Good practice

When digitizing fonts, any normal quality procedures and settings are going to work out. Remember that the user will have the ability to override your settings for density, pattern and underlay, so there is no need to make those adjustments across all letters. Keeping settings in synch is always a headache anyway, although the use of Quick Styles does help enormously.

When making NCP fonts, remember to use only satin columns, fully formed with inclination lines. Lay the satin columns in the order you would normally, as if you were digitizing for a single sew-out. The main difference is that you are leaving out connecting runs. For letters which are normally digitized with extra pieces to accommodate overlap, such as is often in ‘X’ or ‘k’, don’t break those strokes down. The branching engine will do that for the user.

Fonts typically have a wide size range and this causes issues with overlapping elements. Serifs can get partially obscured in an enlarged letter, so it might be best to consider sequencing those over the strokes that connect to them. Underlaps are needed more on small letters than large ones. As a letter is enlarged, you may see underlap build up a loft. Thus we recommend having overlap, but keep it minimal. You do not want to perfectly butt-join objects, but rather prefer a minimal intersection, as necessary.

Remember that you can always edit a copy of your font at a larger size to make it stitch well at those larger (or smaller) sizes.

The best recommendation we have for those new to font digitizing is to look at our examples and then play with your own. Test, test, test. And, please, never charge a consumer for something you have never tested at all. Thank you!