How to build your font files

ATDC results revealed in a special Award Ceremony in Dubai. View the winning typefaces here.

How to build your font files
Building a fontfile is an easy job if you follow the steps carefully. There are three main steps:

1 Design the character set
A Use Fontlab tools to draw the outlines (type 1 preferred)
B Assign proper Unicodes to the glyphs
C Generate glyph names (Glyph → Glyph Names → Generate Names)
D Use metrics to space your font (go to Windows → New Metrics window)


2 Generate fonts
A Go to font info (File → Font info)
A 1. Go to Names and Copyright to name your font
A 2. Go to Metrics and Dimensions
A 2. – UPM should be 1000
A 2. – Click on Key dimensions and fill in the required information
A 3. Go to Encoding and Unicode™ and click on the green diamond
B Go to file menu and choose Generate Font … command
C Choose Opentype cff format (more work with Microsoft´s VOLT is needed to output fully operational Arabic Opentype fonts, but this level is accepted for the competition)


3 Test
A Install the font on your computer
B Use a DTP application to make test documents (InDesign ME 2.0 or CS recommended for testing)
C Make printouts and check for corrections on your designs
D Go back to Fontlab and save a new version of your fontfile
E Repeat the design/generate/test again

And good luck!


Notes for Arabic Mac users: Opentype Arabic fonts are not supported by any current version of Quark, or by Office applications on the Mac. However, they are fully supported on Arabic system PC (opentype fonts work on both PC and Mac) and in Middle East (ME) versions of Adobe products such as InDesign, Photoshop, or Illustrator.

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