How to make an outline font

The simplest way to make an outline font is to take a solid alphabet and hollow it out with a set border. In Font by Zaweba you turn on the Outline operation in the style stack and set the border thickness anywhere from 4 to 120 units. If you'd rather keep the letters solid with a line running inside them, the same operation has an inline mode. You can also start from the Outline preset and adjust it.

Here's how to get from a plain alphabet to a hollow font you can install.

Before you start

Outline lettering needs room inside the letters, so weight matters more than usual. A thin font has hardly any inside to hollow out. Plan on a medium to heavy weight; you can always lighten it later.

It's also worth deciding whether you want hollow letters or inline ones. Hollow letters, with just the border showing, look light and are often used for signs or for colour to be added behind them. Inline letters stay solid with a thin line inside, which looks engraved and a little old fashioned.

Making it step by step

Open Font by Zaweba and choose a preset. The Outline preset gets you straight to hollow letters. Plain or Bold Plain are good starting points if you'd like to build the look up yourself.

In the style stack, set the weight. Pick something heavy enough that each stroke has a clear inside. Watch the preview as you go.

Turn on Outline. In outline mode, move the border thickness slider until the borders look right. A thin border reads as crisp and delicate; a thick one is sturdy and survives small sizes better.

For inline instead, switch the mode. Set the distance from the edge, which decides how much solid letter shows outside the line, and the line thickness, which decides how strong the line is.

Add anything else you want: serifs, rounding, a slant. Because Outline sits in an ordered stack, put it after serifs if you want the serifs hollow too.

Check the font in the live preview at a range of sizes and in white on black. Then fill in the font's name and licence and export it as TTF, OTF and WOFF2.

Avoiding the usual problems

The most common problem is a border that's too thick for the letter. If the hollow middle shrinks to a sliver, either reduce the border or raise the weight.

Joins can pinch. Where strokes meet in letters such as k, x and W, the inside of an outlined letter can get squeezed. A little inner corner rounding often helps. For a stubborn letter, the glyph editor lets you adjust it on its own.

Small sizes are unkind to outlines. Look at the smallest lines in the waterfall preview. If borders break up there, thicken them.

Read the export warnings. Font checks every file for overlaps and contour direction, and hollow letters have more contours to get right, so the list is worth a look.

Using an outline font well

Outline fonts work best for big, short text: headings, posters, shop signs, a title on a card. They're less suited to paragraphs, where the hollow shapes make reading tiring.

A common trick is to pair the outline font with a solid version of the same design. Save your project as a .zfont, export the solid font, then switch Outline on, change the family name in the font settings and export again. The two will match perfectly because they come from the same stack, and you can layer them in a design program for a two colour effect.