The write stuff
Fonts are everywhere, from newspapers to street corner signs. Soon after a person gets their first computer they discover it contains the world of fonts. Then they find the range of fonts that can be downloaded from the web. So what do you do when you're a jaded fontophile and you've seen it all? Make your own.
There are plenty of programs but Font Creator from High-Logic is easy-to-use shareware and offers a free 30-day trial. Download and install this program and very quickly you can have a font of your own.
Probably the best place to start is creating a font of your handwriting. Take a piece of paper and a marker pen and write down the letters of the alphabet and some numbers. Scan the page and open it in your graphics software. If you don't have a scanner, you can photograph it using your digital camera and upload it. If you have neither, open your graphics software and use a brush to form the letters of the alphabet.
Then, in your graphics program, make a selection around the first letter, A, and choose Edit, Copy. Switch to Font Creator and create a new font file using File, New and give it a font family name. Double click the Glyph box for the letter A and choose Edit, Paste and your character will appear in the small box sitting on a red line. The red line is the base line that all characters sit on. Adjust the height of the character so the top of it sits at about position 1500 on the grid.
Adjust the left and right bearings, which are the dotted vertical lines either side of the character, so they're set just to the left and to the right of the character. When you're done, click the close button to close that character. Your first character in your first font is now complete.
Repeat the process for the remaining 25 letters, the 10 numbers and, if you're feeling up to it, the lower-case letters too. Also, consider what punctuation marks you would use. Typically, you should create an exclamation mark, question mark, period, comma, etc. To check your progress as you work, click the Test Current Font button on the toolbar to see what your font looks like.
Before finishing, validate your font to see if it contains any structural problems. To do this, display the Validation toolbar by choosing View, Toolbars, Validation. Click the Enable real-time Glyph validation button then click the Show glyph validation report to see a list of any problems with the current character. Alternatively, run the Font Validation Wizard by choosing Font, Validate and it will validate all your characters. If problems are found, you'll be advised of this.
When you're done, save your font using File, Save and give your file a name. It will be saved as a .ttf file on your computer. When you're ready, you can install it by opening the Fonts dialog - choose Start, Control Panel, Fonts. Choose File, Install New Font, locate your font and install it.