#scanlation typesetting

Even though I initially applied for CLDR, I have decided to take up typesetting too. There are many things I have learnt in my short time with this hobby, and I wanted to write them down as a sort of progress record.

It's a roller coaster of a learning journey that goes like: excited/motivated to TS->stumble on a painful part->suffer/do a bunch of TS iterations->finally ask for help->get amazing advice.

*the scuffed suffering cycle of a scuffed TS

However, the spark that comes from learning a new technique or solution to problems and applying them to the current issue (and the possibility of future ones) is worth the suffering. It's as if a path that I have never considered suddenly appears and it opens so many possibilities. This feeling and, of course, being able to release the project as best as I can for love of its content.

I'm grateful to my scanlation group, Jujugang!! because they're a bunch of cool, friendly, open members!! They're such a treasure ;-; soo wholesome T_T

Typesetting certainly is a different skill than CLDR, even though both require creativity and a sense of design, I feel like both do it in a different way. CLDR is like the makeup used to mask imperfections, while TS is the makeup used to enhance beauty. I like both of them (or maybe it's because when I get burnout from one, I wanna jump to the other LOL).

What I'm going to write here is from the perspective of a beginner typesetter so probably some of the things may not be suitable to follow. Many times I've found that I said something wrong and then corrected myself entries later OTL

The way I began to learn was from reading a bunch of guides from the Scanlator School discord and also the occasional TS discussions from other students with questions.

Well den with my shaky level of knowledge it was time to apply it to something and its first victim was a JJK doujin (I'm sorry, Jihaku). I translated it from English to Spanish beforehand which has its perks as a TS because when the TL does not fit, I can reword it (and boy was it annoying due to its use of vertical boxes). Another plus of this was that I could look at the English version to base my TS from it.

Since I finished it like a month or two ago, the pain of most of my struggles faded away (unfortunately?) so I may not be able to recall most of what I went through.

One of the most time-consuming tasks was obtaining the right fonts. Fonts are like a palette of colours and there are infinite variations which you may or may not decide to keep as is or modify. Choosing the right fonts for a project is important. If the genre is horror, I would choose fonts that are a bit unstable. If they're romance, I would go for rounder ones (or maybe just don't care and get the fonts that are best suited for mangas, because these dang bo-).

Even though JJK is a shounen series with no romance. I think that using a shoujo font for the djs also works because... they're romance now lolol ofc if the plot of the doujinshi is hurt/comfort or angst, it could change. The art style is also very important to take into consideration! The font choice should match the tone of what the doujinshi wants to convey as well as its art. Ngl using CC Meanwhile is quite tempting...

So there I was, scouting through a bunch of font sheets looking for those that fit an SFX, and this maybe took half the time of my actual typesetting... this is probably normal (I HOPE?!) because as a beginner I have no fonts, but as I work on more TS projects, I guess the time spent will lower.

That is with the exception of when I pick up more and more fonts... it's like going on a shopping spree to fill up a closet. Only that you don't have to pay for most of them (cough). So I went... on a font spree and downloaded waaay too many fonts... which makes the choosing process hard. Like: huh, the SFX "turn" looks better with this font or this other font?

Choice paralysis by being overwhelmed with so many choices and thinking: maybe there is the perfect typeface for this but I haven't found it yet (this is being masochistic, probably best not to think that).

Getting fontbase was great. It's a program that lets me activate/deactivate fonts as I need them (because PS loading up so many fonts will cause it to crash whoo). The free version lets me organize fonts by category but I'm unsure about which ones I should make. For now, it's like this and I don't think it's very helpful LOL it could certainly be better. I'm too lazy to update the NSFW one and add new categories.. for now xd

The paid version lets you add tags to fonts which I find pretty helpful.

There's a way to preview how the text will look like too and nice UX additions.

So what does a font addict do when they have an enabler? Download even mooore fonts. It's fun at first because later on, it becomes a pain to organize;; That said, the result is worth it because if I need a specific type of font for an SFX I can just go to a category, type the word and scroll through the options that have already been sifted through.