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The modern trend for software packages to be sold in DVD cases are good news for dealers in that they take up less shelf space, however it means you get no printed manual. This could have been helpful as with my first PC I got an error that I could not find an answer for.

I tried again on another PC and everything worked fine, in fact almost too fine. It did it’s work created the font and never gave me any indication of saying job done. I tried Ctrl-Alt-Del and according to my system the process was still running however there was nothing showing as an open process.

I am pleased to say that the DVD case does show all the specifications, a Pentium 233 PC, 64MB RAM and any version of Windows from the last version of Windows 95 or later, a 4MB graphics card 800x600 resolution and around 20MB of hard disc space. I did find 24MB of my hard disc had gone after the install. You need a CD-ROM to install but the things you also need that may not be immediately obvious are also mentioned a printer and a scanner or of course a multi function machine (all in one).

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I suppose a single person would only ever use this software once, simply because having created your handwriting font you would just use it as a normal true type font.

However the package can do more apart from the obvious option of creating fonts for all your friends or colleagues. So far I have assumed that you use the automated font generation option that as I said is surprisingly quick and efficient – if only the program told you it was finished and cleared itself from memory – there is a second and far more time consuming option where you enter every character that will appear in the font. The result will of course be more accurate but most importantly will contain any special characters that you use frequently. Often things like ½ ¼ ¾ © ® look strange when used and often others such as ⅓ ⅔ ⅛ ⅜ ⅝ ⅞ are just not available within normal fonts even if you search ‘Symbols’ in say Microsoft Word. However most normal fonts do have Ấ ầ ề ứ ỏ and many more that mean a lot in some other languages but nothing in written English unless you write frequently to people in those countries. You can put any character in the place of these unused items. So all the modern smiley faces and other texting characters could be in a standard font.

Now you can of course print a letter once you have the font as you want, however you cannot send an email in the same way using this font unless the receiver also has a copy of it as it will print out in another font – probably their default font – and any special characters you have added will make no sense. You would have to send this as an attachment something like a jpeg but do include some text to explain the attachment in the email or I for one would never read it as I would assume it was a virus sent to me by some ‘kind’ soul and simply delete the whole thing.

Making a decent font that can really cover all the tiny changes we have in the way we form words is excellent and once you have achieved it – especially if you use special characters – needs a fair amount of input and editing within you product from you. The automated ‘quick’ font should be enough to see if the effort is worthwhile. The likely shop price is in the region of £15-20.

Link http://www.phoenixsoftwareuk.co.uk/data_becker/your_handwriting/index.asp