What Inkling does — and what it can't

Inkling turns your handwriting into a font file — the same kind of file as any font already on your computer. You write your letters once, and from then on you can type in your own hand.

What you get

- Your letters, as you actually wrote them, in a file that works in documents, design tools and print. - On Pro: your joins, your versions of a letter, and spacing measured from your own writing — the things that make typed text read as written rather than stamped. See Free and Pro.

What it can't do

A font is a set of fixed letterforms. That's the honest limit, and it's worth knowing before you start.

- It can't reproduce the continuous flow of a pen. When you write by hand, every letter is shaped slightly by the one before it, in a way no font format can hold. Inkling gets closer than most — your real joins and several versions of each letter — but it is a font, not a recording of your hand moving. - It won't fix handwriting you don't like. Inkling is faithful. If your letters lean, the font leans. - A few apps ignore some of what your font knows. Most notably PowerPoint, which shows your base letters and none of the joins or variation. See Where your font works.

What it's good for

Letters and cards, journals and captions, invitations, gifts, anything printed that should look like a person made it. People use it most for the things they'd otherwise have hand-written and couldn't face writing forty times.

Making a font is free, and takes about ten minutes. Make your first font.