Scan a Hand Manual

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2007 - 2010 by High-Logic B.V. All rights reserved.

Scanahand 3.1


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All rights res erved. No parts of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means - graphic, electronic, or

mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems - without thewritten permiss ion of the publisher.

Scanahand is a trademark of High-Logic.

Microsoft, Windows and OpenType are e ither trademarks or regis tered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the

United States and/or other countries.

Apple, the Apple Logo and Macintosh are regis tered trademarks and TrueType is a trademark of Apple Computer,

Inc. registered in the United States and other countries.

Adobe and PostScript are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated which m ay be registered in certain

jurisdictions.

All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners .

The Unicode Character Database is provided as is by Unicode, Inc.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this document, the publisher and the author assume noresponsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of information contained in this

document or from the use of programs and source code that may accompany it. In no event shall the publis her and

the author be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage caused or alleged to have been caused

directly or indirectly by this document.

March 2010

Scanahand Manual



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IContents


Table of Contents

Part I Getting Started................................................................................................................................... 21 Welcome to Scanahand 3.1

................................................................................................................................... 22 What's New in Scanahand 3.1

................................................................................................................................... 23 Technical Support

................................................................................................................................... 34 Registration

................................................................................................................................... 35 Credits

Part II Quick Start Tutorial

................................................................................................................................... 61 Your First Font

Part III The User Interface

................................................................................................................................... 121 Overview

................................................................................................................................... 132 Scan Setup

................................................................................................................................... 133 Font Setup

................................................................................................................................... 144 Template Editor

.......................................................................................................................................................... 14Template Editor

.......................................................................................................................................................... 16Positioning

................................................................................................................................... 165 Customizing Scanahand

.......................................................................................................................................................... 16Keyboard Shortcuts

.......................................................................................................................................................... 17Options

......................................................................................................................................................... 17General

......................................................................................................................................................... 18Template

......................................................................................................................................................... 19Warnings

Part IV Frequently Asked Questions

................................................................................................................................... 221 General Questions

Index 24


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Part

I


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Getting Started 2


1 Getting Started

1.1 Welcome to Scanahand 3.1

Introduction

Scanahand allows you to generate a font without the need to know all of the technical detailsinvolved. All you need is a printer, a scanner, and a black marker or felt-tipped pen. It is alsopossible to use Scanahand without using a printer and scanner, but then you'll have to drawcharacters through image processing software.

Make sure you have the latest version of Scanahand:

http://www.high-logic.com/

1.2 What's New in Scanahand 3.1

New features in this version of Scanahand include:

Added extreme filter

Improved font generation algorithm

Several minor tweaks

Automatically include diacritical marks

1.3 Technical Support

Online User Manual

The user manual is also available online:

http://www.high-logic.com/scanahand/manual/index.html

Forum

The forum is available to you for support and information about managing and designingfonts. This forum has become a place where all users of Scanahand can share their

knowledge. Membership of the forum is free. There's a good chance other people have askedthe same questions as you, so you may be able to find the answers you need. Feedback andsuggestions are also welcome in the forum.

http://forum.high-logic.com/


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Scanahand Help3


Frequently Asked Questions

View the most frequently asked questions (and answers) about Scanahand here:

http://www.high-logic.com/scanahand/faq.html

1.4 Registration

Evaluation

During the trial period, Scanahand runs in reduced functionality mode. After using Scanahandfor a 30-day trial period, you must register and pay for it, or remove it from your system.Registering unlocks all functionality for the specific edition and makes your copy legal. It alsohelps support our efforts to develop innovative products to best serve your needs. Thank youfor your support of Scanahand!

Why Register?

When you buy a license of Scanahand 3.1 it entitles you to the following benefits:

All future versions of Scanahand 3.x.

Direct e-mail support from the developers.

Standard Edition versus Premium Edition

The Premium Edition incorporates all features available in the standard edition and also

includes several advanced features. The Premium Edition allows you to generate fonts basedon the Signature and Symbol templates and to set the font style.

Scanahand allows you to make your own templates. For each template you can define yourown character set (for example with Czech or Greek characters), so it allows you to createmultilingual fonts. The template editor is available in both editions, but you need the premiumedition in order to generate a font based on a custom template.

