Making a font of my handwriting

337 pointsposted 5 months ago
by kickofline
(chameth.com)

86 Comments

jlev

5 months ago

I did something similar for my wedding website back in 2013. We used a mail-in service that produced a decent TTF, and then I converted it to a WOFF. Still online at https://ruthandjosh.net/story/ (warning, millennial cringe ahead)

wvbdmp

5 months ago

Hell yeah, keep that site up. What a marvel in this age of link rot.

jlev

5 months ago

Thank you, I’m never letting the domain go.

Lu2025

5 months ago

It's a lovely story, no cringe detected.

dotancohen

5 months ago

Thank you for that cringe! What a great way to end the week. Shabbat shalom.

Weetile

5 months ago

So is it true that Ruth had champagne on the flight without you?

chneu

5 months ago

this rules.

i actually think the design/layout is kind of timeless.

aswinmohanme

5 months ago

warmed my heart, wishing you a great life together

jinushaun

5 months ago

I’ll take millennium cringe over gen-z nihilism.

ezequiel-garzon

5 months ago

This is awesome! A mere upvote wouldn't be enough to point this out, thanks for sharing.

jsjddnnsndn

5 months ago

Nice story. Most people dont meet in a "fate" kind of way but you did.

cauliflower2718

5 months ago

This is so cute!! I hope you two are having a lovely life together.

caminanteblanco

5 months ago

So wholesome, and here's a belated congratulations!

stavros

5 months ago

Well that was delightful.

user

5 months ago

[deleted]

mockingloris

5 months ago

Kudos to you and the journey. I appreciate your honesty honestly about giving up on open source alternative for a quite cheap alternative for something you get to keep as your own is not a bad tradeoff.

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.

tombert

5 months ago

My handwriting is exceedingly bad, and it gets worse every time I do it. It's sort of a feedback loop; my handwriting is bad so I type everything, and since I never practice my handwriting it gets bad. I think if someone made a font based on my handwriting it could be used as a cryptographic hash.

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.

ycombinete

5 months ago

Maybe you could use it as a font for black metal album covers

chneu

5 months ago

the whole "there are easier ways to do things so i never develop a skillset" is a big problem nowadays, imo. There are always easier ways to do stuff but in the long run they aren't the better way to do something because you wind up learning a system instead of how to do something.

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.

tombert

5 months ago

It’s not a “nowadays” problem. People have always been like that. People probably stopped routinely learning how to ride horses once once cars started getting popular.

dse1982

5 months ago

When I was a teenager I made a ttf-font from the handwriting of a girl I was in love with as a gift for her. Man I underestimated that task seriously. I used some tool that was included in the Corel Draw Suite, scanned a sheet of paper on which she had written me the alphabet (in upper and in lower case) and vectorized everything by hand. It was so. Much. Work. Since then a quarter of a century has passed and it is one of those stories which leaves me amazed at the amount of naive stubborn energy of youth. I mean it was just for a birthday but I spent so much time on it and most of that time I didn't really know what I was doing. But somehow I succeeded, probably just because I didn't know any better.

lostlogin

5 months ago

Sure beats a mix tape.

Writing my handwriting would be a punishment.

snapetom

5 months ago

So what happened with her? Was the effort worth it? Happily ever after?

