Before I recognised
that I was hooked on FontLab, I formulated a new work-flow for Fontographer,
following on from a simple
tutorial for starters I did before, and which lots of people seem
to have appreciated. Everything's in the manual and it's written in an empowering
and friendly style, but I don't find that the structure makes sense for a beginner:
here's my summary, with the page numbers referring to the 1996 paper manual
for Fontographer 4.1: I can expand it with screen shots and aniumation if anyone
thinks it would be helpful.
- name your font
in Font Info, check at Adobe
and MyFonts that the
name isn't already used (p.43)
- save the database
(= the Fontographer file)
- create the
outlines
- in Photoshop
or Illustrator:
scan - select - copy
- in Fontographer:
paste+auto-trace/import/draw outlines - fine-tune
- ligatures (p.
50)
- clean up paths
(p.74)
- correct path
directions (p.94)
- auto-space (p.
131)
- auto-kern (p.
132)
- fine-tune spacing
the metrics window (kerning de-selected) (p. 134)
- fine-tune kerning
pairs (kerning selected) (p. 135)
- print a character
sample (p.153)
- different styles
within the same family (p.197)
- generate the
font (p. 77)
- install the
font
- delete the background
template images you pasted in if you want to save space on your hard disc
