How to make a font using Linux, autotrace, fontforge

How to make a font using Linux, autotrace, fontforge
(May 2004)

This page explains how I made a font of my own handwriting.

Table of contents

Draw the letters and scan them

Convert each letter bitmap to a vector image

Import every letters into fontforge and generate the font

Install the new font

Downloads

Softwares used here are:
fontforge: http://fontforge.sourceforge.net
autotrace: http://autotrace.sourceforge.net

Draw the letters and scan them

Scan a drawing of all the letters with a resolution of 600 dpi and in lineart mode (black an white only, no gray).
Use an image editor software to make an image of every letter (I used gimp): A.png, B. png, etc... (PNG is an example, you can of course use other image formats).

Convert each letter bitmap to a vector image

autotrace --output-format svg --error-threshold 0.1 --filter-iterations 1 E.png > E.svg

--output-format svg : scalable vector graphic format
--error-threshold 0.1 : the lower, the more precise for the shape
--filter-iterations 1 : to choose smoothness

Import every letters into `fontforge` and generate the font

Run fontforge and import the SVG file for each letter. The importing of the letters takes some time as the imported vector images need to be resized and adjusted.
Generate the font (PS type 1 or TrueType for instance).

PS type 1 binary will create 2 files: myfont.afm and myfont.pfb
TrueType will create one file: myfont.tt

(PS is postscript)

Install the new font

To install the PS font on Linux and X, do either of the following:

first possibility:

Create a directory myfontdir
Put the .afm and .pfb files in this directory

Edit the file fonts.dir so that it looks like this:

1
myfont.pfb -myfont-myfont-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-2

Go into the myfontdir directory and do xset fp+ `pwd`

second possibility:

find a font directory known by your font server (/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1 on my computer - this can be found by looking at xfs manual)
copy the .afm and .pfb files in this directory
add this line to fonts.dir:
```
myfont.pfb -myfont-myfont-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-2
```
and increment the number which is on the first line of fonts.dir (this number is the number of fonts in fonts.dir).

Downloads

fredswriting

True Type format: fredswriting.ttf
Postscript: fredswriting.afm, fredswriting.pfb (you need both files)

fredfont2

fredfont2.ttf