Welcome to Sig Maker 3. Sig Maker is an application that allows you to add glyphs into fonts in six simple steps.
All computer fonts consist of characters that are called glyphs. With Sig Maker, you can add your own glyphs into fonts made of images, company logos or signature.
In step one you need to choose a font that your glyph will work with. You can either choose one of the installed fonts on your system or you can choose any custom font in open type, true type, or posted format. I’m going to select one of the installed fonts called Adobe Garamond Pro. Click on next.
In step two you need to choose the artwork for your glyph. This can be any computer image such as a photo or picture in any out of popular formats; PNG, GIF, JPEG and also EPS or TIF. You can also paste an image form the clipboard. I have prepared an imager that you can see here. This image is black and white because all glyphs in and computer fonts have to be monochrome. If your image is in full color, Sig Maker would automatically convert it in to monochrome. If you’re unhappy with the results, you can always open the image in an image processing applications such as Adobe Photoshop and add it at yourself so that it becomes a black and white image. Then import it to Sig Maker.
I’m going to click on open image and to choose my graphic. Once the graphic is in Sig Maker, I can make some little adjustments to it. I can flip it horizontally or vertically, I can crop it to remove any unnecessary detail, I can make it positive or negative, or flip it. Once you’re happy with your image, click next.
In step three, you need to choose the character position of your glyph that is to specify which key stroke combination your glyph will be accessible to. You can choose any character from the Unicode standard since Sig Maker is fully multi-lingual.
Notice that some of the glyph cells in Sig Maker’s window are white while others are grey. The white ones represent characters that are already in the font that you’ve chosen and the grey ones represent empty cells that could be filled in with a character. You can assign your glyph to any of those. When you pick an existing character, it will be replaced by your own glyph. If you pick an empty cell, the new glyph will be adde4d to the font. I’m going to pick the “@” character and click on next.
In step four, you need to adjust the position and the size of the image in relation to the font’s characters. In my example, my glyph is too large so I can either use one of the presets. For instance, I could choose Fit to Caps Height to make my glyph as high as the upper case ‘E’, or I could the slider to slightly adjust the size. I can also drag and drop on the image to position it.
I also need to adjust the width of my character. I could pick one of the presets. For instance, proportional width or adjust it slightly using the slider. Once you’re happy with the positioning and the width of your glyph, click on next.
In step five you need to decide what you actually want to do with your glyph. There are several options available. You can create a modified version of the selected font with your glyph added. That means that all of the glyphs of the original font plus your own glyph will be stored in a new font which will be a copy, a modified copy of your font.
Please keep in mind that some commercial font foundries do not allow font modification so you should check the fonts and user’s license agreement to see whether your foundry allows that. Also in most cases, you would not be allowed to distribute such modified fonts. So you could use them only for your own purposes or within your company.
The other option is to create a new single glyph font. This will only take your own glyph and create a very small one glyph font that you can use together with other fonts on your computer.
Finally, you can also create a same glyphlet that would work with Adobe InDesign CS2 or newer and that would also be a special kind of a virtual single glyph font.
I’m going to create a modified version of my original font. Now, below, I need to set up some naming of my new font. Since my modified font should not have the same name as my original font, I should rename it.
My default Sig Maker suggests a name that adds the word ‘copy’ at the end of the original name. But I’m going to change it. I will call my new font “Adobe Garamond Happy” because I had a happy jumping couple as my new glyph.
You could also check ‘Advance Options’ for some additional naming. But in this particular case, I will just click on ‘next’.
In the final sixth step, I need to specify the location in which Sig Maker will store my newly created font or glyphlet so I can either select one of the presets I can select the desktop or the user fonts folder. These are documents folder or the system font’s folder. I can also change the filename manually. Please note that if I specify the user font’s folder or the system’s font’s folder, Sig Maker will generate and install the font automatically. So I’m going to leave user font’s folder here and just click on ‘next’.
Sig Maker generates the font, installs it on the system and asks me if I want to add another glyph to one of the fonts. I will say ‘no’ and I will quit Sig Maker.
As the final step, I will test my newly generated font and to do that I will start any application where I could use the fonts. For instance, a text editor on Mac Os 10 that would be Text Edit, on Windows that could be Word or Word Pad. I will open the font selector. I will set the type larger and I will type in some text.
Remember that I have mapped my own glyph to the ‘Add Character’. So now I will select all the text and change the font to the one I have just created. I will scroll down the list and choose ‘Adobe Garamond happy’. And there you see. I see my symbol right in the text. So it worked.
For more information about Sig Maker Font Lab Studio five, type tool fontographer and all our other applications, visit www.fontlab.com.
Also remember to consult the user manual for Sig Maker for more details.
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