CigarEPM

A typewriter font

Overview

The font is meant to replicate a particular Underwood No. 5 manual typewriter, including its slightly jaunty alignment.

How I generaged the font

1. Typed each key on a sheet of paper
2. Digitized the paper using a flatbed scanner
3. The scanned image was cut into equal-sized rectangles to preserve (mis-)alighment of the characters
4. Each character was vectorized using the "Trace Bitmap..." feature in Inkscape and saved as an svg file
5. The characters were imported into FontForge, and edited lightly to produce a usable font
6. The font was exported in the OpenType format (.otf file).

How to use it

In OSX, the font can be installed using the "Font Book" app.

Who is EPM?

The typewriter was owned by my great grandfather, Edward P. Meisburger (1895-1979), a reporter for the Kansas City Post and a Sergeant in Battery D during WWII.

Edward P. Meisburger with cigar, from Life Magazine:

This is his Underwood No. 5:

Examples

Top: typed using CigarEPM (14 pt). Middle: original, by EPM. Bottom: typed recently on the Underwood