Some smoothed single line fonts

The Hershey Text extension in Inkscape come with some nice single line fonts, but the paths of the included svg fonts are straight lines only for the glyphs. I’d like the fonts smooth when used in larger scale – so I have smoothed them and you are welcome to download these and use them for free. License information and original creators/designers are included in the readme files. The downloads include the single line svg-font, a png glyph overview and a corresponding OTF (not finished for all fonts yet) and TTF font of type stickfont (double-line font).

I have also added the letters æ and Æ, if missing, to have the alphabet complete in my language.

See this post about the options for single line fonts / single stroke fonts / engraving fonts.

Learn how to use the svg fonts with Inkscape.

Learn why I prefer the OTF font type and how to convert stickfont to single line font using Inkscape.

Hershey Script 1 stroke

The Hershey Script 1 stroke was originally created by Dr. A. V. Hershey, then prepared for the Hershey Text extension by Windell H. Oskay.

Updated 20.09.2021 with better accuracy and flow (joints).

EMS Elfin

EMS Elfin Created by: Sheldon B. Michaels
Original SVG font conversion by: Windell H. Oskay
A derivative of: Mountains of Christmas
Designer: Crystal Kluge, Tart Workshop
License: SIL Open Font License

The difference while the letters are small cannot be seen, but if you want the letters a bit bigger, the smoothed version will look better.
Here I have tested the smoothed EMS Elfin font together with a place card design that can be found in my shop.

EMS Allure

EMS Allure Created by: Sheldon B. Michaels
Original SVG font conversion by: Windell H. Oskay
A derivative of: Allura
Designer: Rob Leuschke, TypeSETit
License: SIL Open Font License

In addition to smoothing this font I have also done some adjustments to the glyphs. When doing this the original font, Allura, have been my guide. (New version pr 18.09.2021)

Showing the difference between the original EMS Allure and my smoothed and adjusted version.

Using the OTF stickfont you can work with the text as text object, use text on path options and then convert to singel line font (paths) using remove duplicate lines extension. Then you could also join the end nodes using the remove duplicate nodes extension.

Convert from OTF stickfont to single line font using the remove duplicate nodes extension. The grey node indicators without the black border show duplicated nodes. The red arrows show direction of path. For the stickfont all paths are duplicated and in both directions.

Or use the Hershey Text tool and set the text object font to the font with the same name as the svg-font. The TTF font have more nodes than the OTF font, but this is set back to the original from the svg-paths as the Hershey Text Tool get the paths from the svg-file.

Using the Hershey Text extension to convert from text object to single line font (paths).


Other single line fonts

4 thoughts on “Some smoothed single line fonts

  1. Hi. Very useful post. But when i download the file, i cannot see an svg format. just TTF. Any suggestions?

    1. Did you download the zip file from the big black download buttons? I tested by downloading again for both fonts and there is a zip file with a readme file, svg font file, ttf font file (stickfont) and a png glyph table.

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