Make font THICKER

**samrc** · 25 August 2006, 05:43 PM

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.

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.

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!

**DGehman** · 26 August 2006, 04:49 PM

Originally Posted by samrc

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'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.

**samrc** · 27 August 2006, 01:15 AM

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

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."

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.

**-=Drifter=-** · 27 August 2006, 02:10 PM

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

**Logo Kid** · 27 August 2006, 02:44 PM

Originally Posted by gwpriester

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.

Gary

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.

**gwpriester** · 27 August 2006, 03:55 PM

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

**gwpriester** · 27 August 2006, 06:09 PM

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

**samrc** · 28 August 2006, 07:50 PM

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.

**gwpriester** · 28 August 2006, 11:03 PM

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

**Logo Kid** · 29 August 2006, 04:10 PM

Originally Posted by gwpriester

Maybe one or two characters were drawn a bit differently.

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 ....

Maybe I'm just a perfectionist. Coke does not taste the same a Pepsi and which came first and is the market leader?