Thanks for posting / reposting this to vox-tech Pete. I actually read this on SEUL-edu as well.
I actually found most of these references for fonts online as well. The main problem I see is that I can not find any free fonts that are in the D' Nealian style that have the additional ruler grids. Don't get me wrong, I do not mind for paying for fonts that I use personally. I do have a problem with not being able to write a free educational application and not being able to distribute a free font with it. Peter Jay Salzman wrote: > reposted to vox-tech > > ----- Forwarded message from [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- > > Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 09:27:08 -0700 > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: BOUNCE [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Non-member submission from ["Jeremy C. Reed" ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>] > > > Thanks for all the suggestions. > > Just to let you all know, I found some free fonts for teaching children; > some are made up of dots so they can be used for tracing. The following > are links to the fonts, and some notes on how I used them in X. > > About's School Fonts for Teaching Handwriting Skills > http://desktoppub.about.com/library/fonts/bl_schoolfree.htm > vicmodcu > http://www.cheap.net.au/wa_school_font.html > learningcurve > http://www.reflectdesign.com/bvfonts/fonts7.shtml > printclearly > http://www.reflectdesign.com/bvfonts/fonts6.shtml > jardotty > http://desktoppub.about.com/library/fonts/hs/jardot.zip > Zyia Learns Letters > http://www.billybear4kids.com/fonts/zyia-learns-letters.zip > school > http://home.hetnet.nl/~e1104373/graphics.html > > Also, About.com has a good page about School Font Styles. > It mentions that D'Nealian is both a manuscript and a cursive font. > http://desktoppub.about.com/library/fonts/bl_schoolstyles.htm > > Now I am working at converting some of these fonts for use with X (and to > print). I am not using any truetype font server (not XFree86 4.x). > > I converted and used jardotty (and the other fonts) by using: > > ttf2pt1 -b JARDOTTY.TTF > type1inst > xset fp+ /home/reed/fonts/jardotty/ > xset fp rehash > xfontsel -pattern \*unknown\* # to look at it > > Then used gimp to use. (I noticed with the gimp, even if I do a "xset fp > rehash", the gimp doesn't see my new fonts; I had to close and reopen it.) > > ttf2pt1 converts True Type (and some other formats) to Adobe Type1 format. > > With jardotty, ttf2pt1 reported many problems, but most characters worked. > L, Q, S, a, k, p, and y were not created (or at least don't work in gimp). > (I also tried -Ou, -Os, -Oh, and -Oo options to try to get these missing > characters to convert correctly. > > "print clearly dashed" font appears to work great, but it is missing some > symbols, except period (.) and exclamation mark (!). > > "learning curve dashed bv" also works, but it is missing numbers and > punctuation (I guess not needed with cursive though). > > SchoolKX_new also works great. It comes with a full set of punctuation. It > is not made of dots -- so not for tracing. > > "zyia learns letters" is missing L and some punctuation. > > vicmodcu is a complete and good font. Not anything against Australia, but > this manuscript font is a little different than what is used in United > States schools. Also, it is not made of dots -- so not for tracing. > > (Note that the missing characters and symbols may be caused by using > ttf2pt1 incorrectly.) > > I think I'll keep looking for fonts and ask on the ttf2pt1 mailing list > for suggestions on how to make some fonts convert better. > > type1inst scans Type 1 PostScript font files and generates a fonts.scale > and a Fontmap. (With "Zyia Learns Letters" font it generated three > fonts: "Zyia", "Learns", and "Letters", so I renamed it to > "Zyia-Learns-Letters.TTF".) > > I am hoping to be able to use these with LyX, Ted, and AbiWord (I haven't > tried Ted or AbiWord yet with these.) I know I have seen docs for LyX and > Ted -- I need to look for them. Again, my goal is to print out the fonts > (so my children can practice tracing them). > > I am reading throught the Fonts HOWTO, but it doesn't say much. > > Can anyone share any ideas or point me to some documentation on converting > and using fonts? > > Jeremy C. Reed > http://www.reedmedia.net/ > > > > ----- End forwarded message ----- >
