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Getting started

This guide builds one font family through the browser. At the end, the family is ready to copy to a CrossPoint reader.

Download CrossGlyph

  1. Download the archive from the latest release.
  2. Extract it to a folder you can write to.

Add a font family

Open the fonts folder beside the launcher. Copy the TTF or OTF files for your family into it.

A typical family has these files:

MyFont-Regular.ttf
MyFont-Bold.ttf
MyFont-Italic.ttf
MyFont-BoldItalic.ttf

CrossGlyph reads the family and style from the filenames. A regular face is required. The other styles are optional.

You can also place a family in a subfolder. The filenames still decide its family and styles. If CrossGlyph groups the files incorrectly, see Source files and styles.

Open the preview

Start CrossGlyph from the extracted folder:

  • On Windows, double-click crossglyph.cmd.

  • On macOS or Linux, open a terminal in that folder and run:

    ./crossglyph.sh

The first launch downloads the runtime and dependencies into a cache. The browser opens after the preview server is ready.

If the workspace has no font files, CrossGlyph opens the bundled Literata family. Add your files, return to the browser and select your family from the font list.

Understand the page

Most users see a two-column layout. Tune and Export share a tabbed panel on the left. The rendered page is on the right.

Wide screens show three columns by default. Tune is on the left, the rendered page is in the middle and Export is on the right. Narrow screens show one column. The selected panel comes first and the rendered page follows it.

The controls keep the same names in every layout.

CrossGlyph has two kinds of settings:

  • Font settings affect the built .cpfont files. They are in Tune and Export.
  • Page settings affect only the browser preview. Open Page inside Tune to see them.

The size control at the top of Tune is also a preview choice. It lets you judge one point size. The sizes that CrossGlyph builds are the boxes in Export.

Tune the font

  1. Select your family from the font list.
  2. Set size to a point size you read often.
  3. Adjust gamma until the letters have the right darkness.
  4. Adjust weight if thin strokes need more or less ink.
  5. Check letter spacing, word spacing and line height.
  6. Use the ? buttons when a control name is unfamiliar.
  7. Press untuned, or press and hold the rendered page, to compare your changes with the starting values.

The page redraws after each change. A curved arrow beside a control compares that control with its saved value. Press the arrow again to return to your current value.

Press Save when the font looks right. Save writes the font and export settings to the family's config file.

Match the reading page

Open Page in Tune. Set the margin, alignment, line spacing, hyphenation, paragraph spacing, anti-aliasing and night mode to match the reading conditions you want to test.

These settings are for comparison only. The browser remembers them for the next visit, but Save and Build leave them out of the font config.

The hyphenation language describes the sample text. A book on the reader uses the language stored in that book.

Choose what to build

Open Export.

  1. Check name. This is the family name shown by the reader.
  2. Enter the point sizes under sizes.
  3. Leave Second family empty unless you want another family entry with a different size list.
  4. Choose the coverage needed by your books.
  5. Turn on bundled fallback faces when the main family lacks characters you need.
  6. Check output. The default is the workspace's cpfonts folder.

Coverage adds characters to the built files. More coverage increases file size and build time. The preview reports text that the chosen coverage cannot draw.

Build the family

Press Build to build the selected family. Press Build all to build every family in the workspace.

Build saves the current font and export settings before it starts. You do not need to press Save first.

CrossGlyph rebuilds the point sizes whose inputs changed. Hold Shift while pressing a build button to rebuild every size.

The progress line reports the family and size being built. When the build finishes, the output folder contains one family folder with one .cpfont file per point size.

Copy the family to the reader

  1. Open fonts/cpfonts.
  2. Copy the complete family folder to /fonts on the reader's SD card.
  3. Eject the card safely and start the reader.
  4. Select the family in CrossPoint's font settings.

You can use /.fonts instead of /fonts when you want to hide the family from the file browser.

Next steps