist in the task but not do it for you, very nice.
Are you going to go through the process?
As a USN veteran, ham radio operator and amateur programmer I am looking for fonts that will give me a “slash 0” and a “crossbar/hyphen 7” in order to delineate between zeroes/letter o’s and 7’s! Started handwriting this way in the military and carrying it over as a ham radio operator! I remember seeing, years ago, a list of fonts that could be used for this. Thanks in advance!