Hello and query

Hi all
I am new to the forum and based in South Africa.

My boss wants to send auto-generated messages on behalf of one of our clients. He wants the text to have a handwritten look. I have done some research but cannot find a software program that allows:

  1. the user to upload their own handwriting
  2. to upload an outside font (not in the system) that has a handwritten feel

Has anyone heard of a program that would do this?

Many thanks

As in email blasts?
Be careful how you proceed.
Our firewall strips out a lot of HTML formatting and embedded images in emails as a safety precaution (we have the option to download the crap if we absolutely know the sender.) And we aren’t alone in that these days. Your email blasts could be a whole lot of “Place Headline Here” templating that will make people laugh.
:slight_smile:

Hi - good point.
Thanks

Someone must inform your boss that this is a terrible idea, destined to fail.

“Messages,” as in emailed messages?

If so, how are the emails being sent out? What application or service is being used? Are you currently “auto-generating” the emails? How is it currently being done? To what is the auto-generation a response? Filling out an online form, perhaps? If so, this is a web development problem that needs to be solved. If some sort of service is being used, everything depends on what the service offers.

There’s no way to answer your question without knowing more about the parameters of the problem.

For what purpose? To create the live text in the email or to generate an image containing the text? They’re two different things. Either way, though, it’s not as straightforward as you think, and because it’s not straightforward, I doubt anyone’s done it since the demand for such a thing would be nearly non-existent. Someone’s personal handwriting is likely not a good choice for an emailed response. Besides, no one who receives the emails will know whether the handwriting is the client’s or not.

If this auto-generated message will be handled via the web server rather than a 3rd-party service, using an already-built handwriting font (a WOFF format font) of your choice for the live text in HTML email is doable. It’s just a matter of writing the basic HTML/CSS, PHP, and Javascript to do it.

However doable it might be, though, I don’t think it’s an especially good idea. Judging only from your post, it sounds like your boss has come up with a naive idea riddled with technical, logistical, and communication problems and off-loaded it onto you to figure out. Unfortunately, it sounds like you might not have a better handle on the problem than your boss.

If you don’t have someone in-house with the technical expertise to do this, both you and your boss might be in over your heads on this one.

2 Likes

Thanks for your response. I agree there are too many issues for this idea to be executed. My boss must consider another option.