To Register

The quickest and most convenient way to register is online via credit card. Other supportedpayment methods like checks and cash are also supported. For more details take a look at

our registration page:

http://www.high-logic.com/register.html

1.5 Credits

Scanahand contains several unmodified libraries that are available under the MPL.

Graphics32 from http://sourceforge.net/projects/graphics32;


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Getting Started 4


ADOM from http://philo.de/xml/


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Part

II


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Quick Start Tutorial 6


2 Quick Start Tutorial

2.1 Your First Font

Scanahand is software that generates a font out of your handwriting. To be more precise, itallows you to print out a template (one or more pages with a grid). After you've filled out thetemplate, you scan it back into Scanahand, which will then convert all characters into a fontthat can be used on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

This short introduction explains how to generate a font with Scanahand. Besides a computerrunning Microsoft Windows you will need a printer, a scanner, and a black marker or felt-tipped pen.

Step 1 - Print and fill out the empty template

We will use the Basic Character Set template to create a font. By default the Basic and

Extended Characters template is selected, so make sure you activate the Basic CharacterSet template. To print the empty template, just click the Print button. A Print Setup dialog willpop-up. Most likely the correct printer is already selected, so just press the Ok button.

Take the printed template from the printer, and fill it out. Use a suitable pen (e.g. a black


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Scanahand Help7


permanent marker of fine or medium thickness) to draw the characters the way that younormally write. The output of ballpoint pens will be too thin to give a satisfactory result. Makesure you draw your characters into the designated cells and ensure you don't touch the gridlines while drawing the characters.

Note: Only characters that are written down on the template are added to the font, so if youonly need a few characters, then only write those down.

All cells (except the signature cell) contain horizontal guidelines (actually four little marks onboth left and right side of each cell) that should help you write the characters in the rightdimensions, and in the best possible position in each cell. These guidelines, representAscender, x-Height, Baseline, and Descender. The image below illustrates how to get thebest results (first row) and what you should avoid (second row).

In the first row the characters are drawn with the recommended size and position. As youcan see, most characters are placed on the baseline. The small letter "g" goes below thebaseline. Capital letters and digits have the same size. Be sure not to draw your charactersas shown in the second row. The capital letter "A" is positioned on the descender, the small

letter "a" is too large, the small letter "e" has exaggerated connecting strokes, the small letter"f" is too small, the small letter "g" goes outside the cell, small letter "s" is drawn with a large-tip marker, and digit "8" is too small.

To aid in filling out the characters at the right position you can print out a guideline underlay.Place this below your empty template so guidelines shine through the paper. You can printthe guideline underlay through the File menu.

Step 2 - Scan in the completed template

When you've drawn all characters you want to include in your font, put the template page as

straight as possible on the scanner bed.

Click on the "Completed Template" icon on the left, and then press the Scan button. A ScanSetup dialog is shown. Ensure the correct scanner is selected. A 300 dpi scan resolution isrecommended, but if your characters contain details (e.g. thin strokes) you should use ahigher resolution. Press the OK button to start the scan process. Click on the "Rotate 180Degrees" toolbar button if you accidentally placed the filled-in template into the scanner,upside-down.


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Step 3 - Generate and install the fontClick on the "Font" icon on the left, and then press the Generate button.

On the Font Setup dialog, fill in the Name and Copyright fields. The Name field is veryimportant, as that name will appear as the font name in all applications. Don't change theadvanced settings, as those are set to recommended values. Press the Ok button.


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Scanahand Help9


During the font generation process, Scanahand detects the template, and places the

characters into your font. Upon completion, you instantly get to preview your finished font.Just type some text to see how it looks. Also include the caret character ^ and you'll see yoursignature.


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Finally click the Install button to make the font available to all applications (Microsoft Word,etc.) on your computer. If you are running Windows Vista (or higher) it will prompt you forpermission to allow the installation. Be sure that you allow the installation to continue.


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Part

III


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The User Interface 12


3 The User Interface

3.1 Overview

The default layout of Scanahand will look like the image below.

