I made a font ! (Automation & Python + Font Forge)

Yeah I know, so what ? Well the whole idea is to:

• draw a font on a grid in Krita
• export it to a PNG file
• run a batch to slice the image and convert it to SVG (from the command line)
• then import it into Font Forge

Am I lazy or do I just LOVE automation 🙂

Now the problem is that cutting and that bitmap in 100 smaller images and converting them to svg would be tedious.

So I thought about automating the whole process in Python.

Fortunately python can crop an image and launch potrace to convert the bitmap to svg.

Well anyway, here is the Python script… for free !! Enjoy.

import os
from pil import Image
import math
from os.path import exists
import subprocess

inkscape = 'P:\\Program Files\\Inkscape\\bin\\inkscape.exe'

# selection-trace:{scans},{is_smooth[0|1]},{is_stack[0|1]},{is_remove_background[0|1],{speckles},{smooth_corners},{optimize}}

def crop(path, input, divisions):
    k=0
    im = Image.open(input)
    imgwidth, imgheight = im.size
    width = math.floor(imgwidth/divisions)
    height = math.floor(imgheight/divisions)
    for y in range(0,divisions):
        for x in range(0,divisions):
            box = (x*width, y*height, (x*width)+width-1, (y*height)+height-1)
            a = im.crop(box)
            inputImage=os.path.join(path,str(y)+str(x)+".bmp")
            outputImage=os.path.join(path,str(y)+str(x)+".svg")
            print(outputImage+" "+str(box[0])+" "+str(box[1])+" "+str(box[2])+" "+str(box[3]))
            a.save(inputImage)
            #subprocess.call([inkscape, '--actions="select-all;selection-trace:256,0,1,1,4,1.0,0.20;export-filename:'+outputImage+';export-do;"', inputImage ,'--batch-process'])
            subprocess.call(['potrace.exe','-s',inputImage,'-o',outputImage])

if not exists(inkscape):
    print("inkscape not found @ '"+inkscape+"'")
else:
    crop(".\\generated","template.bmp",10)

Then I import all the generated svg files in FontForge