Re: Has anyone designed fonts for their language

On Wed, 30 May 2001, Eric Christopherson wrote:

> On Tue, May 29, 2001 at 07:18:04AM +0200, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
> > On Tue, 29 May 2001, John-Martin wrote:
> >
> > > I have Corel Draw and working on a font for
> > > my language.  If anyone has any experinece in designing
> > > a script to write their language in or have any good
> > > pointers I'd appreciate it
> > >
> >
> > Well, the first few fonts I did where with Corel Draw, too.  I've even
> > written a short paper on the process, but in Dutch, unfortunately. Corel
> > Draw has (or had, this ia ages ago) the problem that it couldn't hint
> > TrueType fonts, making it next to impossible to use them on-screen.
>
> I keep hearing about things but not knowing what they are, like hinting. Can
> anyone point out a resource (preferably online) to merely learn the
> terminology and theory behind fontmaking for me?
>
The online manual of pfaedit is pretty good
(pfaedit.sourceforge.net/overview.html). Basically, kerning determines
the spacing between letters. You'd want A and V to overlap, so that the
top left of V is over the right of the A. Hinting is about showing
fonts on screen. When computing pixel positions out of bezier curves,
you'd often place a pixel half-way to pixel positions on the screen.
Hinting gives extra information for the accurate and pleasing placement
of pixels in those cases where a single pixel makes a lot of
difference.

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.valdyas.org

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