Since Kontakt 6 we can add custom fonts. Although the ksp coding part is very easy, creating such a bitmap font manually can be a pain in the ass. That’s why we built an online ksp font type generator which does this job for you.

Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.

YouTube privacy policy

If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.

Accept YouTube Content

If you still want to do it manually: the font or each glyph has to be converted into a special bitmap. In this case it’s a horizontal image sprite that has to be put into the Resources/pictures folder of your instrument. learn more below

CONTENT

• creating the font BITMAP

• Loading A CUSTOM FONT via KSP Script

• OWN-FONT-TYPEs (OFT) DISPLAY TOOL – KSP

• ONLINE KSP-FONT-TYPE GENERATOR

Creating the Font BITMAP

The best is to use our font type generator. There you can convert all google web fonts and generate the appropriate sprite. Simply load the bitmap into the Resources/pictures folder.

KSP FONT TYPE GENERATOR

Text File

Don’t forget to add a txt file into the Resources/pictures folder as well, with the same file name of your font sprite. Without it, the font would still work, but it would not be added to your resources container (.nkr) when creating or updating it.The content of the text file doesn’t matter. It can also be an empty txt.

This is how a font BITMAP looks like:

DIY :: Definitions & hints:

If you still want to create the bitmap yourself, you must strictly follow these definitions:

font sizing is not possible within Kontakt. That has to be done before, when creating the bitmap font.

Kerning is not feasible with this bitmap method. So letter spacing may look slightly different compared to the original font.

Also keep in mind Kontakt bitmap fonts are pixel-based images (not vector-based). Thus the glyphs may look more blurred or biased than the original font.

Loading the bitmap FONT INTO KONTAKT – via KSP Script

Finally we can load the new font into Kontakt via the new $CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE and get_font_id()

Custom fonts can only be used with dynamic text elements though, like labels, buttons, text edits etc.

For controls like buttons, switches and menus we can also set separate fonts for each event state. So we can do:

• button/menu OFF: font 1
• button/menu ON:  font 2
• button/menu PRESSED: font 3
• and so on..

Use these control parameters:

$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE {OFF STATE}
$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE_ON
$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE_OFF_PRESSED
$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE_ON_PRESSED
$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE_OFF_HOVER
$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE_ON_HOVER

Adding a custom font to an UI_element

declare ui_label $label (1,1)

declare $fontID
$fontID := get_font_id("myFont")

{OR MULTIPLE IDs VIA ARRAY}
declare %fontID[4]
%fontID[0] := get_font_ID("myFont_1")
%fontID[1] := get_font_ID("myFont_2")
%fontID[2] := get_font_ID("myFont_3")
%fontID[3] := get_font_ID("myFont_4")

set_control_par(get_ui_id($label),$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE,$fontID)

//or via array
set_control_par(get_ui_id($label),$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE,%fontID[0])

Example Label:

on init
  declare ui_label $label (1,1)

  declare $fontID
  $fontID := get_font_id("myFont_1")

  set_control_par(get_ui_id($label),$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE,$fontID)
end on

Example Text Edit:

on init
  declare ui_text_edit @textEdit

  declare $fontID
  $fontID := get_font_id("myFont_2")

  set_control_par(get_ui_id(@textEdit),$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE,$fontID)
end on

Example button:

on init 
  declare ui_switch $button

  declare %fontID[6] 
  %fontID[0] := get_font_ID("myFont_1") 
  %fontID[1] := get_font_ID("myFont_2") 
  %fontID[2] := get_font_ID("myFont_3") 
  %fontID[3] := get_font_ID("myFont_4")
  %fontID[4] := get_font_ID("myFont_5")
  %fontID[5] := get_font_ID("myFont_6")
  
  
  set_control_par(get_ui_id($button),$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE,%fontID[0]) 		{ OFF STATE }
  set_control_par(get_ui_id($button),$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE_ON,%fontID[1]) 	{ ON STATE }
  set_control_par(get_ui_id($button),$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE_OFF_PRESSED,%fontID[2]) 
  set_control_par(get_ui_id($button),$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE_ON_PRESSED,%fontID[3])
  set_control_par(get_ui_id($button),$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE_OFF_HOVER,%fontID[4])
  set_control_par(get_ui_id($button),$CONTROL_PAR_FONT_TYPE_ON_HOVER,%fontID[5])
end on

OWN-FONT-TYPES (OFT) DISPLAY TOOL

This tool is just a little helper which lets you quickly check if your own fonts are working well and how they look & feel inside Kontakt.

For this go into its Resources/pictures folder and overwrite font_1.png; font_2.png or font_3.png with your font sprite.

Open the yb-ksp_own-font-type+display.nki with Kontakt 6 (or up) and select your updated font(s).

Note: to apply a new font you should really completely close and restart Kontakt after updating one of the font-sprite PNGs. Because only hitting the apply button inside the script tabs may cause font glitches.

However: if there are still glitches after restarting Kontakt, there is most likely an error with the font sprite itself.