dse1982

5 months ago

I don't know what she is doing now, since we lost contact many years ago. Basically after school when I moved away to study. So no happily ever after with her, but it was absolutely worth the effort. It would never have worked out, since we were way to different, which she knew, but I – as always – took longer to understand. However it was such an important thing for me, since it was the first time that I was really confident and brave enough to be really open about my feelings and my interest. Of course it took me some time and overcoming, but in the end I was able to openly communicate to her and also not trying to play cool or hide it from my friends. I think it really was the first conscious experience for me in regards to that: to really just do the jump, be open about my feelings, take my shot and in the process make myself vulnerable. As I said, she gave me a clear "no" and I think that was for the better – not only because we came from quite different worlds but also because I still had so much to learn. However she handled all this so perfect, gracefully and appreciative: actually for me the perfect experience to learn and grow from. We stayed friends, continued to do stuff together and it never was much of a topic after a while. I still remember how after I was a bit petulant in the first time after her rejecting me and refused her offering me some of her lunch. She told me in the most respectful way that just because she said no to one thing I didn't have to say no to everything else now. Which was exactly what I needed to hear. It showed me that I hadn't lost any of her respect and that relationships with people do not have to be all or nothing, can have so many facets which can (almost) all be valuable and should be appreciated – just as she still appreciated our relationship. Although there was no happily ever after, I still like to remember all that. Today I am having my happily ever after with a very wonderful someone else. But to become the person who is having this, the whole experience with that girl was so important. I was making myself very vulnerable for the first time and it was the best fail-scenario I could ever think of and it helped me become more brave and open about myself and my feelings.

Thanks for making me remember this experience.

Dragonborn

5 months ago

Great story and learning experience, thanks for sharing it :)

snapetom

5 months ago

Bravo for the introspection, OP. Thanks for sharing.

pavel_lishin

5 months ago

I wonder if there's any way to transform this approach taken by Amy Goodchild into actual font files: https://www.amygoodchild.com/blog/cursive-handwriting-in-jav...

Gualdrapo

5 months ago

I'd bet it would be matter of "translating" those Chaikin's paths to Bézier. Then you could generate Metafont fonts from that, and from that you could get ttf, otf and whatnot.

gucci-on-fleek

5 months ago

> Then you could generate Metafont fonts from that, and from that you could get ttf, otf

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.

al_borland

5 months ago

There used to be a form to fill out in Sky Mall to be able to do this through some service. Back in the days where you would fill it out by hand and mail your handwriting to them.

JKCalhoun

5 months ago

Sky Mall, LOL.

(No) thanks for the memories.

marginalien

5 months ago

This is fantastic. Thank you for sharing. I am currently preparing for a workshop with children in which I want to let them “draw” their own website/web-apps. So far I did not plan to let them create their own fonts, as I did not know how to, but now I know. Thanks to you!

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.

oftheirc

5 months ago

Hi, I would like to contribute to this if you'll have me.

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.

apparent

5 months ago

They say that you remember more when handwriting than when typing. I believe that. 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 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.

jkingsman

5 months ago

Perhaps the visual aspect is responsible for a bit, but I know that even notes that I never reviewed after the fact but handwrote had more sticking power in my head than when I typed.

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).

mockingloris

5 months ago

> They say that you remember more when handwriting than when typing

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..."

gxs

5 months ago

This is not a humble brag by any means, just sharing my experience

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

rgoulter

5 months ago

> It’s too slow and instead of focusing on formulating my thoughts or capturing what’s being said

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.

globular-toast

5 months ago

Your handwriting skills are due to lack of practice. You weren't born typing at 121wpm.

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).

gxs

5 months ago

I don’t know man, my point was more than I probably don’t lean the actual skill of writing fast, it wasn’t necessary lack of practice

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

KaiserPro

5 months ago

> Your handwriting skills are due to lack of practice.

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.

lostlogin

5 months ago

> I type 121 wpm

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.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand

dsr_

5 months ago

My handwriting was terrible -- until I took a technical drafting course in school. The two things I got out of it that lasted were readable handwriting and better arrowheads on lines, when I remember to do them properly.

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.)

dotancohen

5 months ago

  > 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?
In my experience, you do. I use a Boox E-ink tablet to write on, and I completely concur that just using the stylus to write things commits them to my memory. The things that I've typed, I have to go back and look at.

kragen

5 months ago

I did this in a much more manual way in 02006: http://canonical.org/~kragen/oilpencil/

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.

AfterHIA

5 months ago

I was abused as a kid so my handwriting is crap. I also don't know cursive very well. I feel like if they made a font of my handwriting everyone would say, "woah, oh! There goes Mr. Poory McIrresponsible Parents!" If you tried to pull it up in Microsoft Word the font (typeface) name would be, "Danny Wets The Bed."

