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Is there anyway to make a font that is already bolded THICKER? I do not want to change the space between letters or words or make the words take up more horizontal space so kerning and spacing settings are out. Just want each letter to be a bit more dense.
The font is red with black outline. The outline has been adjusted thicker but if I go any further with that, I will lose the red interior, defeating the purpose of the two town font.
Try duplicating the word and applying a thick outline to the duplicate and put behind your original. You may need to make the corners round rather than mitre. You can then adjust the thickness of the outline to make sure the letters don't touch etc.
We don't want to make the outline thicker. The outline is fine the way it is.
We want to make the font thicker so more red shows.
The font is Times New Roman Bold, in red with black outline as seen in the image attached.
The boss loves the overall design. He would like a slightly thicker lettering if possible so it is easier to see from a distance.
Make the outline color the same as your fill color.
OR
Create a glow shadow which has no feathering or transparency and is the same color as the fill.
OR
Go to your Xara disk and look for a serif font similar to Times Romans but which is "thicker".
OK sorry.
Same solution.
Bold text add outline and make it the same colour as fill to produce thicker letters
Duplicate and turn outline black on duplicate and make thicker still and place behind. Adjust outline of front object to make letters thicker or thinner as required.
Adjust outline of back object to give you the thickness of outline you want.
Derek
Samrc,
Are you sure your using Times New Roman Bold? Looks to me like it is Times New Roman.
You can use the contour tool and then "inset path".
You don't even need to convert text to shapes, it works straight from any text.
Sure: Create your text in red without the black outline
- click Bold
- Create a clone of the text ( ctl-K )
- Nudge the clone to the right a few times with the right arrow key until it looks better, but not so much that the serifs start to separate.
- Group the original and the clone.
- click on the outline control and choose your ouline thickness.
- Done.
( note: the end result will be slightly wider horizontally, but only by the nudged amount)
-Andrew ( Text seen on a pregnant woman's t-shirt )
Yes, I am using the BOLD element, even though the image I pasted does not appear to do so.:) Even had my coworker look at it and he agreed too.
I did change font and even did a search for a WIDE version of the font, free preferably, but so far neither solution was right for me.
Will check into the other suggestions mentioned and post back later. Thank you for the input!!:D
Adding outlines to a font to make it heavier is not the right answer.
The thing to do is to use a Type Face/Family that comes in more than the usual Windows 4 styles, Regular, Bold and Italic and Bold Italic.
There are several solutions. One is Softmaker Megafonts a German foundry that produces a range of typefaces that come in a large variety of weights, widths, and styles.
Another is Adobe Multiple Master fonts. Multiple Master fonts are user definable. You can make them as heavy or as light as you want. MM Fonts have between one and three axis and you can create almost any size shape and width of font. The downside to MM fonts is there are not that many to chose from and you need Adobe Type Manage. However this might not be true for Windows XP.
Another solution is Open Type fonts which come in a large variety of fonts, many of which have nore than the usual 4 styles.
Adding an outline to a font is almost as bad as using a tick mark instead of a proper apostrophe (alt + 0146).
Gary
These were my thoughts also. I am using a font that comes with all 4 windows styles, and selected bold version. My boss likes serif fonts (his favorite is Times New Roman) but wants heavier versions than what can be achieved with standard bolding.Quote:
Adding outlines to a font to make it heavier is not the right answer.
The thing to do is to use a Type Face/Family that comes in more than the usual Windows 4 styles, Regular, Bold and Italic and Bold Italic.
In some programs I can just stretch the lettering width without really adjusting the overal word width. Thought it might be possible to do it in XX.
I have a few MM fonts installed and Adobe type manager 4.1, an antique leftover from when I used PageMaker and PhotoShop. Did not know I could use those fonts in XARA! Will set my preferences to look at those and see what can be done with those!
Will look at the links you provided.
Did find a nice free font site that offered a HEAVY version of the same font which did the trick this time. http://www.webpagepublicity.com/
Thank you!
I'm a newbie with XaraX, but did you try entering type, selecting it and stretching it using the stretch handles? If you click on the text tool, then select the stretched type, you have all kinds of kerning, line spacing and other options.Quote:
Originally Posted by samrc
Thanks for trying. I posted this in the FIRST post: "I do not want to change the space between letters or words or make the words take up more horizontal space so kerning and spacing settings are out. Just want each letter to be a bit more dense."Quote:
did you try entering type, selecting it and stretching it using the stretch handles? If you click on the text tool, then select the stretched type
I had a fixed width to place the words so stretching and kerning were not options. I wanted each letter to be heavier, but not just fatten the outline as that did not create the look I needed.
