Re: Latin Extended-B teaser

[Danilo Segan <danilo gnome org>]

Hi Charles,

Today at 2:43, Charles Smith wrote:

> I'm very new to font making, and I have no idea how to use this file.  Most
> of the terminology you all use is foreign to me.  As far as the font, I've

Patches are mostly non-font related: they're particularly useful with 
different text storage formats (like source code in any of the
programming languages, XML files, and with FontForge, SFD files). 

To apply a patch, you need to have base file (VeraOrigSerif-Roman.sfd
in Sander's patch), and a patch (save everything from "---" line and
below to eg. /tmp/vera.patch).  To create a base file, you'd simply
open VeraSe.ttf and save it as .sfd VeraOrigSerif-Roman.sfd with
FontForge. 

Then, you'd do (from a terminal) "patch </tmp/vera.patch", which will
patch the SFD file.

> been working on some rather mediocre Greek letters, and I have both capital
> and lowercase of the Greek alphabet.  I'm using a shareware program called
> Font Creator Program (www.high-logic.com) and I want to add hinting to my
> glyphs (which I've read will increase how crisp and not fuzzy the font will
> look on-screen).  How would I go about it, or do I have to use a different
> program?  Is there are shareware program (or one I can possibly get with an
> educational discount) that any of you recommend?  Thanks a lot for your
> help.

I haven't played with hinting at all so far, because I'm more than
satisfied with the autohinter that comes with FreeType 2.1.4 or
better (FWIW, I even compile it with bytecode interpreter disabled).

As this program seems to be Windows program, I heard good stuff about
FontLab (for Windows).  Still, I'd recommend getting Cygwin X running,
and Pfaedit (I'm still stuck with the name, whenever I say Pfaedit, I
mean FontForge :) as well.  FontForge is a very nice tool for working
on fonts, and its base format is SFD (Spline Font Database, or
something).

And besides all that, it's free software.


The issue seems to be that you're not using a GNU-based operating
system (like GNU/Linux, GNU itself, or GNU/K*BSD ;) or a system
"Unixey" enough.  So, what's obvious to us, isn't obvious to you.
You might have some issues with using CVS as well (and SFD file
format is great when used together with a version control system).
It'd be best if you could get yourself a GNU/Linux system, because it
would all be so much easier for everyone.

Cheers,
Danilo