<story><title>Turn your handwriting into a font</title><url>http://www.myscriptfont.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>WalterBright</author><text>One of the charms of a printed book is the imperfection of the fonts and the impressions of the fonts. Each &amp;#x27;a&amp;#x27; impression is slightly different - maybe a little higher, a little lower, a little blotchier, etc. But if I read an ebook, the letters are always identical.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve often thought that if I wrote an ebook reader, I&amp;#x27;d use a font that mimics the imperfections in printed works. I&amp;#x27;d have maybe 20-30 different &amp;#x27;a&amp;#x27; images, and select one randomly and then &amp;#x27;jitter&amp;#x27; its positioning a bit.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d also use a background that looks like paper, rather than the perfect white or sepia ones current readers do. Heck, it would be easy enough to scan a few dozen blank sheets of paperback paper, and then pick one randomly for each page.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mattparcher</author><text>I realize that you’re referring to traditionally-typed text, but Monotype was recently commissioned to design a typeface for the illustrator of Roald Dahl’s books, and they did indeed include alternates for each letter (along with variations in kerning):&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;…He selected four subtly different alternates for each character that, combined, would make the text look random enough to look authentic while keeping the glyph set manageable&lt;p&gt;Article: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.monotype.com&amp;#x2F;expertise&amp;#x2F;case-studies&amp;#x2F;a-bespoke-handwriting-typeface-for-sir-quentin-blake&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.monotype.com&amp;#x2F;expertise&amp;#x2F;case-studies&amp;#x2F;a-bespoke-han...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Visual comparison of the alternates: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.monotype.com&amp;#x2F;media&amp;#x2F;1837&amp;#x2F;quentin-alternates2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.monotype.com&amp;#x2F;media&amp;#x2F;1837&amp;#x2F;quentin-alternates2.png&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Turn your handwriting into a font</title><url>http://www.myscriptfont.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>WalterBright</author><text>One of the charms of a printed book is the imperfection of the fonts and the impressions of the fonts. Each &amp;#x27;a&amp;#x27; impression is slightly different - maybe a little higher, a little lower, a little blotchier, etc. But if I read an ebook, the letters are always identical.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve often thought that if I wrote an ebook reader, I&amp;#x27;d use a font that mimics the imperfections in printed works. I&amp;#x27;d have maybe 20-30 different &amp;#x27;a&amp;#x27; images, and select one randomly and then &amp;#x27;jitter&amp;#x27; its positioning a bit.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d also use a background that looks like paper, rather than the perfect white or sepia ones current readers do. Heck, it would be easy enough to scan a few dozen blank sheets of paperback paper, and then pick one randomly for each page.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>WalterBright</author><text>I should add that I buy paperbacks regularly, often paying more for them than the ebook. I then run &amp;#x27;em through the scanner and read the scanned book on my tablet. I just like the imperfect look of a scanned paperback page than the perfect ebooks. I also like the paperback formatting better than the auto-flow ebook layouts.&lt;p&gt;I figure I get the best of ebook and hardcopy this way!</text></comment>