Scouted around and found a heavier version of the font so the outline and overall width could remain the same and yet the individual letters are wider/thicker.
well, happy for you that you found that you wanted
i thought that i would try other options
one is to take the words and change them to editable shapes, ungroup, ungroup, and then pull on the handles of individual letters as you like, as in the first pic
the other is to take the words, again change to editable shapes, ungroup, ungroup, and the clone a letter, move it over a bit, and blend the two clones together (second pic)
with Xara, there are many different ways to accomplish similar things, which is another reason this prg is so fascinating
Oh no, that's a really bad piece of advise in my humble opinion as a professional designer, these remakes of classical typefaces are as bad as saying oh Arial it's the same as Helvetica ... it's not these cheap-o typefaces are nasty nasty - if you want do a professional job you need the proper tools and that means getting the font from respectable foundrys and shelling out proper money; abobe, itc, letraset, fontfont, egmire, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by gwpriester
Have you looked at the fonts LK or are you making an assumption based on price?
I agree that cheap fonts are usually junk, but this is an old foundry that I believe Jens turned me onto years ago.
Because a company uses another name for a font is nothing new. Foundries have been doing this since the days before cold type. I used to see a lot of this when I was in advertising and different foundries would use different names for the same, or almost exact same fonts. Maybe one or two characters were drawn a bit differently.
This is also why there are dozens of versions of Garamond. Different designers and different foundries cut different versions of the same font.
In the attached example all fonts are Garamond. I have converted each to editable shapes (outlines) and shown the control points. Of the fonts included are: MegaFont Garamond (5 versions), Adobe 3 versions, and one True Type Windows version. Each one is slightly different and yet each is called Garamond. And all are pretty professionally cut.
Gary
Now that we have dispensed with that, here are some examples of a MegaFont version of Antigua and you can see the variety of weights. And this is one style. There are 4 or 5 different versions of Antigua. I'm not a type expert as some are in this conference, but these fonts look pretty good to me.
Gary
They look good to me too! Yes the heaviest example is the kind of thing I needed! That font came from MegaFont?
They do not look like home-grown grubby fonts that some sites offer (including the one I mentioned earlier with many free fonts). Almost all my fonts are purchased, high-quality fonts. I do have a few that came in from freebie sites for reference or play.
I did use a freebie font on this project (apology to the purists on the board) to create the thicker font, but it will likely be replaced before finalization....one of our sales reps had an objection to something the boss wanted on the bag so the design is not complete. :( Once they hash out the details I can finalize it.
Appreciate the excellent feedback on this forum. The program is intelligent and the users are creative. Nice combination.
Yes, Antigua is from MegaFont. And they have a Roman font that is pretty close to Times Roman. But they also have a lot of other classic serif fonts.
Times Roman is a classic font but unfortunately it comes with every computer making it about the most common font out there.
Gary
My point exactly ... when a typeface is "redesigned" there is always some character which are just not right ... and most of the time the cheap one's don't have proper "hints" (technical type design term) and therefore don't work properly with other letters ... so you might right one word with it and it looks ok but write another word and it will look aweful ....Quote:
Originally Posted by gwpriester
Maybe I'm just a perfectionist. Coke does not taste the same a Pepsi and which came first and is the market leader?
"Just not right" according to whom? Whether a shape is right or wrong is usually determined by the eye of the beholder.Quote:
Originally Posted by Logo Kid
You're correct that many freebie and cheap fonts lack hints. That doesn't mean that all cheap(er) fonts lack hints, or that the glyphs in all expensive fonts fit together in the way you would like. In some cases, a heavily-hinted, top-of-the-line typeface is absolutely the way to go. In others, that level of quality is serious overkill and a waste of money.
And being a market leader doesn't automatically mean you're "the best". It just means you're the market leader. I frequently find that lesser known apps are superior to the market leaders (Xara, for example :D) — at least for my purposes.
BTW, if Megafont is too cheap for you, SoftMaker also has its Infinitype collection. www.infinitype.com
[Side note: It seems your perfectionism doesn't extend to grammar. See above quote.;)]
The question is, redesigned by whom?
Type designers have forever made their own versions of the classics as well as created their own fonts. Robert Slimback and Carol Twomby, are two who come to mind. Click here for more.
A good type designer or foundry can redesign a classic font to their personal tasts, for example; make the ascenders and decenders taller or shorter, make the font heavier or lighter, more expanded or condensed. This does not take away from the integrity of the design. And this is why there are dozens of excellent versions of Caslon, Bodoni, Garamond, Baskerville, and even Times Roman.
Unless you have personally worked with fonts from SoftMaker, you are just arguing for the sake of arguing.