How to...
Design Fonts Using CorelDRAW
Create a font easily and quickly using Corel Draw. Whether you need your handwriting converted or a symbol or logo.
THE DRAWING
Draw your font using black ink or felt on a sheet of plain paper
Scan the entire page in B/W OCR mode
Use a paint application to seperate and save each character individually
SET UP OF CORELDRAW
Set up the CorelDraw page size to 720 by 720 points (that's 254mm)
Set a guideline at 30 points from the left
Set another guideline 30 points from the bottom
Corel is now ready for the font design
NULL CHARACTER
The first character that is exported will be the null character
This character will be used for every character that has not been designed
Usually a box but you can design any null character you wish
Draw your null character design and export it first
IMPORT AND DRAWING
Import the first scanned character (CTRL + I)
Using the drawing tool draw around the character
Click at each section of the character that changes direction
Then use the node editor to tidy up curves and complex points
PREPARING FOR EXPORT
Delete the scanned image once the drawing is completed
If a character (such as o) has more than one object they must be combined
Select all objects, click arrange and choose combine (CTRL + L)
Change the colour to black to ensure the character looks correct
EXPORTING
Select the character
Click File and choose Export (CTRL + H)
Select 'True Type Font(TTF)' in the Save as Type
Tick the selected only box
Type a file name for your font and click OK
FAMILY NAME
A family name is required the first time a character is exported to a TTF file
Type your family name (the name the font will be known by in Windows)
Grid size is not important and can be left at 2048
Space width affects only the space character and should be set accordingly
Family name can be changed at any time using options from the next dialog
SELECTING CHARACTER DETAILS
The next dialog box allows you to select the character to be exported
Character width is usually set to auto but can also be set manually
If the character is too large you cannot see where the width line is
Usually the width is about 40 from the edge of the character
So if your character width is 500 then the width will automatically be set to 540
Therefore setting the width manually to 500 will ensure the characters join up
INSTALLING THE FONT
Once all characters have been exported
The font can then be installed in windows
Go to the fonts in Control Panel
Click File and choose Install New Font
Find your font and select it from the list
Click OK and the font will be installed
You can now select this font name from the font list in any application
You can also delete the font and re-install it when changes have been made.
