Re:Create a font from your own handwriting
by ugh on Thursday September 17, 2009 @03:25PM
(#828738)
I’m getting all nostalgic. Just such software was all the rage in the late nineties.
But really, the results of such automated font generation are always less than optimal. To produce something really nice you would have to put much manual work in. And you should have some training in how to make fonts. And it would still look tacky. It was gimmicky in the nineties and, unfortunately, it still is.
Re:Create a font from your own handwriting
by halo on Thursday September 17, 2009 @10:49PM
(#829550)
That article is a bit out of date.
There are two new formats - one is a new format called WebOTF, which is a new binary format consisting of a raw font plus compressed XML metadata. The other is EOT Lite (which is likely to be renamed to something without "EOT" in the name), which is a subset of the old EOT functionality that IE has offered for several years, dropping the more controversial aspects such as rootstring (essentially browser copy protection) and font compression (which is patented).
Both parties are happy with both formats, and I believe Mozilla are planning to support both in the next version of Firefox, so the end result is likely that both become part of any standard.
Re:Create a font from your own handwriting
by thaumaturgy on Thursday September 17, 2009 @04:57PM
(#828930)
Better use this while you can -- this appears to be a re-packaging of http://www.yourfonts.com/ , which was free and then became a commercial service. (The template file especially is very similar.)
Re:Create a font from your own handwriting
by thaumaturgy on Thursday September 17, 2009 @06:24PM
(#829113)
Well, the blog only has two posts to it -- one announcing the debut, the other discussing a change to their template that didn't work out.
That said, I took a closer look at their template compared to yourfonts.com, and although they're similar (by necessity), they're different enough that it's likely that fontcapture created their own.
I'm really glad fontcapture came along; I just hope they can stick around.
But really, the results of such automated font generation are always less than optimal. To produce something really nice you would have to put much manual work in. And you should have some training in how to make fonts. And it would still look tacky. It was gimmicky in the nineties and, unfortunately, it still is.
I like it because it involves printing and scanning. Web apps that involve physical stuff are fun.
Its coming, slowly.
There are two new formats - one is a new format called WebOTF, which is a new binary format consisting of a raw font plus compressed XML metadata. The other is EOT Lite (which is likely to be renamed to something without "EOT" in the name), which is a subset of the old EOT functionality that IE has offered for several years, dropping the more controversial aspects such as rootstring (essentially browser copy protection) and font compression (which is patented).
Both parties are happy with both formats, and I believe Mozilla are planning to support both in the next version of Firefox, so the end result is likely that both become part of any standard.
Yourfonts.com might take exception to this.
(Edit: I had the URL wrong.)
Unlikely, there's a dev blog: http://www.fontcapture.com/blog/
That said, I took a closer look at their template compared to yourfonts.com, and although they're similar (by necessity), they're different enough that it's likely that fontcapture created their own.
I'm really glad fontcapture came along; I just hope they can stick around.