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I need a flat symbol!

Posted: 31 Aug 2023, 06:47
by Hector Pascal
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Hi everyone,

I design my title pages in a desktop publishing program, and I use a font called Impact.

I really wish Impact font included a flat symbol, so that I could write B :f instead of B-flat.

Any ideas? I will look into designing a :f symbol to match Impact font, and pasting it as a graphic where I need it.

Best,
Hector.

Re: I need a flat symbol!

Posted: 31 Aug 2023, 13:04
by OCTO
I think you need to design it... :)
Use FontForge. And let us show what you can!

Re: I need a flat symbol!

Posted: 31 Aug 2023, 15:50
by benwiggy
You'll have to use a different font for that character. However, 'matching' a flat symbol to am industrial Grotesque (in the nicest possible sense!) font like Impact is not going to be easy.

Very few text fonts have (decent) accidentals in the normal Unicode positions (U + 266D to F): you'll have to use one from a music font.

Re: I need a flat symbol!

Posted: 31 Aug 2023, 17:31
by OCTO
Take small cap "b" from the font and try to tweak it.

Re: I need a flat symbol!

Posted: 31 Aug 2023, 20:01
by jrethorst
Per this web site:

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how- ... s-in-fonts
Arial, Courier New, Lucida Sans, MS Reference Sans Serif and Times New Roman are common fonts that include musical symbols.
This site has the keyboard symbols for Alt Key, Unicode and HTML formats:

https://barbaracasey.com/make-music-not ... ext-fonts/

John R.

Re: I need a flat symbol!

Posted: 01 Sep 2023, 06:13
by Hector Pascal
Thanks everyone! To a man on a galloping horse, the Broadway Copyist flat symbol actually looks not half bad when placed in close proximity to Impact font. I am thinking I could possibly get away with it.
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I've downloaded FontForge and I will attempt to tweak the flat symbol.

Cheers and thank you again as always,
Hector.

Re: I need a flat symbol!

Posted: 01 Sep 2023, 07:51
by benwiggy
jrethorst wrote: 31 Aug 2023, 20:01 Arial, Courier New, Lucida Sans, MS Reference Sans Serif and Times New Roman are common fonts that include musical symbols
Note my use of the word "decent". Here's Arial's Sharp:
Screenshot 3.png
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It doesn't have a flat, nor natural. It does have two other music characters: a single quaver, and a pair of beamed quavers.

Courier Std (not New) contains the two quaver chars only.

MS Reference does have the three accidentals, but they are awful.

Times has the same characters as Arial, and they are similarly awful.