How one can Create Your Personal Fonts With Glyphtracer on Linux

Typography is an artwork that helps a author categorical their individuality, in addition to makes home windows, terminals, and even textual content information look stunning. Font designers sometimes have years of coaching and an arts background earlier than the fruits of their labor make it onto your display screen.

With Glyphtracer, it is simple to create your individual font on Linux, and see how effectively your expertise arise towards these of pros.

What Is Glyphtracer, and How Does It Assist You Create Your Personal Fonts?

Glyphtracer is a Python software that accepts a one-bit picture containing photos of letters and lets you tag every letter to a Unicode code level. It then converts the photographs to vector kind and writes them to an SFD file.

Glyphtracer was designed with Linux in thoughts, though the developer, jpakanne states that, “It would work on OSX or Home windows. It won’t.”

Set up Glyphtracer on Linux

Earlier than you possibly can set up Glyphtracer, you should set up pip3 and pyqt5:

sudo apt set up python-pip3
pip3 set up pyqt5

Set up Potrace—a instrument for changing bitmaps into vectorized photographs:

sudo apt set up potrace

Now clone the Glyphtracer GitHub repository:

git clone https:

Transfer into the brand new listing utilizing the cd command and set up Glyphtracer by typing:

cd glyphtracer
sudo python3 setup.py set up

Now you can begin Glyphtracer from any terminal with:

glyphtracer.py

Getting Began With Glyphtracer

The very first thing to do is to put in writing out your alphabet. To start out with, print out lowercase solely, and if doable, use black on a white background. Make sure that to go away enough whitespace between the characters. You’ll obtain the perfect outcomes by scanning in some hand-drawn calligraphy or by utilizing a graphics pill. At a push, you possibly can draw with a mouse.

Earlier than utilizing Glyphtracer, you should use ImageMagick to transform the picture to a one-bit PNG:

convert -monochrome your_alphabet_image.jpg new_image.png

Open Glyphtracer, and within the dialog window, give your new font a reputation. Select the enter file, and the file you need to output.

The following window will present you your alphabet. Glyphtracer will have the ability to acknowledge that there are characters on display screen, however cannot inform what they’re. Choose your character set from the menu on the backside left of the display screen. In our case, that is “latin decrease case“, then click on on every letter in flip.

In case you overlook the place you are as much as, look on the letter counter within the middle of the underside bar.

While you’ve completed, click on “Generate SFD file“.

Finalize Your New Font in FontForge

Your new font is a Spline Font Database (SFD) file, and earlier than you need to use it in your favourite textual content editor, you should convert it to a TrueType (TTF) font. Whereas there are any variety of on-line converters which may do that for you, it is higher if you happen to use native instruments—on this case, FontForge.

First, set up FontForge:

sudo apt set up fontforge

Open the FontForge app, then choose your SFD file. FontForge will current the characters you have drawn. Double test you’ve gotten the characters you want, then select Generate Font from the file menu.

Within the dialog, choose TrueType, then hit Generate. Your new font might be saved beneath the filename you specified.

Use Your New Font in Your System

Putting in your new font on Linux could not be easier: simply open your file supervisor and double-click on the icon in your new font. You will note a preview of your alphabet in a variety of sizes, and if every thing seems good, click on Set up.

Now you can use your font in any software.

Take a Course to Enhance Your Design Abilities!

Designing customized fonts is enjoyable and an effective way to customise your Linux system, nevertheless it’s only one ingredient of consumer expertise design.

In case you take pleasure in crafting techniques to be extra intuitive and user-friendly, contemplate taking a course in different parts of UX design—it’s possible you’ll even have the ability to make a profession out of it!