Are there any single fonts on this site? And how could I find them?

I am looking for a font without an outline or closed loop for engraving purposes.

With most true type fonts I get an outline of each letter and I only want one line for each letter.

Thanks

... and I only want one line for each letter ...

so how to do an a, b, d, e, g, o, p, q, ... without mumbling about the caps?

Here's an a in one continuous line:

That's true. Didn't think of that. Problem solved.

The a above is from a new font I'm working on, called FixCystNeon. It has one unresolved bug. I have referred the problem to Luc Devroye, and if he can figure out what's wrong, it could possibly appear here in the next batch. It works fine with black text, but I'm trying to add a black spacer glyph that will allow for white or coloured text on black background with no white slivers between lines of text. It works great at six and eight points, but there are white slivers in the spacer glyph at larger point sizes. The image above is the 72 point size for this font, so 8 points is about 20-24 points in other fonts. Six to eight points is the optimum size.

If it looks familiar, it's the 'terminal' font still seen in DOS command prompt, and also the default font for Notepad until Windows ME, enlarged and hollowed out.

This is what it would look like at six points:



It looks like the monospacing in either the period or the forward slash is slightly off, or it could be that a setting in the MS Word doc used for the screen print needs to be adjusted. The bullet at the end of line four looks a bit too wide, as well. Nothing major.

This is exactly what I do not want. When I try and engrave with this font I have to follow the outline of each letter. Can someone make an outline that is on top of each other, in effect a single line font.

I think you'll have to do a rough drawing of what you're looking for using some image editing program, and post it in this thread. I don't understand what want.

It sounds like you want to type the letter A, and the whole alphabet pops out, or you want all of the letters to be on top of each other, like a plate of spaghetti. That's obviously not what you want, but it is consistent with what you are asking for.

I really start to wonder what bilbo22 has in mind.

True type fonts are made with a closed loop. There is an outline of each letter. That is how true type fonts are made.

I want a font just like how we print letters on a piece of paper. That is what I am after. We do not write closed loop letters when we write on paper. I'm not sure how to get a picture of that on here.

If you magnify this font that you are reading, it is not a single line. It is a loop that appears as a single line this small. I need a font that looks the same as this when blown up like the "a" as shown above.

Do you mean like handwriting? A flowing script with connected letters, like this?



if it is, then it's called a script, and there are thousands of different ones, many of which you would have to buy on a commercial site.

Or something like this?




That one's Clementine Sketch by Teagan White, and you can download it here at dafont. By the way, you all owe it to yourselves to check out Teagan's fine art and illustration here:

http://www.behance.net/teaganwhite. This young lady has big time talent. For fonts she need some work at the technical end, mainly with smoothing edges, but the designs for her fonts, (she also did peach sundress~)are very fresh and interesting visually. Her non typographic art, however, is incredible.


If that isn't the sort of thing you're looking for, maybe you could find a page on the Internet where there is a picture that looks like what you want, and copy the internet address.

What bilbo22 is looking for is a font where the letter shapes are made with a single line – a line that he can follow with his engraver tool and make different thicknesses by engraving deeper or use different engraver tips. Sort of a "centerline" font.

But this directly contradicts what a digital font IS: a font is per definition made by filled contours. No filled outlines, no font. A font without closed lines is a defective font.

So bilbo22: NO, NONE of the fonts on this site (or any other font site) works exactly like you want them to. You need to contact the manufacturer of your engraving machine for their selection of proprietary alphabets – or get their help to create alphabets of your own.
In a pinch you could of course use extremely thin fonts (where the distance between the "outside" and "inside" curve is minimal), but your engraver tip would still need to follow every curve of the letter twice (one time for each "side" of the outline).

Roger,
You are spot on. Thank you for your clarity.
I use Mastercam CAD/CAM software to program engraving and they only supply 2 single line fonts. I am looking for some more. Maybe I will have to create my own if none are available.

Glad to be able to help somewhat.
This software manufacturer then probably use a special format for their alphabets - perhaps they can help you by documenting how to make them?
But remember that this has nothing to do with fonts as such: the alphabets you use directly in this software would be more like a collection of CAD drawings of the letters packaged together in that softwares (unique?) proprietary format.
You can draw your own alphabets in the CAD program, of course – and copy/paste the letters from your own drawing.

I was going to suggest that. you'd have to draw your letters in your CAD program. if you found a typeface you like, maybe trace over it's center line with CAD. of course you will lose some details but It's an idea. Also if you look around there might be some letter sets, as mentioned above, made for your CAD program.

good luck!

Thanks for all of your help...

You know the fonts on your engraver machine probably is just a single vector line and the engraver follows the line thus adding both sides. If anyone knows illustrator this is the basis of the brush tool, it draws a vector line and a "stroke" is applied to it, so the engraver acts as a "stroke" on a single center line. Something like that wouldnt have much use on any program other than the engraving software but if it is how i said then you could apply strokes to the vector in illustrator. if you have any vector programs it could be compatible to put those vectors in your engraving program.

I'm not sure what vector programs are. My CAD/CAM software follows the outline of true type fonts thereby giving me an inside and outside of each font letter. It comes with one single line font, but I am satisfied with it. I can create my own letters in the software, but it is rather cumbersome to use the letters that I create. I'm not sure how or am not sure if it is possible to create them as a font.

I get the impression bilbo that you are trying to run before you can walk. First try to understand what CAD and CAM software is. Then concentrate on understanding what a vector is en last but not least try to understand what a computer/digital font is. Wikipedia will help you with all three.
When you understand the meaning of these you will also understand that you simply can not convert a computer font into a one line CAM file. You will always create an outline engraving.