Drawing Your Letters
The Draw page is where you create each character in your font. Everything you draw here becomes part of the finished font file.
The Canvas Grid
The main area shows a 4x3 grid of 12 character canvases. Each canvas represents one glyph (a letter, number, or symbol). Tap or click any canvas to draw into it. Double-tap a canvas to open it in focus mode for a larger, zoomable view.
To navigate between characters, use the character carousel above the grid. Drag left or right to scroll through the full character set and choose which 12 are shown. You can also press Cmd+K (or use the search icon) to jump directly to any specific character by name.
Pen Types
FontCraft offers three pen styles from the left toolbar: Biro, Felt-tip, and Fountain pen. Each gives a different feel—Biro is thin and consistent, Felt-tip is slightly softer and warmer, and Fountain pen responds to pressure for calligraphy-style variation. Pick one and stick with it for the whole character set so your letters stay consistent.
When a pen is selected, two sliders appear:
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Thickness (1–10) sets the base width of your strokes. Lower values give a finer line; higher values give a heavier, bolder look. Use it to match how thick you naturally write.
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Smoothing (0–10) softens jagged or shaky strokes. At 0 it's off—you get exactly what you draw, including any wobbles. As you increase it, the line is smoothed to look more flowing and natural. If your letters feel too mechanical or uneven, try raising smoothing a notch or two. Don't push it too high or you'll lose fine details and your strokes may feel mushy.
For more on when to use each style, see Choosing a pen style.
Guide Lines
Each canvas has horizontal guide lines to help you place letters consistently. By default they're all visible, and you can toggle individual lines on and off from the left toolbar.
- Baseline: the line all letters sit on. This is always visible.
- X-height: the top of lowercase letters like a, e, n, o, x
- Cap height: the top of uppercase letters
- Ascender: where tall letters (b, d, h, k, l) reach
- Descender: the bottom boundary for letters with tails (g, j, p, q, y)
- Edges: a bounding box showing the full glyph area
You don't need to hit these lines exactly. They're references, not rules. Natural variation is part of what makes handwriting fonts look human.
The Guide Font
Enable the guide font from the left toolbar to see a faint grey reference letter behind the canvas. This gives you a rough sense of proportion and scale. You can change which reference font is shown if you want a different style to draw against.
