Recommend Handwritten Custom Font

BookCat · 12-14-2018, 01:47 PM

I've been looking for a nice handwritten custom font for my Kindle PW2. The ones I've found are nice but seem to have only one type, not the whole set: regular, bold, italic, italic bold. I've read that it's best to have all these variations of a font.

The reason I'm looking for a handwriting font is to use in books which are diaries, or for young novels. For example, I recently purchased (it's free) A Diary of a Private School Kid by Penn Brooks, from Amazon, so would like a young, handwritten font for this.

However, for more mature diaries, I'm looking for an elegant, but very readable font, preferably not quite cursive.

I found a few of both, but they don't have the entire set. Do I lose a book's italics etc if the font doesn't have an italic variation?

Any ideas?
Thank you.

HarryT · 12-14-2018, 02:22 PM

No. If there's no bold or italic fonts present, the Kindle's rendering engine will synthesise them. This may not be entirely successful for a "handwriting" font - I'd suggest trying it and seeing for yourself.

BookCat · 12-15-2018, 12:51 PM

I've tried several on pages of books which I know contain italic. So far none of the handwritten fonts have differentiated between the regular text and that in italic.

Is there some way round this?

DuckieTigger · 12-16-2018, 11:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BookCat

I've tried several on pages of books which I know contain italic. So far none of the handwritten fonts have differentiated between the regular text and that in italic.

Is there some way round this?

Only way around it would be to generate the missing font styles. It doesn't have to be the same font, you could substitute with a different style. E.g. use a cursive font for normal, and printed for italic. Unfortunately you need to do that in a proper font editor that lets you internally change the metadata to have the same font-family name as simply renaming the file won't do.

BookCat · 12-16-2018, 01:22 PM

DuckieTigger: Thanks for the advice, but I don't think I'm capable of doing this. I barely understand the term 'metadata'. I don't suppose you know of any handwritten font families which are free?

DuckieTigger · 12-17-2018, 12:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BookCat

DuckieTigger: Thanks for the advice, but I don't think I'm capable of doing this. I barely understand the term 'metadata'. I don't suppose you know of any handwritten font families which are free?

Unfortunately no. Metadata refers to information about a file that tells the exact specifications so a program or app knows how to handle it. Just like in ebooks where calibre let you edit the author, title, series information. For fonts it is not that easy as there is no easy to use and free program that does that. Even the paid for programs are horribly complicated, IMHO.

You can still use it with an incomplete set, but you already seen that the automatic substitution or generation for the missing styles fails. You been lucky that all you got was an incorrect formatting. It used to crash the Kindle occasionally when an incomplete font set was used. I am not sure if that got fixed, but I won't chance it. I did troubleshoot it long enough to pin the crashes I experienced down to incomplete font sets. Others that had crashes and deleted all custom fonts to have exactly (no more and no less) regular, regular italic, regular bold, and regular bold italic did no longer have any crashes.

BookCat · 12-17-2018, 12:44 PM

Oh well, I suppose it's a choice between seeing the italicised words, using a normal font, or using a handwritten font and losing the italic. Hmmm . . .

rosemaryknits · 12-18-2018, 10:17 PM

See if there are any on this page that you like. I love playing with custom fonts. I really like matching the font to the book, just like you are doing.

https://fonts.google.com/?category=Handwriting

BookCat · 12-19-2018, 02:59 PM

Thanks for the link.

The font Mali seems to have all styles, but I can't see where to download it.

DuckieTigger · 12-19-2018, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BookCat

Thanks for the link.

The font Mali seems to have all styles, but I can't see where to download it.

In google fonts you add a font with the (+), then on bottom it has a black bar with xx fonts selected, open that, and it has a download icon in top right of that opened selection. Might have to customize and select the styles you want. And you need the desktop site, the mobile site appears to be lacking the download option.

12-14-2018, 01:47 PM	#1
BookCat C L J Posts: 2,912 Karma: 21115458 Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Birmingham UK Device: Sony e-reader 505, Kindle PW2, Kindle PW3, Kobo Libra2	Recommend Handwritten Custom Font I've been looking for a nice handwritten custom font for my Kindle PW2. The ones I've found are nice but seem to have only one type, not the whole set: regular, bold, italic, italic bold. I've read that it's best to have all these variations of a font. The reason I'm looking for a handwriting font is to use in books which are diaries, or for young novels. For example, I recently purchased (it's free) A Diary of a Private School Kid by Penn Brooks, from Amazon, so would like a young, handwritten font for this. However, for more mature diaries, I'm looking for an elegant, but very readable font, preferably not quite cursive. I found a few of both, but they don't have the entire set. Do I lose a book's italics etc if the font doesn't have an italic variation? Any ideas? Thank you.

12-19-2018, 02:59 PM	#9
BookCat C L J Posts: 2,912 Karma: 21115458 Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Birmingham UK Device: Sony e-reader 505, Kindle PW2, Kindle PW3, Kobo Libra2	Thanks for the link. The font Mali seems to have all styles, but I can't see where to download it. Last edited by BookCat; 12-19-2018 at 03:32 PM.

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12-14-2018, 02:22 PM	#2
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	No. If there's no bold or italic fonts present, the Kindle's rendering engine will synthesise them. This may not be entirely successful for a "handwriting" font - I'd suggest trying it and seeing for yourself.

12-15-2018, 12:51 PM	#3
BookCat C L J Posts: 2,912 Karma: 21115458 Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Birmingham UK Device: Sony e-reader 505, Kindle PW2, Kindle PW3, Kobo Libra2	I've tried several on pages of books which I know contain italic. So far none of the handwritten fonts have differentiated between the regular text and that in italic. Is there some way round this?

12-16-2018, 01:22 PM	#5
BookCat C L J Posts: 2,912 Karma: 21115458 Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Birmingham UK Device: Sony e-reader 505, Kindle PW2, Kindle PW3, Kobo Libra2	DuckieTigger: Thanks for the advice, but I don't think I'm capable of doing this. I barely understand the term 'metadata'. I don't suppose you know of any handwritten font families which are free?

12-17-2018, 12:44 PM	#7
BookCat C L J Posts: 2,912 Karma: 21115458 Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Birmingham UK Device: Sony e-reader 505, Kindle PW2, Kindle PW3, Kobo Libra2	Oh well, I suppose it's a choice between seeing the italicised words, using a normal font, or using a handwritten font and losing the italic. Hmmm . . .

12-18-2018, 10:17 PM	#8
rosemaryknits Member Posts: 24 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2015 Device: paperwhite	See if there are any on this page that you like. I love playing with custom fonts. I really like matching the font to the book, just like you are doing. https://fonts.google.com/?category=Handwriting