SigMaker 3 is a very interesting product that also very unique. With very little effort you can take an image; say a signature, logo, or digital photo, and incorporate it into a font that you can then include in any document with just a single keystroke. Furthermore, it only takes six steps to complete.

The requirements to run SigMaker 3 are, for Mac, a Power PC or Intel Based Mac with Mac OS X v 10.2 or later installed (10.4 is recommended). For Windows, a PC that can run Windows 98 or later (including Vista). You will need at least 20 MB of free space on the hard drive, and 64 MB of RAM. You may need more to open larger fonts.

SigMaker 3 will allow you to make single-glyph fonts (also called fontlets). It will also allow you to add glyphs to existing TrueType and OpenType fonts that are installed on your system. There is no special font expertise or background need to use this package, nor does it require any special knowledge.

A little background may make this process clearer. Each computer font consists of graphical characters called glyphs. These glyphs are tied to your keyboard by codes. When I type the letter 'E', I send a code from my keyboard that tells the system I just pressed the letter 'E', and that 'E' appears in my document. When I select a font, say Times New Roman and press the 'E' it has a certain look to it. If I change the font to Wingdings and press the letter 'E' I now get a symbol. That is because a new character is mapped to my letter 'E'. When you use SigMaker, that is exactly what you will be doing, mapping your signature or image to a keystroke.

When you open SigMaker you are presented with the six steps to create your glyph. Step one, Select the source font. This is an optional step. If you select say "Times New Roman", it will open up the font and you can select the character that you would like to replace. Or you can skip this step and you will create a single-glyph font that you drop into your font folder, and select it as you would any other font.