Empty Template

On the Empty Template selection box, you can select a template. You can use the TemplateEditor to define your own custom templates.

The most common task is to print the template, but you can also press the Save As button tostore the template as an image. Then you can edit your template with your favorite imageediting software. This is great for people who don't have a scanner or printer, but it is also apleasant way to draw your characters if you have a Tablet PC.

Completed Template

When you've drawn all characters you want to include in your font, put the template as


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Scanahand Help13


straight as possible on the scanner bed and press the Scan button. A Scan Setup dialog isshown.

Click on the "Rotate 180 Degrees" toolbar button if you accidentally placed the filled-intemplate into the scanner, upside-down.

Font

To initiate the font generation process, press the Generate button to open the Font Setupdialog.

During the font generation process, Scanahand detects the template, and places thecharacters into your font. Upon completion, you instantly get to preview your finished font.

Click the Install button to make the font available to all applications (Microsoft Word, etc.) onyour computer.

3.2 Scan Setup

Select the scanner and a scan resolution between 300 and 600 dpi. A 300 dpi scan resolutionis recommended, but if your characters contain fine details (e.g. thin strokes) you should usea higher resolution. If you prefer to make advanced settings through the scanner driver,enable the checkbox.

3.3 Font Setup

Fill in the Name and Copyright fields. The Name field is very important, as that name willappear as the font name in all applications.


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The font style allows you to set the proper fields inside the font. Please note however that thissetting will not convert your template into a bold or italic font! To make a bold font just use a

thinker pen.

Scanahand needs to find out what pixels belong to the characters. The threshold value isused to make that decision. Usually the Auto value gives best results, but you can alsochoose between Low, Medium, and High. The Low threshold removes all light colored pixels,while the High threshold includes all light colored pixels. When you use the High threshold youget slightly fatter characters, but you risk inclusion of unwanted pixels.

Based on the filter value, Scanahand will add or remove additional pixels to improve thegenerated contours. Both the Smooth and Super filter polish the outlines. This usually resultsin more rounded contours.

Recommended values for the conversion settings are Auto threshold, and Smooth filter.

3.4 Template Editor

3.4.1 Template Editor

Use the Template Editor to define your own custom templates. This allows you to decidewhich characters to include in a template.


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Scanahand Help15


To create a custom template, click the Add button. Then you can give the new template aname, set the size of the grid, and specify characters you want to include. If you don't knowhow to type a specific character, you can add the corresponding code point value through theCode Points tab. More information about characters and their codes can be found here: http://www.unicode.org/charts/

The Export button allows you to store a template in a single file. This allows you to share your

custom templates. The import feature allows you to make use of templates made by otherusers. We have collected several custom made templates, that you can download fromhere: http://www.high-logic.com/scanahand/customtemplates.html

Note: You can't change the first (predefined) templates, but you can copy (clone) them andthen make modifications to those clones. Although it is allowed to change a character setfrom Unicode to Symbol, we strongly recommend against doing that unless you are anexperienced user who knows how to update the code points accordingly.

Use the Advanced positioning settings to change page and cell ratios.


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3.4.2 Positioning

Although the default settings do work for most font templates, it is possible to make changesto meet your specific requirements.

To remove the page header, set the value between Top and Header of the Page Ratios tozero. Likewise you can do the same thing for the cell caption. From the drop list by the cellcaption position you can select from top, left, bottom, or right position for the cell caption.Whatever changes you make, do make sure the baseline is positioned correctly, as thatposition is used to determine the vertical position of your characters.

You can click the Revert to Default button if you want to reset the ratios to default settings.

3.5 Customizing Scanahand

3.5.1 Keyboard Shortcuts

You can quickly accomplish tasks by using these keyboard shortcut keys.

Press To

F1 Help

F5 Go to Empty Template

F6 Go to Completed Template


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Scanahand Help17


Press To

F7 Go to Font

CTRL+T Template Editor

3.5.2 Options

3.5.2.1 General

You can customize Scanahand through the Options window (Select Options from theTools menu).

On Start... Shows the Welcome dialog when Scanahand is started.

Language Allows you to set the language in the user interface. (Applieddirectly after you press OK, no restart of Scanahand is needed)


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Measurementunits

Allows you to set the measurement units used for the templatemargins.

