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| Your Handwriting 2.0 |
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Software Reviews June 2002 • Vol.13 Issue 6 Page(s) 21 in print issue |
Your Handwriting 2.0 Script Your Own Scribbles | ||
 Times New Roman is one tired, trite font. And the dozens of other fonts installed on your PC might be more interesting, but they're just as impersonal. Put an end to your font funk with Your Handwriting 2.0, a super-slick software tool that lets you copy your own illegible scrawl and install it as a customized font for use in Windows programs. Before you can use your special font, you'll have to provide your PC with a writing sample. To do so, you need to capture your sample using a scanner and convert it to a script font. The Handwriting Assistant wizard appears to guide you through the conversion process. This wizard offers two ways to produce a font: The automatic IFA (Intelligent Font Analyzer) and the Custom font creator. As we'll explain later, these methods produce different results. For our first attempt, we decided on the simpler and quicker IFA function. Your first step in using the IFA is to print out the IFA sheet. This sheet has a grid in which you scribble 16 sample characters—the program will extrapolate an entire font set from these few numbers and letters. You're encouraged to write using a felt-tip pen because the lines from a ballpoint aren't thick and dark enough for this purpose (our black Sharpie marker was a tad too broad for crisp characters, though). You write on an imaginary baseline denoted by tiny marks on the grid boxes. Your computer uses this baseline to accurately mimic letters, such as "j" and "g," that dive below the baseline. We think that attempting to accurately write on a nonexistent line is tough. However, you can quickly click back to the Custom font creator and print out a helpful "line mirror" to place under the IFA sheet, eliminating a lot of guesswork. We can't fathom why Data Becker neglected to provide a line mirror option on the IFA dialog boxes, but we found this flaw annoying. The next step is to scan your sample characters. Our first attempt failed because we scanned using the color setting in our scanner driver, while the software manual clearly indicates that you should perform scans with the line art or black-and-white setting. A quick driver adjustment fixed this problem, and the program accepted the second scan. Your Handwriting doesn't automatically recognize your test characters. That's why the next step is to map the items you scribbled. To do so, click your sample character and click its equivalent in the provided Windows character set. This quick matching process builds a model your computer uses to design other letters and numbers. Though your signature is obviously more than one character, you can assign it to a single mapped character, as well. Pick a little-used symbol, however, to avoid the annoyance of having your John Hancock appear whenever you use a hyphen (-) or semicolon (;). Once you've mapped your characters, you can tweak them by altering line weight and size. Your Handwriting provides two "ideal" characters as a guideline. You adjust sliders assigned to thickness and overall character size until your characters match the model. Click Start and the program analyzes your handiwork and creates your personalized font set. The computer takes a minute or two to produce your font set, after which you can review your personalized characters using the Font Editor. This editor lets you fine-tune the tiniest nuances of each dot and curl. If your experience is anything like ours, you'll need the Font Editor. We weren't overly impressed with the fonts this program generated for us. Although the sample characters we provided were replicated exactly as we put them to paper, the characters produced by extrapolation looked unfamiliar. Add in the fact that the program mixed cursive characters with our chicken-scratch print, and these mangled words were enough to give sixth-grade teachers everywhere nightmares for weeks. However, the more detailed Custom mode, which requires you to provide many more character samples, duplicates every letter you make to, well, a "T." Plus, this mode has better editing tools so that every "i" is dotted perfectly. Although the automated font generator might not mimic everyone's handwriting flawlessly, the manual mode is worth the price of this program. Invest a little time and effort toward tweaking your squiggly doodles to precise illegibility—then leave readers cross-eyed, en masse.  by Nathan Chandler Your Handwriting 2.0 $19.95 Data Becker (617) 614-0600 http://www.databecker.com
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