Free Calligraphr Alternative, No Signup

At a glance

Both tools start from a printed sheet. You write one character in each box, photograph or scan the page, and get a font file back. The table compares Calligraphr's free plan with inktype.cc.

	Calligraphr, free plan	inktype.cc
Price	Free. Pro is paid, and its price depends on your country.	Free on the web and Linux. The Mac and Windows apps each include one project; each platform has a separate one-time purchase for more. Check the store for your local price. US price: $4.99 per platform.
Account	Required	None
Characters per font	75. Pro allows 600.	No limit. Add more characters from a blank sheet.
Fonts	As many as you like, one at a time. Pro works on 20 at a time.	Unlimited on the website. Store apps include one project before purchase.
Variants and ligatures	2 variants per character. Ligatures need Pro.	Up to 3 versions of each letter, from more copies of the letters sheet. Ligatures from a ligatures sheet for your language
Kerning	None: the test font below has no kerning table. Pro can change the spacing of single characters.	Automatic, with a strength you set
File format	TTF and OTF. In the test below both files held the same TrueType outlines.	OTF, TTF, WOFF and WOFF2
Your scan	Uploaded to Calligraphr, which builds the font on its server. Pro fonts are also stored there.	Read by your own browser. Nothing is uploaded.
Runs on	Web browser	Web browser on a screen at least 980 px wide, or an app for Mac, Windows 11 or Linux

One handwritten sheet through both

The author filled in Calligraphr's free template by hand with a fine pen: 60 characters, the capitals, the lowercase letters and eight punctuation marks. A phone photo of the sheet went into the free plan. Calligraphr kept all 60 characters and had the font ready about 15 seconds after they were added. Its .ttf and .otf downloads were the same TrueType file.

inktype.cc reads only its own sheet, so there was no second handwritten sheet. Instead, the author set the letters of the Calligraphr font onto an inktype.cc sheet and opened it in the app with the default settings. Both fonts below have the same letter shapes, as Calligraphr traced them, specks from the paper included. The difference is in how each tool spaces, kerns and cleans up those shapes. inktype.cc took about a second from opening the file to the editor.

Calligraphr's font has no kerning, so AV, Wa and To keep their full gaps, and specks next to some letters open gaps inside words ("quic k", "jump s"). inktype.cc kerned those pairs and removed the smallest specks by default. One speck, before the f of "fox", stays at the default and goes when Remove specks is raised.

The pangram, the pairs AV Wa To Ty LT and the alphabet set in two handwriting fonts side by side. In the Calligraphr font on the left, quick reads as quic k and jumps as jump s. In the inktype.cc font on the right, the words are closed up and the pairs sit closer. — The same text at the same size. Left, the Calligraphr font. Right, the same letters through inktype.cc with the default settings.

Calligraphr's printed template filled in by hand in black pen: punctuation, capitals A to Z and lowercase a to z, one per box. — The filled-in Calligraphr sheet, as photographed with a phone.

Is 75 characters enough?

For English, yes. The English inktype.cc sheet has 73 characters: capitals, lowercase, digits and basic punctuation.

Other languages need more. The German sheet has 80 characters, Spanish 89, Polish 91 and French 103, because each adds its own accented letters. On Calligraphr's free plan you would have to leave some out.

When Calligraphr is the better choice

Calligraphr has more ready-made character sets: 73 languages in its template maker, against the 18 languages inktype.cc covers.

When inktype.cc is the better choice

You don't want an account. Open the page and start. There is no email address to give and no password to remember.
You write in a language beyond English, such as Polish, Czech, Swedish or Russian. Each language has its own sheet, so letters like ł, ř, å and ж are in your own hand.
You'd rather not upload your handwriting. Your browser reads the photo, and no copy goes to a server.
You want to work on several fonts at once. Calligraphr's free plan works on one font at a time, and inktype.cc has no limit.
You prefer a desktop app. The Mac and Windows apps include one project. The Linux app is free.

The free website has no project cap. The Mac and Windows apps each include one project; additional projects require a separate purchase for that platform.

Other free options

FontCrafter is free, needs no account and runs in the browser, including on phones. It exports OTF, TTF and WOFF2 and adds ligatures and alternate letters.
LeFont is an iPhone and iPad app with no account. It reads its own writing sheet on your device and exports a TTF for free. Kerning, ligatures and WOFF2 need Pro.
fontmaker.co runs in the browser with no sign-up. Its free plan covers 26 characters for personal use.
FontForge is a free, open-source font editor for Windows, macOS and Linux. It gives you control over every curve but takes a while to learn.
MyScriptFont and PaintFont no longer exist. paintfont.com now forwards to Calligraphr.

For more tools and the differences between the web and desktop versions, see handwriting font makers compared.

How this comparison was made

The pricing and FAQ were rechecked on 29 October 2026: the free plan still requires registration and allows 75 characters, two variants per character and one active font. The handwritten comparison and template-maker observations below are from 30 September 2026; the test was not rerun for this update.

The Calligraphr column comes from its pricing page, FAQ and template maker, read on 30 September 2026, and from the test above on its free plan. The inktype.cc column comes from the app. The author of this page makes inktype.cc, so check the Calligraphr column against the links below.

Calligraphr pricing · Calligraphr FAQ · FontCrafter · LeFont · fontmaker.co · FontForge