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https://github.com/molarmanful/eldur

An eccentric bitmap microfont for all your spellcasting needs.
https://github.com/molarmanful/eldur

bitmap bitmap-font design font open-source pixel-font programming-font typography

Last synced: 13 days ago
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An eccentric bitmap microfont for all your spellcasting needs.

Host: GitHub
URL: https://github.com/molarmanful/eldur
Owner: molarmanful
License: ofl-1.1
Created: 2023-11-29T09:40:25.000Z (about 1 year ago)
Default Branch: main
Last Pushed: 2024-04-11T16:56:46.000Z (10 months ago)
Last Synced: 2024-04-11T19:39:57.137Z (10 months ago)
Topics: bitmap, bitmap-font, design, font, open-source, pixel-font, programming-font, typography
Language: Shell
Homepage:
Size: 354 KB
Stars: 75
Watchers: 2
Forks: 0
Open Issues: 1
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: LICENSE

Awesome Lists containing this project

README

        


![eldur](./img/eldur.png)



## Table of Contents

- [Table of Contents](#table-of-contents)

- [Overview](#overview)

- [Gallery](#gallery)

- [Installation](#installation)

  - [Manually Building](#manually-building)

- [Design Notes](#design-notes)

- [TODO](#todo)

- [Contributing](#contributing)

- [Credits](#credits)

- [Licensing](#licensing)

## Overview

**eldur** /ˈɛldʏr/ _n._

1. _(Icelandic)_ fire.

1. A monospace bitmap font with a 5x13 bounding box (4px avg width, 3px

   descent, 10px ascent, 5px x-height, 8px cap height). It takes strong

   inspiration from [upright-italic

   type](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italic_type#Upright_italics) to create a

   font that aims to balance aesthetics, compactness and readability at the 4-5px

   level.

   Some glyphs come from

   [scientifica](https://github.com/nerdypepper/scientifica) and

   [creep](https://github.com/romeovs/creep), often with modifications to

   adhere to eldur's design.

## Gallery



![programming font test pattern](./img/eldur-prog.png)

![english](./img/eldur-eng.png)

![multilingual](./img/eldur-lat-multi.png)

![scala](./img/eldur-scala.png)

![clojure](./img/eldur-clojure.png)

![golang](./img/eldur-go.png)

![svelte](./img/eldur-svelte.png)

![pretty plain text](./img/eldur-prettyplain.png)

![math/science](./img/eldur-mathsci.png)

![box drawings](./img/eldur-box.png)

![braille](./img/eldur-braille.png)



## Installation

Download from [Releases](https://github.com/molarmanful/eldur/releases).

Included are bitmap formats - OTB, BDF, DFONT (for Mac users) - as well as TTF.

2x versions are available for HiDPI screens.

For the crispiest viewing experience, try to use the bitmap formats when

possible. If bitmap fonts are not supported on your platform (e.g. Windows,

VSCode), then use the TTF at font sizes that are multiples of 13px.

> **Quick Tip**: If you need font size in pt, use the following conversion:

>

> `pt = px * 72 / dpi`

>

> e.g. 13px on a 96dpi screen is `13px * 72 / 96dpi = 9.75pt`.

### Manually Building

Requirements:

- Java (for [Bits'n'Picas](https://github.com/kreativekorp/bitsnpicas))

- [bdfresize](https://github.com/ntwk/bdfresize) (e.g. `apt install bdfresize`)

- FUSE (e.g. `apt install fuse`)

`git clone` and run `build.sh`. Font files output to `out/`.

`build.sh` downloads FontForge as an AppImage at `deps/` for generating bitmap

formats from BDF. `build.sh` also downloads a Bits'n'Picas binary at `deps/`.

If you wish, you can use this binary (instead of or alongside FontForge) to

view glyphs and build desired font formats not found on the Releases page.

## Design Notes

A rather gnarly challenge with designing a font this small is that oftentimes,

characters have details that are important but difficult to fit within 4px -

e.g. the middle part of M/W. Here are some approaches for how I try to resolve

these problematic characters:

- **Alias the detail**: this is less desirable because it messes with

  readability. I more willingly use this approach for characters like letters

  that form parts of words (e.g.: M/W).

- **Expand to 5px**: this is less desirable because it messes with spacing. I

  more willingly use this approach for characters that generally appear by

  themselves or don't need the spacing to be legible.

- **Break the bounding box**: this is super-undesirable because it messes

  heavily with spacing and may mess up certain text renderers (unverified,

  needs testing). I use this as a last-resort to save certain characters from

  certain doom.

But this is not a perfect science, and not all characters are salvageable.

## TODO

In no particular order:

- More Unicode support

- Ligatures

- Bold?

- Nerd Fonts support/patch?

## Contributing

Issues, feature/glyph requests, and pull requests are all welcome!

## Credits

These are projects that have inspired/helped me create eldur and are 100% worth

checking out.

- [Bits'n'Picas](https://github.com/kreativekorp/bitsnpicas)

- [scientifica](https://github.com/nerdypepper/scientifica)

- [creep](https://github.com/romeovs/creep) /

  [creep2](https://github.com/raymond-w-ko/creep2)

- [Cozette](https://github.com/slavfox/Cozette)

- [Greybeard](https://github.com/flowchartsman/greybeard)

- [Cyreal Font Testing Page](http://www.cyreal.org/Font-Testing-Page/)

- [W3 UTF-8 Demo](https://www.w3.org/2001/06/utf-8-test/UTF-8-demo.html) /

  [Markus Kuhn UTF-8 Demo](https://antofthy.gitlab.io/info/data/utf8-demo.txt)

## Licensing

Made with ♥ by Ben Pang. Released under the OFL-1.1 License.