Improved Charis SIL with smallcaps

[Vakke]

Hello,

I've had some free time and interest to learn to use the FontForge so I've made a rough updated version of the ChareInk from the newest available version of Charis SIL 6 as the original is based on the Charis SIL 5.

I've lowered the default line spacing to match the ChareInk and copied the kerning tables from JSWolfs work.

Regular and Bold fonts were easy to do as the kerning table import didn't have any hiccups. Both the Italic and Bold Italic accepted the import of one kerning table and I manually made the other as an exact copy of JSWolfs table to both of them. As of now they look decent enough but have some rough edges.

I hope interested parties have use of this and maybe the original creator can make use these as a help or reference point when creating the new and original versions at some point of time!

I'll enclose the Zip file of the updated versions here as a ChareInk6 and I hope that by doing this I haven't broken any copyrights etc. as that was definitely not my intention.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Vakke

Hello,

I've had some free time and interest to learn to use the FontForge so I've made a rough updated version of the ChareInk from the newest available version of Charis SIL 6 as the original is based on the Charis SIL 5.

I've lowered the default line spacing to match the ChareInk and copied the kerning tables from JSWolfs work.

Regular and Bold fonts were easy to do as the kerning table import didn't have any hiccups. Both the Italic and Bold Italic accepted the import of one kerning table and I manually made the other as an exact copy of JSWolfs table to both of them. As of now they look decent enough but have some rough edges.

I hope interested parties have use of this and maybe the original creator can make use these as a help or reference point when creating the new and original versions at some point of time!

I'll enclose the Zip file of the updated versions here as a ChareInk6 and I hope that by doing this I haven't broken any copyrights etc. as that was definitely not my intention.

Is this hinted? If not, it might not look good on a Kindle with recent firmware.

Anyway, I'll give it a try on my Libra 2 and see how it looks.

[Vakke]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Is this hinted? If not, it might not look good on a Kindle with recent firmware.

Anyway, I'll give it a try on my Libra 2 and see how it looks.

I have to say that I'm not sure.

I've tried to find out hinting from your original font which should have it but I cannot find any hinting instructions on the letters so I guess I'm not proficient enough with the software yet.

The new Charis SIL 6 font has many TrueType intructions but I'm not sure what they mean. I'm able to use AutoHinting so my guess is that the font doesn't have it automatically. I read from the manual that if the font has instructions it should also be hinted to avoid any problems. After this I'm actually not sure at all what the default font has

I also have Kobo Libra 2 so I cannot test how the font looks on Kindles or any other devices.

Let me know how it looks from the experts eye and let's see can it be made better easily!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Vakke

I have to say that I'm not sure.

I've tried to find out hinting from your original font which should have it but I cannot find any hinting instructions on the letters so I guess I'm not proficient enough with the software yet.

The new Charis SIL 6 font has many TrueType intructions but I'm not sure what they mean. I'm able to use AutoHinting so my guess is that the font doesn't have it automatically. I read from the manual that if the font has instructions it should also be hinted to avoid any problems. After this I'm actually not sure at all what the default font has

I also have Kobo Libra 2 so I cannot test how the font looks on Kindles or any other devices.

Let me know how it looks from the experts eye and let's see can it be made better easily!

I'll try it on my PW3. I can do so tomorrow and also try it on my Libra 2, I use ttfautohint to add hinting. I know it works well.

[Vakke]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'll try it on my PW3. I can do so tomorrow and also try it on my Libra 2, I use ttfautohint to add hinting. I know it works well.

Sounds good! The font panose weight on Italic is on Book and I've used your No Weight version so I matched all the contrasts and weights of those in a small update.

I'll also link it here to be sure!

[Vakke]

I've read a few books with the new ChareInk6 and I've enjoyed it with the slight differences it has to the original.

But with more reading time I've came up with few ideas how to make the font feel better for atleast my preferred way of reading.

The original ChareInk and Charis SIL have a bit wide space and I've done most of my reading with Georgia or Times New Roman which both are quite similar in the character size. Both of the Georgia and Times New Roman have a bit narrower space and I edited the space in ChareInk6 to match those with the overall wideness of all the characters taken into account. For example, Georgia has a space width of 494 in FontForge and the ChareInk has 600 by default. Into my eye and using the FontForge metrics ChareInk has about 1-2% wider characters, for example, lower case a is 1032 in Georgia and 1042 in ChareInk.

So therefore I lowered the default space of 600 to 500 and atleast I enjoy it a bit better as it makes the reading flow more as there isn't too many bigger gaps. I also adjusted the space wideness accordingly of both bold variants to match the difference of bold variants in Georgia.

After that I ran the new font throught the AutoHint software to create hinted versions of the ChareInk6 for readers on the Kindle side to also enjoy.

Hope you find it useful!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Vakke

I've read a few books with the new ChareInk6 and I've enjoyed it with the slight differences it has to the original.

But with more reading time I've came up with few ideas how to make the font feel better for atleast my preferred way of reading.

