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FontForge Translation Project. Presented by Rachel Reyna. Why Font Creation?: Are fonts even worth a second thought?. Why would someone want to be able to create his or her own font? Pre-created fonts can be limiting in creativity
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FontForge Translation Project Presented by Rachel Reyna
Why Font Creation?: Are fonts even worth a second thought? • Why would someone want to be able to create his or her own font? • Pre-created fonts can be limiting in creativity • Fonts advertised as ‘free’ (i.e. www.1001freefonts.com) may be misleading • These fonts tend to charge a fee if you plan to use them commercially • Unnecessary costs for groups such as start-up companies or underground artists
Why Font Creation?: The Current Market Situation • Creating your own font seems like the perfect solution, however it is not as easy as you think • Programs available are either: • Commercialized, with prices ranging from $50-$200 • Free, but most likely limited in what the user is able to do My goal: to help font creation programs become less restrictive and more accessible to users.
Why FontForge? • Two types of font creation programs: • Online Programs • Allow user to create fonts online without downloading or installing any software • Examples: FontStruct (http://fontstruct.fontshop.com/) • Vector Manipulation Programs • Allows user to create more complex fonts using vector manipulation • Vector manipulation is the manipulation of “geometrical primatives such as points, lines, curbes, and shapes or polygons” (Wikipedia) • Examples: FontForge (http://fontforge.sourceforege.net) DoubleType (http://doubletype.org) • Vector manipulation programs are more powerful • FontForge was more organized, powerful and user friendly
How I Planned to Contribute:Spanish Translation • Originally wanted to focus more on issue with using FontForge in Windows • Tutorial available in Japanese, German and Chinese • No Spanish translation, listed on the website as a suggested way of helping the project • Fit my goal of helping make font creation less restrictive, and more available to the general population. • Different than expected but still fit
Strategy Overview • Shouldn’t translating be very easy? • Tutorial length: 37 pages • Four major steps: • Save and format the HTML code from the site • Translate the text • Insert the translated text into the HTML code • Reformat HTML code • Go more in depth about each step
STEP 1: “Save and format the HTML code from the site” • Use Notepad • When first open code • Reformat so it’s easier to edit
STEP 2: “Translate the Text” • I used two files • File with original English text • File with the translated Spanish text • Why have a separate file for the translated text instead of translating directly in the code? • Easier to separate code and text • Easier with the Spanish accent codes • i.e. accented e = é or n with a tilde = ñ
STEP 3: “Insert the Translated text into the HTML Code” • Seems like the easiest step • However, formatting complicates things • Links • Italicizing, bolding, etc. • Tables
STEP 4: “Reformat the Code” • Some of the reformatting was mentioned in the previous slide • Also need to check: • Page links • the Spanish pages have different titles • Picture links • because the Spanish pages refer to a different folder for the pictures
Implementing Translated Tutorial • https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/fontforge/wiki/
What I Learned from this Project • An appreciation for open source projects • All of the time and effort • How many people it can take to make a project work • Learned more tricks with HTML coding • Differences in how I would have coded something vs. how the FontForge team chose to code it