Making a Font of My Handwriting Chris Smith embarked on a personal project to make his website feel more uniquely his own, aiming to add personal touches that reflect his style. One such touch was changing his site’s heading fonts from monospace to cursive handwriting-style fonts. Unable to find a suitable font, he decided to create his own. Attempting to Create the Font Using Open Source Tools Chris tried to make the font himself using Inkscape (vector graphics editor) and FontForge (open-source font editor). Process: Drew letters (A, B, C) in Inkscape. Tried importing them into FontForge. Challenges with FontForge: Clunky, unintuitive UI. Difficult to import SVG glyphs properly. Bézier curve editing was frustrating and imprecise. Overall user experience was worse than expected for open-source software. Also tried Inkscape's built-in SVG font support: Too fiddly for complex glyphs requiring path merging. Required trial and error and advanced vector editing skills. Conclusion: Open source tools were a frustrating experience for a beginner in font creation. Discovering and Using Calligraphr Found mention of Calligraphr, a closed-source hosted font creation tool. Pricing model interested Chris: Free version with limitations (75 glyphs, no ligatures). Pro version available for £8/month with a one-time payment option. Working method of Calligraphr: Generate printable template sheets. Fill them in by hand with a pen. Scan and upload them to the site. The service extracts glyphs, allows editing and alignment, and exports a TTF font file. Chris’s process with Calligraphr: Filled out 4 pages of templates twice to have variants. Added custom ligatures like "Re," "To," "ers," etc., for a natural joined-up handwriting look. Used a Sharpie for a strong, informal style. Scanned with iPhone's scan document function. Calligraphr's UI helped preview and edit fonts easily: Adjusted letter vertical alignment and size. Tweaked letter spacing to create a joined-up look. Edited rogue pixels by deleting errors directly. Chris found this iterative process satisfying and productive. Final Results and Experience The final font: Successfully reflects Chris’s personal handwriting style. Not for document forgery, but good for website headers and captions. Legible even at smaller sizes partly due to the Sharpie ink weight. Cost and effort: £8 plus some manual work was economical compared to open-source attempts. Calligraphr's business practices impressed Chris: Transparent pricing. No forced auto-renewing subscriptions. Pro-user feature: when subscription lapses, they emailed him a JSON backup of the font data. Chris highly recommends Calligraphr for anyone wanting to make a handwriting font. Supporting Content on Chris’s Website The font is actively used on Chris’s website. Related posts linked include: "Escaping Spotify the hard way" "How I use Tailscale" "The Ethics of LLMs" "If all you have is a hammer..." Various ways to contact Chris via BlueSky, email, and support options like Ko-fi. Links to Chris’s other online profiles (GitHub, Bluesky, BoardGameGeek, Letterboxd). --- Summary: Chris Smith documents his journey from struggling with open-source font creation tools to finding an efficient, user-friendly alternative in Calligraphr. By using Calligraphr’s unique template and scan method, plus its intuitive editing interface, he crafted a cursive handwriting font that personalizes his website. He praises Calligraphr not only for its functionality but also for its transparent, pro-consumer business approach.