The original ChareInk and Charis SIL have a bit wide space and I've done most of my reading with Georgia or Times New Roman which both are quite similar in the character size. Both of the Georgia and Times New Roman have a bit narrower space and I edited the space in ChareInk6 to match those with the overall wideness of all the characters taken into account. For example, Georgia has a space width of 494 in FontForge and the ChareInk has 600 by default. Into my eye and using the FontForge metrics ChareInk has about 1-2% wider characters, for example, lower case a is 1032 in Georgia and 1042 in ChareInk.

So therefore I lowered the default space of 600 to 500 and atleast I enjoy it a bit better as it makes the reading flow more as there isn't too many bigger gaps. I also adjusted the space wideness accordingly of both bold variants to match the difference of bold variants in Georgia.

After that I ran the new font throught the AutoHint software to create hinted versions of the ChareInk6 for readers on the Kindle side to also enjoy.

Hope you find it useful!

Please don't change the spacing. ChareInk needs the spacing it has in order to work well on a Kobo with the patch to reduce the space between words for KePub. This will ruin the font. ChareInk has worked well with the spacing it has. Please don't do this and if you want to do this, just do it for yourself only. So please remove the attached fonts from your post. While you may enjoy it, I won't enjoy it as the space won't be large enough and others may also not enjoy it.

[JSWolf]

I've been using the new ChareInk6 and I've found some places where the kerning should be fixed. Once I do that, I'll post the new versions. But they will not be with the reduced space as that won't work.

[Vakke]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Please don't change the spacing. ChareInk needs the spacing it has in order to work well on a Kobo with the patch to reduce the space between words for KePub. This will ruin the font. ChareInk has worked well with the spacing it has. Please don't do this and if you want to do this, just do it for yourself only. So please remove the attached fonts from your post. While you may enjoy it, I won't enjoy it as the space won't be large enough and others may also not enjoy it.

As you said, ChareInk works well with the custom patch which reduces the spacing on KePubs.

I do not use it and I think there are other people who do not use the patch to alter this original KePub spacing. Therefore I implemented this change for my specific use case and stated reasons of it on the post. So far I've found it useful and better but others may find it worse, therefore it's just an alternative.

I also wanted to state that the custom patch reduces the spacing on KePubs on all fonts. I'm using quite a few fonts while I read to keep the experience fresh. For example, Georgia has lower space width and with the custom patch it becomes quite narrow with space width under 400. Merriweather and EB Garamond are other fonts I use which have even narrower width, Merriweather has 470 and EB Garamond has just 200. Using the custom patch to make original ChareInk better can make other fonts not that way.

If you want, I can remove the post and post the Zips into a different thread with a different name so readers don't mix it with your work if you so please, but I found this version also useful for the reasons I presented. The previous file above is with the original space width so it's still available.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've been using the new ChareInk6 and I've found some places where the kerning should be fixed. Once I do that, I'll post the new versions. But they will not be with the reduced space as that won't work.

On the kerning side I totally agree. There is also some additional character pairs which should benefit from kerning!

[JSWolf]

I was thinking of an alternate solution. Post all versions together. In the same post. And remove the older versions. That way whatever version is wanted can be downloaded. Also, there needs versions with added weight. So there's...

No weight no modified space
No weight no modified space hinted
Weight added no modified space
Weight added no modified space hinted

No weight modified space
No weight modified space hinted
Weight added modified space
Weight added modified space hinted

Once I make the kerning changes, you. can copy over the kerning tables and I'll post all of these variations in the first post along with what's there. I'll also make sure your name is there to give you full credit.

Does this sound OK?

[Vakke]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I was thinking of an alternate solution. Post all versions together. In the same post. And remove the older versions. That way whatever version is wanted can be downloaded. Also, there needs versions with added weight. So there's...

No weight no modified space
No weight no modified space hinted
Weight added no modified space
Weight added no modified space hinted

No weight modified space
No weight modified space hinted
Weight added modified space
Weight added modified space hinted

Once I make the kerning changes, you. can copy over the kerning tables and I'll post all of these variations in the first post along with what's there. I'll also make sure your name is there to give you full credit.

Does this sound OK?

Sounds good to me, something for everybody to use is always good!

Hit me up with a message when you've done with the kerning tables.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Vakke

Sounds good to me, something for everybody to use is always good!

Hit me up with a message when you've done with the kerning tables.

I'll fix up the non-space reduced version and you can copy the kerning tables over. I do think we should change the name to the space reduced version so both versions can be installed.

[Vakke]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'll fix up the non-space reduced version and you can copy the kerning tables over. I do think we should change the name to the space reduced version so both versions can be installed.

Sure of course. I can change the space reduced versions name while editing the tables for, for example ChareInk SR, or something that way to indicate S(pace) R(eduction).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Vakke

Sure of course. I can change the space reduced versions name while editing the tables for, for example ChareInk SR, or something that way to indicate S(pace) R(eduction).

It would be best to keep the font name with no spaces.

[JSWolf]

As I'm reading my current eBook, I'm marking words that could use some kerning fixing. After I finish the book, I can then start fixing kerning.