This might be a great crypto tool! I can turn my hand writing into a font and then keep printed hard copies of all of my data! No one will be able to read it!
Security through obscurity.
Turn your handwriting into a font
41–50 of 62 posts
Re: Turn your handwriting into a font
#42Better do it five or six times, and then switch among all those captured fonts in the document, to have some variation in the letter forms. Otherwise your document will be the typographical equivalent of a drum track from 80's synth pop. Ooh, hit me with that bit-for-bit identical snare drum sample again: snap, snap, ...
Re: Turn your handwriting into a font
#43One of the charms of a printed book is the imperfection of the fonts and the impressions of the fonts. Each 'a' impression is slightly different - maybe a little higher, a little lower, a little blotchier, etc. But if I read an ebook, the letters are always identical. I've often thought that if I wrote an ebook reader, I'd use a font that mimics the imperfections in printed works. I'd have maybe 20-30 different 'a' i…
Such differences also served as a forensic tool for Sherlock Holmes, as in "A Case of Identity":
> “It is a curious thing,” remarked Holmes, “that a typewriter has really quite as much individuality as a man’s handwriting. Unless they are quite new, no two of them write exactly alike. Some letters get more worn than others, and some wear only on one side. Now, you remark in this note of yours, Mr. Windibank, that in every case there is some little slurring over of the ‘e,’ and a slight defect in the tail of the ‘r.’ There are fourteen other characteristics, but those are the more obvious.”[0]
[0] http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/32/the-adventures-of-sherlock-holm...
Re: Turn your handwriting into a font
#44In case you want something a bit more real than what font engines offer, check out https://handwriting.io (disclosure: I work there)
Re: Turn your handwriting into a font
#45One of the charms of a printed book is the imperfection of the fonts and the impressions of the fonts. Each 'a' impression is slightly different - maybe a little higher, a little lower, a little blotchier, etc. But if I read an ebook, the letters are always identical. I've often thought that if I wrote an ebook reader, I'd use a font that mimics the imperfections in printed works. I'd have maybe 20-30 different 'a' i…
I should add that I buy paperbacks regularly, often paying more for them than the ebook. I then run 'em through the scanner and read the scanned book on my tablet. I just like the imperfect look of a scanned paperback page than the perfect ebooks. I also like the paperback formatting better than the auto-flow ebook layouts. I figure I get the best of ebook and hardcopy this way!
Plus then you own the scan and don't have to worry about DRM.
> I then run 'em through the scanner
Does that take a long time? Do you have a setup to make it faster than scanning page by page?
Re: Turn your handwriting into a font
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I should add that I buy paperbacks regularly, often paying more for them than the ebook. I then run 'em through the scanner and read the scanned book on my tablet. I just like the imperfect look of a scanned paperback page than the perfect ebooks. I also like the paperback formatting better than the auto-flow ebook layouts. I figure I get the best of ebook and hardcopy this way!
Plus then you own the scan and don't have to worry about DRM. > I then run 'em through the scanner Does that take a long time? Do you have a setup to make it faster than scanning page by page?
It takes about 5-10 minutes for a typical paperback. A fat one might take 20 minutes tops. I am a fidgety person and cannot sit still, so I keep my hands busy and scan a book while I watch the news on TV. I use a stack slicer and a Fujitsu duplex scanner.
Re: Turn your handwriting into a font
#47One of the charms of a printed book is the imperfection of the fonts and the impressions of the fonts. Each 'a' impression is slightly different - maybe a little higher, a little lower, a little blotchier, etc. But if I read an ebook, the letters are always identical. I've often thought that if I wrote an ebook reader, I'd use a font that mimics the imperfections in printed works. I'd have maybe 20-30 different 'a' i…
It’s a similar deal with music engraving: the classics had variation, but most software is painfully mechanical. And that makes it subtly harder to read. One of Lilypond’s key goals was to imitate the variability of the old masters, the organic feel.
I’ve had similar thoughts on text layout as well. And I’d really love it if someone were to sponsor me to make such a thing, because as it is I doubt I’ll ever get to it… so many things to do, so little time.
As a practising Christian I find similar with printed Bibles comparing it with Bible software: the software we have is painfully inferior in many regards (no fixed pagination, for example, though fixed pagination is great for memory). And that’s an area that I do intend to do something about… one of these years.
There are many marvellous things about our technology now; but there were many marvellous things about what came before as well, and we''re often losing those features (as well as not taking advantage of the full possibilities of our new technology, settling for third best because it’s easy to implement).
Re: Turn your handwriting into a font
#48One of the charms of a printed book is the imperfection of the fonts and the impressions of the fonts. Each 'a' impression is slightly different - maybe a little higher, a little lower, a little blotchier, etc. But if I read an ebook, the letters are always identical. I've often thought that if I wrote an ebook reader, I'd use a font that mimics the imperfections in printed works. I'd have maybe 20-30 different 'a' i…
It’s a similar deal with music engraving: the classics had variation, but most software is painfully mechanical. And that makes it subtly harder to read. One of Lilypond’s key goals was to imitate the variability of the old masters, the organic feel. I’ve had similar thoughts on text layout as well. And I’d really love it if someone were to sponsor me to make such a thing, because as it is I doubt I’ll ever get to it…
The old illuminated texts were things of beauty, that's for sure. Though nobody could afford to buy a hand-lettered book, then or now.
Re: Turn your handwriting into a font
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s a similar deal with music engraving: the classics had variation, but most software is painfully mechanical. And that makes it subtly harder to read. One of Lilypond’s key goals was to imitate the variability of the old masters, the organic feel. I’ve had similar thoughts on text layout as well. And I’d really love it if someone were to sponsor me to make such a thing, because as it is I doubt I’ll ever get to it…
The old illuminated texts were things of beauty, that's for sure. Though nobody could afford to buy a hand-lettered book, then or now.
Eh, illuminated texts were beauty at the cost of function. They looked impressive, but they were not especially practical. Although beauty is nice, I tend to be more interested in things that were strictly functional where we’ve regressed. Musicians certainly report the scores of old masters with their variability easier to read than modern, rigidly consistent ones; easier to keep your place in, and all that. Subtle stuff. And that’s the sort of thing that Lilypond aims for (and certainly succeeds in at the very least partially, I’d say mostly).
Re: Turn your handwriting into a font
#50While idea is neat, there are artists who design fonts based on your hardwriting with better quality. While I would like sometimes to use my handwriting digatally, you cannot create "real" effect without having every ligature (two, three leters) written in the template.
Just a thought, instead of having every ligature you could let a camera/tablet observe how you are writing certain "test sentences" and turn this data into autoencoder neural network that would turn any text into "your handwriting".