: Central, simplified, "pen" strokes of a font glyph Take a look at this picture: The red lines inside a glyph is what I'm referring to as "central" or "pen" strokes. Imagine you drawing the

@Yeniel278

This is more of a long comment:


I dont know about proper in this context, but in more scientific literature ive seen it called straight skeleton.
Sometimes.
It is not really possible to do this with our currenr main font technology without cheating. But it is possible to do in now obsolete postscript fonts. Further there is a chance that you can again once the color font standards move ahead (so our font tech has finaly made a full 360 degree revolution).

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@Berryessa866

1. What is the proper name of this type of strokes?


The line itself would be called the centerline. There may be other or better terms depending on the context but that's what I would call it.


2. Are these lines used in font design?


It depends. They certainly could be, but not necessarily.


3. do any font formats store this information along with glyphs?


Generally no, but they exist. Monoline or sinle-line fonts as they are called are useful for things like engraving and laser cutting (so you only get one continuous pass on each glyph).

You can find a selection of single-line fonts here: imajeenyus.com/computer/20150110_single_line_fonts/index.shtml
If you want the get the centerline from a regular font there are a number of previous questions with techniques:


Technique for finding the centerline of a curved object?
How to convert text to single stroke in illustrator
Convert outlined stroke to single stroke
Create the centerline from an polygon


There is a script for Illustrator that was posted on the Adobe Forums that may be of help (it was written for CS4, but apparently works up to CS6, not sure about other versions):

forums.adobe.com/thread/719618

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