Making a Custom Character in a Font
TK wrote:
I have a client whose design agency has come up with a product that makes use of a non-existent letter in the product name. The letter has a backtick on it. Now to do an “e” with a backtick in InDesign, I would normally press Option-backtick and then the letter “e”, which would give me è. However, when I try this with some other letters, I get two characters.
The product name is repeated many times through the document, and I have temporarily solved the problem by decreasing the tracking between the two characters by a ridiculous amount. I’m wondering if there’s a better or simpler way to do this?
Ah, the vagaries of clients! There are several solutions for making custom characters. Your solution of applying a large amount of negative kerning is a very good idea, but I agree that it’s annoying over time. Another option would be to create the character as an anchored frame:
- Make one instance of the special character in a frame somewhere.
- Convert it to outlines (Type > Create Outlines)
- Select the new shape with the Selection tool and Copy it (Edit > Copy)
- Use the Type tool to place the text cursor where you want the character and use Edit > Paste.
Using anchored objects like this isn’t optimal either, but it can work well in some situations.
But my favorite way of handling special characters is to make a special font. Don’t get nervous about this idea; it’s actually incredibly simple to do. The hardest part is to figure out what software to use. Fortunately, the folks at FontLab.com have a wide variety for you to choose from. Their high-end FontLab Studio is great if you want to be a true font developer, but for the vast majority of us, we can get by with their basic $99 TypeTool program. It does everything you’d probably want to build a custom font.
One note that is not immediately obvious: While you can open a font and edit it, be sure to choose File > Font Info and then change the internal names of the font. Otherwise, your old font and new font will look the same to programs like InDesign.
They also offer a $29 SigMaker2 utility, which lets you add any logo or special character to a font in just a few steps. The UI is wonderfully simple and is therefore great for very simple characters.
I’ve had a number of problems importing custom characters/logos into both TypeTool and SigMaker because they only accept EPS files. (SigMaker also accepts bitmapped images, which it does an auto-trace on to create vectors.) The best workaround has been to open a graphic in Illustrator, then save as an EPS in the oldest (and therefore simplest) version you can (such as Illustrator 3).
Having a custom font is often a great way to work around custom character issues (as well as special needs such as custom kerning pairs). Just remember to name it appropriately and send it along with your document!
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For those on Windows FontCreator is an excellent font editor. I’ve used it for many fonts within InDesign without a bit of trouble.
Thanks Fred! Interesting. The apps I mentioned are both Mac and Windows.
This is all cool but I wonder if the original problem could have been an oversight. I’m not sure what a nonexistent letter would be, but a good font has instances of just about every latin letter that normally appears with tildes and ticks and all that. A quick look in the Glyphs palette might have been helpful! Failing that, David’s technique here is the way to go. :-)
Very good point, Nathan. However, I believe that in this case the character they wanted really was not in any normal character set. It was just a special request from the client to make their name look fancy.
There’s also a ‘create-your-own-font’ app in the X11 tools. It’s not easy, but hey, it’s free.
In my experience custom fonts are usually problematic. This might be different with Open Type fonts (though we had problems with one last fall supplied for a book), but over the years I’ve had a lot of problems with custom fonts, some of which customers have spent a lot of time and money developing only to find that the kerning for the international characters didn’t exist when we went to produce a spanish book. If you do this I would caution you to think your needs through very thoroughly then test the new font on every output device you have that you think you might use it with so there are no sunrises with you use it on that expensive Hexachrome, varnished, cover with a 100,000 copy run.
Jerome, I’d love to hear more about what kinds of problems you think people would run into. Sure, if the kerning pairs aren’t set up properly, that would cause problems. (Though if you were using Optical kerning with that font, then it wouldn’t matter.) But when you edit a font, the kerning pairs usually come along for the ride.
There could be other issues, too, such as whether you have the legal right to edit a font, though I doubt any font foundry would really mind as long as you were only using the font for your own use (not selling it).
I’ve used custom fonts and have had very few problems with them.
David, the most recent problem that I ran into was a supplied OTF that appeared to work when printed from one program but not others. Also one printer (RIP) would render it fine and another would not. Also, it would appear correctly in a PDF but would not print properly. I have seen quirky behavior with printing from a lot of custom fonts over the years where they will print to one printer fine but not to another. This can get costly when you send it to the printer and their RIP substitutes it with currier when you go to press even though it appeared to work fine to the laser writer that you were proofing it on.
Interesting! Has anyone else seen this kind of problem? I remember this being an issue 15 years ago or so, but I haven’t seen it with OpenType fonts. I’m not saying that it can’t happen; perhaps the fonts weren’t made right or with the right font utitlies. Fonts are sensitive little beasts.
Yes, fonts can be sensitive and that is the point that I was making. I think that they got it fixed when it was in Production by sending a new font file but the only way that I could get it to render correctly to our high end Epson proofer was to set ID’s flattener to max so that ID. Printing any other way and there was very odd font substitution going on…some characters were bold, other’s roman, and non of them had the correct kerning. Personally I stay away from custom fonts if at all possible, its just as easy to past in the occasional inline graphic as it is to trouble shoot a custom font.
Have you experienced the OTF problem with the native file/fonts or only as a PDF? Only that when you export to PDF through InDesign’s PDF Library it will always use the truetype or type 1 format.
It’s probably a CID encoding problem your printer has experienced?
Interesting
Jon
One printer would print fine from ID but failed when printing a PDF made either through save as PDF or PS through distiller. Another printer failed to print the font correctly from both ID and PDF.
Blatner wrote: “There could be other issues, too, such as whether you have the legal right to edit a font, though I doubt any font foundry would really mind as long as you were only using the font for your own use (not selling it).”
A lot of foundries actually DO mind, and do NOT authorize changes to the licensed fonts, even if it’s for own use only. (Adobe happens to allow changes, by the way). The users should read the font’s EULA before doing any changes. This document will state all the dos and don’ts regarding the licensed font(s).
Blatner wrote: “Interesting! Has anyone else seen this kind of problem? I remember this being an issue 15 years ago or so, but I haven?t seen it with OpenType fonts. I?m not saying that it can?t happen; perhaps the fonts weren?t made right or with the right font utitlies. Fonts are sensitive little beasts.”
I’ve seen that problem and many others. Fonts are not the sensitive pieces; applications using them are. And applications have all the right to misbehave or reject a malformed font. And, generally, custom fonts are problematic because often they are not developed by professionals using professional tools. Furthermore, the OpenType era doesn’t make font-customization any easier. On the contrary, actually. OpenType fonts are complex pieces of software, which require a much higher level of experience and craftsmanship to develop (and/or customize) than Type 1 or TrueType fonts used to.
Miguel Sousa
Typeface Designer & Font Developer
Adobe Systems
Amazing trick!
works fantastic with Arabic fonts… pasted outline takes its place right on baseline and looks no different from the typed characters. comes so much handy.
thanks there