That's an aside though; great job mate mega post!

itomato

5 months ago

There was retail boxed software that would do this on Windows 95 that included worksheets and software. You'd write examples in each square of the worksheet that you would then scan in and convert to TTF with their proprietary software.

I would say it seems like a simple enough task for a weekend project but I know better.

AndrewStephens

5 months ago

I did this for my old blog back in the 2000s - I used an online service that produced a pretty bad font that I could clean up using FontForge into something reasonable. It was a fun novelty but my penmanship is pretty bad and once in a while I would get flamed in the comments in my own handwriting.

c4p0

5 months ago

I'm developing a web open source application to create your own handwritten font. It's already functional, and I have plans to add new features. I encourage you to try it out. https://ownfonts.cielo.ovh/ Here's the source code: https://github.com/c4p0/OwnFonts If you're interested in collaborating on the project, you can send me a message on GitHub.

user

5 months ago

[deleted]

hodgehog11

5 months ago

I always thought this was such a cool idea to preserve the handwriting style of someone you love (I adore my partner's handwriting), but the conversion to a font never seems to keep the spacing right, as you show in the final comparison.

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.

WhyNotHugo

5 months ago

The author’s experience summarises well the sad state of GUI apps, especially in the open source world.

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.

jdranczewski

5 months ago

The description of trying to use FontForge cracked me up, I recall trying it myself a while ago and it going very similarly!

dodobirdy

5 months ago

Is the tech good enough for it to be undetectable. If I were to hypothetically use it to complete the handwritten assignments that my old school professors demand (in much of the yappier courses) would this slip through without getting caught. This is all hypothetical of course.

edweis

5 months ago

What a bummer the website https://www.calligraphr.com is a subscription model. I could impulsively pay $100 to get my handwriting as a TTF font and be quite happy about it.

akshayshah

5 months ago

TFA goes into this in some depth: there's an option to subscribe for one month with a one-time payment. After the month is up, your account automatically reverts to the free plan and you get an email with your fonts attached.

urbandw311er

5 months ago

The subscription is only for backups and ongoing changes - you get to keep your font forever. I think the author mentions that the whole experience cost them about $10

clickety_clack

5 months ago

I might try this with my own handwriting. How well does it replicate an indecipherable scrawl?

2Gkashmiri

5 months ago

I had an iPhone 2g back in 2010 when we had the first app store and cydia.

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

Liftyee

5 months ago

Honestly, this idea is intriguing enought that I might actually pay for a month of that service. I'm willing to make that my first software purchase because I want to support symbiotic business practices like the one described (as opposed to adversarial rent-seeking ones seen all too often these days).

nartho

5 months ago

>Next, I wanted to change the heading fonts from a monospace font to something cursive

The font created is print, not cursive.

wjrb

5 months ago

Maybe cursive in a "Comic Sans in the default 'cursive' fallback font on Windows" kind of way.

spcebar

5 months ago

At least in the world of web, cursive is a typographic term referring to fonts that aren't sans or sans serif and are typically used for decorative purposes.

pessimizer

5 months ago

I'm pretty sure that's not true in the world of typography. Cursive there afaik mostly means that it has a ton of ligatures (i.e. a ton of "sorts.")

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.

OJFord

5 months ago

Even like this where it's not just not 'joined-up', but not even independent cursive characters? This is just printed characters, as GP says, this seems particularly relevant because I'd think the hardest part of doing this with cursive handwriting would be all the combinations of the ways different letters flow together - if you restrict yourself to independent characters then you remove that problem.

samyar

5 months ago

If i do that you will need archaeologists to find out what i have writen

WalterBright

5 months ago

Hmm. A font of my own handwriting sounds like unbreakable encryption!

croisillon

5 months ago

Related:

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!

ycombinete

5 months ago

I’ve always been excited by posts like this but they always end up looking like far too much work for my taste.

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!”

wainguo

5 months ago

Cool，I also want a font for my handwriting

esafak

5 months ago

The kerning is not great.

fhuchut

5 months ago

That font doesn’t suck.

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)

wizzwizz4

5 months ago

Why do you believe in graphology?