Make a font!
Did it ever happen to you? If yes – than it is time for participating in the new-font project!
All engravers and composers will be able to submit a graphic file which will be included, adopted and adjusted in a new font palette which will be usable in Finale and possible in Sibelius too. The font will be published as freeware.
Read before participating:
- The symbol you want to send must be a musical character and you are a professional composer or engraver.
- You understand some technical terms like dpi resolution, tiff and are able to use a scanner and its software functions.
- You have at least one version of Finale or Sibelius. You might also have MuseScore. We prefer Finale.
- The priority will be given to those symbols that can be interesting for use by most engravers and composers.
- While testing the font is not a problem for the operating system in the most cases (99%), you have to understand that the replacement of an existing font and cleaning the font cache (if needed) may result in some instability. We are not responsible for any operating losses. Nevertheless, existing documents and regular fonts will remain unaffected.
Making and sending your files:
- Make sure that you have
- Printer
- Pencil or pen (preferably calligraphic)
- Scanner (1200 or 2400 dpi)
- Tracing Pad paper (a thin, Bible-like transparent or paus paper)
- Download file A4 or Letter. Print the A4 file at 100% if you have A4 paper format. Print the Letter file at 100% if you have Letter paper format.
- Cover the printed file with the transparent paper. On the paus paper draw the symbol on the stave that best suits the pen size. Fill the black areas too.
- Scan it. The smaller symbol – higher resolution. Use only 1200 or 2400 dpi.
- Crop the symbol area and scan it.
- Use only BW (black-white) scanning. Not colour, not grayscale. Don’t scan it to colour and than convert it to BW. Scan directly in to BW.
- Save it as TIFF.
- Name the symbol: resolution_staffsize_uniquename.tiff. For instance: 2400_3_clef1.tiff
- Send 1200 scans to “1200 @ musegraph . com” and 2400 scans to “2400 @ musegraph . com” together with a short explanation what this symbol represents.
- If you have found a symbol in another existing score, start the procedure from No4. Don’t crop the symbols from any low resolution PDFs!
- You have another idea.
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Questions:
- I have sent you hundreds of my handwritten symbols, but you have refused to make the font from it. Why?
- Making a font is time consuming. Also, it is outside of the project since many people can’t use your handwritten fonts.
- How complex the symbol can be?
- The symbol can be of any complexity.
- Will I be able to use it in my older version of Finale? Can I use it with Sibelius?
- It will be possible to use it with older, pre-unicode version of Finale.
- Sibelius has its limitations in the number of fonts you can use. In theory – yes.
- Is it important to scan it? I don’t have a scanner, but I have a digital camera.
- In the theory – yes. But the scanned files have priority. In that case make sure that you use the highest resolution and zoomed clear. Send files to “camera @ musegraph . com”
- Which software do you use?
- The main creation software is FontForge on Debian Linux.
- The testing and adjustments are done on OS X Leopard using FontLab Studio, Fontographer and Adobe Illustrator SC 5 with Finale 2011.
- The final testing is on Windows XP with Finale 2011 and Sibelius 7.
- The font is free. Can I sell it or add to another font?
- It is free, but not open source. You are not allowed to sell it or to modify it.
- I have another question.