Codepoint format Allows you to set the codepoint format as shown on symbol or

dingbat templates. This setting also applies to the Code Pointsvalues in the Template Editor.

Hide incompatibledevices

Uncheck this box, if for some reason your scanner is notdetected.

Scale This allows you to increase or decrease the size of the generatedfont outlines.

Include

predefineddiacrtical marks

This will include predefined diacritical marks into your font if youhave not defined them yourself.

3.5.2.2 Template

To change font related settings, select Options from the Tools menu and then click theFonts tab.


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Scanahand Help19


Margins Sets the printing area of the empty template. The printer will onlyprint within these margins.

Guide Lines

Colors

The empty template will contain colored guide lines, if you enablethese settings.

Print Options When this setting is enabled, everytime you print a template aguideline underlay will also be printed. If you require just oneguideline underlay you can print it through the File menu.

3.5.2.3 Warnings

To show, enable or disable specific warning messages, select Options from the Tools

menu and then click the Warnings tab.


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Update Checker Set the interval that Scanahand uses to check for updates. Aninterval of Once a week will ensure you are always working withthe latest version of Scanahand.

Template

Selection

We recommend enabled warnings for novice users.


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Part

IV


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Frequently Asked Questions 22


4 Frequently Asked Questions

4.1 General Questions

What are the differences between Scanahand and FontCreator?

You can use Scanahand to generate a font based on your own handwriting within just acouple of minutes. FontCreator allows you to create and edit fonts with vector tools, so it'smore sophisticated and has more features like auto complete composites, kerning, validation,but takes more time.

My scanner is not recognized by Scanahand. How do I get my filled in template into

Scanahand?

Uncheck "Hide incompatible devices" from the Options dialog and press the Scan button. Ifeven this fails, then scan the template with the software that came with the scanner, or useany other application that does recognize the scanner. Store (save to file) the scanned image

and load it into Scanahand for further processing.

Can I use Scanahand on a Tablet PC?

Scanahand has no direct support for drawing directly on the template, but you can save thetemplate to file and edit it through your image editing software that. If supported, you couldadd an additional layer for guidelines to help you draw your characters on the baseline.

Can I create true cursive fonts (where characters in a word are connected) withScanahand?

Cursive fonts with swashes are not possible with Scanahand as the side-bearings aregenerated automatically.

The ink bleeds, what can I do to prevent this from happening?

Either try another pen, or use coated paper.

I find it hard to write the characters on the imaginary baseline. What can I do to get amore even handwriting?

Print out a guideline underlay. Place this below your empty template so guidelines shinethrough the paper. You can print the guideline underlay through the File menu.

Another approach is to enable the colored guide line that represents the baseline through theTemplate page on the Options dialog.

I try to draw my letters in the center of the cells, but sometimes a letter is positioned

more to the left, or right. Does the horizontal position affect the correctness of thefont?

No, it doesn't matter if you draw your characters a little to the left or right inside the cells, asScanahand will calculate the left and right side bearings independent of it's original horizontalposition.

I scanned the completed template, but it is upside-down. Do I need to rescan it?


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Scanahand Help23


No, just click on the "Rotate 180 Degrees" toolbar button.

I think the margins of the empty template are too large. Can I adjust them?

Yes, you can change the margins in the Options dialog.

I'm very impressed with the font(s) generated by Scanahand, but I want to make somechanges to the letter spacing. How can I do that?

We suggest you use FontCreator (http://www.high-logic.com/fontcreator.html) to makeadjustments to specific glyphs.

Why do my curly quotes look the same as my comma?

When the curly quotes are not defined in the template, Scanahand generates theseautomatically using the comma character.


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Index 24

Index

- D -Decimal 17

- F -Features 2

- H -Handwriting 6

Hexadecimal 17

- L -Language 17

- M -Mailing List 2

Manual

PDF 2

- N -New Features 2

- R -Register 3

- S -Scanahandbuying 3

getting help 2

manual 2

user interface 12

Shortcut 16

Support 2

- T -Template Editor 18

- W -Warnings 19

Scan a Hand Manual

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