Hello there,
I'm trying to gauge the interest in a font creation application that would make it easy to create your own fonts.
It would not be a traditional looking font creator tool. I imagine a new application in the suite that would make font creation an easy and fun thing to do.
Jason Moore said:Definitely interested in this feature. Have been very interested in creating fonts for many many years.
What is preventing you from doing so?
Download Type 3.2, the free version, and get started:
It will import SVG files created in CorelDraw just fine. You'll need to find what page size to create so the import of each character you draw needs little sizing, but then save that page in CorelDraw as a template for use with Type Light (the name of the free version).
Mike
MikeWe said:What is preventing you from doing so?
At the risk of sounding like a prude I can most likely list 20 or 30 items in X7.3 that do not work properly. While I like new features having old features that once worked and now have been broken with newer release is a PITA. Features that have only been partially completed are really bad for the image of the software and the end user.
Create a team that finds features that already exist in CD that are incomplete or broken and fix them. That will keep your teams busy for awhile and when completed do wonders for the public image and the marketability of the software.
I'm really interested in making the package as is as functional as possible, we can talk new features but not new features that KIND OF WORK.
It is interesting to see how broad the spectrum of interest is for this.
Thanks for all the feedback so far. Keep it flowing, the more the better.
Mike, you are right, to create professional quality fonts, it takes weeks if not months. I just want to emphasis that the application i'm proposing is NOT for that. Clearly, the professional font market is saturated and difficult to pierce. I'm after the non-professional market.... or a different market that doesn't really exist yet.
Let's think outside the box. For example, think about symbol fonts. When we have color font support, then symbol fonts become a very interesting way to create and share a collection of clip-arts! While you may not be a professional font designer, you could be a professional clip-art designer and this would be a different mean to sell your work through existing channel or a new channel we could add to Corel Connect for example.
I don't know if we would sell that as a standalone nor at what price. I'm just probing the interest here.
About OT features, I was actually thinking of including the ability to do basic one like ligatures, kern, slashed zero, etc...
About current features quality, I could not agree with you more. I would love to spend an entire version just on making what we already have better but this is for another discussion. Corel is unlikely to do this. There will generally have a blend of new features, existing features improvement and defect fixes. Please, limit this discussion to the Font Creator idea. Saying yes to the font Creator doesn't mean that you are saying no to existing features improvement.
NO. Who's 'good idea' was this??? Concentrate on what CDGS does and make it better. Fonts are not a good way to distribute clipart. Period.
I agree with David, there is so much that really needs attention that something to replicate what other apps already do is of doubtful merit IMO. As though there aren't enough fonts out there already!!!.
Let me give you a list of things that could do with a makeover, because they date from back maybe 5 versions.
Along with those, there are legacy bugs galore, along with new bugs destined to become legacy bugs because the are mere irritants rather than major failings. They impact on our mood everyday.
Personally the one new feature that would really really wow me is a dynamic vector trace tool. To allow the user to dynamically create closed objects from the enclosed spaces between other lines and curves. Google 'Corel CCCFER' and see when we started discussing this, maybe 15 years ago!!. Illy has it, poorly implemented, has done for a decade, probably nicked the idea from the Corel forum in the expectation Corel would do it.