It's unfortunately not very easy to generate modern TTF/OTF fonts from Metafont sources. If you're careful to not use any crazy pens, you can compile with Metapost and then import the outlines into FontForge, but it's still fairly tricky to make everything work properly.
The font created is print, not cursive.
Fonts that are decorative, when I worked in prepress, were simply called "decorative." It just meant "not for body text" i.e. hard or annoying to read. I assume in the past it meant "don't buy a ton of these, and none in small sizes" because you weren't ever going to be putting a bunch on a page.
You're correct, "cursive" is a handwriting term, not a typographic one. The parent commenter almost certainly meant "script". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Script_typeface
i actually think the design/layout is kind of timeless.
Thanks for making me remember this experience.
Writing my handwriting would be a punishment.
I do like the idea of it though; even though I don't think it's less personal to type a message than handwrite it, it feels less personal. Having a font based on handwriting might help with that.
i'll use my roommate as an example. Dude uses a knife sharpener system but can't actually sharpen a knife with a stone. The second his system doesn't work he can't actually sharpen a knife. All he knows is how to use the system. I see this in a lot of people nowadays. They know how to follow some instructions but the connections to why are never made.
As a society our basic skillsets are extremely atrophied because capitalism has turned everything into a pay-to-save-time system, or something.
I would think that part of the value would be in seeing the information written in your own handwriting, which makes me suspect that having a font like this that you could digitize into might be better than writing by hand (whic probably provides some of the memory boost) and then digitizing into a traditional font.
Both my partner and I used tablets for notetaking through college and found it at least analogous if not superior to handwritten notes, since it became easier to link topics that you might otherwise need to back-reference on paper that could instead just be a big arrow. Lots more freedom to use arrows, visual linkages, and asides when you weren't constrained by 8.5x11 paper (which maybe allows a bit of that but otherwise forces linearity, more or less).
> One thing I have wondered about is what if you write on a tablet and then it digitizes your handwriting. Do you still get the same benefit, from the process of having handwritten it?
I type 121 wpm and I simply can’t concentrate when writing by hand
It’s too slow and instead of focusing on formulating my thoughts or capturing what’s being said I get super fidgety
Not to mention my handwriting stinks
For me it’s a lot easier to remember when I’m fully immersed and processing ideas vs tediously writing
I do think this is probably just lack of handwriting skill - I definitely learned all this in school and took handwritten notes most of my life, but I suspect I never did it right back then
AFAIU, if you're trying to take notes capturing what was said in a conversation between people.. to some extent you're going to need to focus and summarize anyway.
For handwriting notes for your own work.. I think writing stimulates & catalyses thought.
If you're in the flow, it doesn't make sense to stop and write notes. (Other than maybe so as to dispatch distracting thoughts, to preserve flow, or to enable flow for later).
If you're not flowing.. IME writing notes can help draw out thoughts: identify what it is you're confused or unclear about, what doesn't make sense, or what needs to be prioritised. -- For some reason, I've found pen & paper (especially 4-5 colours) to be more effective than just using a keyboard.
Your comment had me wondering how quick various systems are for writing. Shorthand can apparently get comfortably over 200wpm, but the bit that is I found wild is is how it looks.
I prefer typing for anything longer than a few words. But I can't type a picture (despite things like Mermaid and PlantUML) being useful.
I make extensive use of paper (and whiteboards if I'm sharing) for making pictures, mostly graph-like things such as flow diagrams, sequences, ERD etc. I feel somewhat "disabled" if I'm forced to just screen technology to do it (although Excalidraw is pretty good).
I mean thats a broad generalisation. As someone who spent a lot of time in remedial English, I don't think thats actually true.
Typing enabled me to go to uni. It turns out that actually I'm shit at handwriting rather than english.
Ironically I have a wacom tablet as a pointer device, because its faster than a mouse.
All through college I had to write extensively and still never got anywhere near that speed
I do wonder about raw limits - unless you learn a specific shorthand, I can’t imagine writing out the word “something” faster than I can type it - unless as an example I used sm instead
Good news: you don't actually have to take a technical drafting course. You just need to find an architectural lettering guide that you like, and practice for about fifteen minutes a day until it feels normal. (Architectural, not ASME. ASME is too rigorous to become anyone's daily handwriting.)
I believe that too.
Writing is one of my tools for taming my ADHD tendencies. I have journals of different sizes and when I am in the zone, I capture the moment in my own words and in my own way. I draw lines and art on my notes and just scanning a few lines on another day instantly immerses me back in the moment when the ideas/words/thought hit me.
For those who type better than they write, I don't see any reason to not do that, even though for me, it's pen on paper.
We're all different and I am a strong believer of the idiom that goes "One man's food..."
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9n9209f8s3vc?hl=en-US&gl=U...
Show HN: AI tool to turn handwriting into a font (June 2025, 0 comment) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44268487
Coding my handwriting (May 2024, 75 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40408291
... and probably quite a few more!
This is the first one where I’ve thought, “hey I could do that over the course of a few of the baby’s naps!”
All the steps I did at the time should still work today, and they may be of some interest if you're trying to do the thing Chris gave up on in "Failing to do it myself", perhaps because you're dissatisfied with the results of the alternative approaches.
I've been thinking of tinkering with an image to image generation model to convert text output from the font into something that looks closer to the handwritten version. Seems like it should be possible, but you need a lot of data.
I would say it seems like a simple enough task for a weekend project but I know better.
However, I can tell that you’re introvertive (retalics), a little ADHD (open/unconnected O character), have OCD tendencies (highly legible script), and borderline type A (lines in top of x close together and Fs)
Your story resonates. I am a self-taught creative and I get stubborn at times about wanting to use/bend a specific technology/tool to achieve a task; maybe it's a sunk cost fallacy OCD thing.
Your site design has character.
PS: Bookmarked your site with the tags - fonts, developer-blog, creative-sites, boutique-designs... on my firefox browser.
I had seen an app where one could draw each alphabet and it would spit out a font file....
They broke it with a paid update and I have never seen another app like that
Ps: if you have any other ideas how to make such a workshop for children more exciting, please let me know! For instance, I wanted to let them create paper prototypes and then turn them into working click dummies so to cross the bridge between analogue and digital in way that feels natural to kids. Btw, by “kids” I refer to children at the age of 8-10 years old.
I have been wanting to get experience educating young kids from my home town about technology how it can be used for creative work.
Based in Nigeria/Africa. I wrestle JavaScript with single quotes and no semi-colons.
- Amy Goodchild: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40408291
- Kathleen Tuite: https://kaflurbaleen.blogspot.com/2012/12/creating-font-from...
- Julia Evans: https://jvns.ca/blog/2020/08/08/handwritten-font/
That’s why we end up using command line tools and text-based interfaces. Or I end up writing code to do things.
It’s not that I dislike the idea of GUI apps, it’s that in practice, they make me have a really bad time, and usually don’t even get the job done.
That's an aside though; great job mate mega post!
al_borland•2d ago
JKCalhoun•1d ago
(No) thanks for the memories.