I am writing to possibly get some advise from all you font experts!!!!!

I am looking to purchase a font creation program and am undecided on what to buy. I have never used one of these , so would like an easy to use program.

I actually do not want to create fonts from scratch, but need to modify fonts that I have. Certain fonts need to be made thinner, or need kerning adjustments.

The other priority is are there any programs that will let me work with Adobe Pro fonts, which have oodles of alternate characters. These characters cannot be accessed in most programs. I would like to create my own font using these alternate characters, but need to be able to access them in the font creation program.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you, Merrill

I have always used Fontographer - since their very first 1.0 release (I'm on a Mac). It is reliable and keeps kerning information, etc.

They recently released a new version, and it will work on System 10 -- up till about 2 months ago, it only worked on System 9.

I have been told if I want to do Open Type fonts - to look into FontLab.

Fontographer is great for Mac and PC fonts - Type 1 and True Type... and you can still fiddle around with Multiple Masters... but no Open Type.

Don't know if I helped - but I might have given you more info to think over...

I actually had been thinking of FontLab, but was curious if there was something else I should be looking at. I saw a program called Font Creator, which sells for a much lower price. I thought maybe since I am not creating fonts from scratch, but just modifying existing fonts, that a lower priced program might be better for me. I thoughtnit might be less cumbersome to use..

Does anyone know about Font Creator?

@Merrill Bucholtz:I actually had been thinking of FontLab ... ... Does anyone know about Font Creator?

Yes. But that one is for Windows.

Nice beginners level and yet many options. It will open ttf and otf and save as ttf. If you mean condensed with 'thinner', that can be done. Lighter I don't know. Very cheap for what it can do and with a month trial without restrictions. So, what is stopping you - apart from possibly being an apple?

Then there is, also for Windows, Altsoft's FTMaster, still not very expensive at $ 200, which will give you somewhat more possibilities specially in the file formats. Also a free trial available.

Hi Koeiekat...Thank you so much for responding to my question abut font programs. I will take a look at Altsoft's FTMaster. I will definitely try one of the two. I have Windows, so no problem with them working on my system. I look forward to getting started.

I have a cat, too, and always like seeing your cat sign-off in your emails.