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Fontlab Studio 5.0.2 for Windows User Manual

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1. Example of a hint replacement program for the Times g character 685 686 TrueType Instructions In TrueType fonts the hinting process is very different from the one used in Type 1 fonts As we said before in TrueType font format almost all characters have special programs that directly control the movement of outline points at different PPM sizes The native TrueType instruction language consists of several dozen commands All the commands deal with the data stack a temporary storage place and the constant definitions that come with a font There are 3 different kinds of instructions in each TrueType font file One global program called the Font Program is executed one time when the font is used for the first time Another global program called the PPM Program is executed one time when the font s PPM is changed Local programs Glyph Programs are executed for each glyph when it is scaled Programs can deal with points distances arithmetic values constants and graphics state parameters Graphics state parameters set rules t
2. The quick brown f gt IT he quick Grown fox jumped over the lazy dog In the topmost editing field you may enter the font name that you want to check for similarities Click the Check button to send a request to the myfonts com database If you have an Internet connection MyFonts com replies with a list of font names if any that include the name you entered Select one of the fonts and click on the Preview button or just double click the font name to see a sample of the font in the sample box below the list 219 220 The sample picture is downloaded from MyFonts com so it may take some time depending on the speed of your Internet connection You can modify the contents of the sample string in the editing field below the sample window By default it has the standard Quick brown fox sentence but you can enter anything there The Button will open a browser window with the currently selected font presented in full detail MyFonts com Helvetica Inserat Testdrive Microsoft Internet Explorer loj x File Edit View Favorites Tools Help Ei 5 OAS S B Address http www myfonts com Testdrive id 10359 Go Fonts by Category by Name Special Offers Value Packs Tools WhatTheFont TypeXplorer more Font Utilities lists People Foundries more Font Sites MYFONTS COM Support Discussi
3. gt 4 Rounding error To minimize rounding errors font rasterizers use special algorithms that slightly change the scaled outlines to get better results on devices with low and medium resolution This process is called gridfitting Algorithms that gridfit outlines use additional information stored with an outline s definition These instructions are referred to as hints Hints usually define the most important proportions of characters the positions of critical elements of characters and a set of rules for outline modification For perfect looking fonts it s not enough to define the characters outlines you must also provide hints The process of specifying the hints is quaintly called hinting TrueType and Type 1 Hints The two most commonly used font formats are Type 1 and TrueType However they use very different hinting instructions and it is not always possible to automatically convert Type 1 hints to TrueType hints Type 1 hinting TrueType hinting In Type 1 fonts hints define the most important dimensions in the characters like the position and width of the crossbar of the letter H Font hints in TrueType usually called instructions directly control the movement of points and the rounding of point coordinates A TrueType hinting program is written in a special programming language This makes TrueType hinting very flexible and powerful but also too complex to program directly Usually a smaller se
4. Top to bottom Bottom to top Number of stripes Begin From position 400 Proceed to position 1000 Here s what you can do with this effect pun fpo ya UN l Tom p u pur pn l As parameters of this effect you can set the number of stripes that appear on your glyphs the starting and finishing line of the effect and the direction of the gradient The starting and finishing lines can be manually set to let you customize this effect and make it look the same in all glyphs Note that these values are set in font units so they are relative to the fonts UPM value 637 638 Random Horizontal offset v Proportional offset MH This effect randomly shifts a glyph s nodes It is especially interesting when combined with other effects like Gradient Il wlth M I l pml jh l Ql wil ny dill fm till yan in pum Poem You can control how much the nodes are shifted You can set the same value for both directions if the Proportional offset option is on or you can customize the values separately Envelope Effect Force _ Randomize This effect lets you apply one of many predefined transformations to several glyphs at once Refer to the Glyph Window chapter for more information about the Envelope effect Here is an example of what you can do with this effect sample Arial font after circle envelope with 30 Forc
5. _ Decompose all composite glyphs Generate Unicode indexes For all glyphs Generate basic OpenType Features for Type 1 Fonts with Standard encoding Find matching encoding table if possible If the option Decompose all composite glyphs is on FontLab Studio will decompose all composite glyphs in the imported font Composite glyphs have no unique outline themselves but borrow outlines from other font glyphs Good examples of composite glyphs are accented glyphs like A a or nh In each of these the composite character is composed of a character glyph outline and an accent glyph outline from elsewhere in the font FontLab Studio has all the necessary tools and operations to work with composite glyphs so it s usually not necessary to decompose them on import But if you want to significantly modify the glyphs and do not want to worry about composites you can use this option Of course you can always decompose or recompose the glyphs later using FontLab Studio commands The option Generate Unicode indexes for all glyphs should be usually on We strongly recommend keeping it that way if you plan to convert your Type 1 font to TrueType or OpenType format TrueType and OpenType formats uses Unicode indexes to access characters so having the indexes set properly is paramount However if you do not plan to make a TrueType font you may switch this option off As in the case of the first option you can always make Uni
6. SG Working with Composite Glyphs Composite glyphs are glyphs made up of two or more components like a letter plus an accent One or more of the components are referenced I e their contours are not actually present in the composite glyph but are copied from and linked to some other character Thus whenever the original component contour is changed all the composite glyphs that copy the component also change The contour of composite components appears in dashed lines in the Glyph window Composites have the advantage of allowing the user to create only one instance of a component that is frequently found in a font and reusing it without having to redraw it each time Later if the design of the component changes it need only be altered once in the original component And finally a composite takes up less room in the font than an outline allowing for smaller font files There are three operations related to composite glyphs adding a component to glyphs decomposing a component and positioning a component 495 496 Adding a Component To add a component to a glyph currently open in the Glyph Window select the Add Component command from the Glyph menu You will see a dialog box that looks just like a Find Glyph dialog box Select a Component Glyph Name begins with c c 0063 cit ss cacute O10 caron eC ccaron O10D ccedilla QUE 7 mA es The only difference is that only those glyphs that can
7. To open the Metrics window select the New Metrics Window command in the Window menu The Metrics window will appear 0 Preview Metrics Adobe Caslon Pro ABCDEF erring gt Sie E e gt Toots The Metrics window consists of several parts 1 A Metrics window toolbar with controls for importing and exporting metrics files automating metrics or kerning generation and other commands By default the toolbar is docked to the top of the window but you can drag it to the bottom or leave it floating around 532 2 A Metrics Tools toolbar with four buttons that allow you to select one of the metrics tools By default this toolbar is vertically aligned and docked to the I left side of the window You can drag it anywhere or dock to any amy side mi Av 3 A local command area that is used to select a mode for the Metrics window and a string for metrics or kerning editing E v kening size 72_ aa ad Options Toos ascoerch w EJE 4 The editing area where the edited string with controls appears 5 The header button located in the top right corner of the window Use this button to switch the local command area between top and bottom locations see below The local command area of the Metrics window may be located in the bottom default or top area of the window When the local command area is in the top location it includes controls to modify metrics or kerning a deee The conten
8. Unnecessary straight segments that should be removed In Type 1 fonts this error can cause problems with rasterization Curves that can be replaced with a straight segment without loss of quality I e a curve that is really a straight line Two sequential straight segments are collinear therefore the first straight segment can be removed Straight lines with extra nodes in the middle Detects curves that have inflections It is better to replace such curves with a combination of two curves There are invisible extreme points on curves This error can cause problems with rasterization of the glyph o Curve with an invisible extreme point A straight segment and curve or two curves are connected very close to a smooth connection but not precisely I e what looks like it should be a smooth connection is labeled as a sharp connection Cusp curve Self intersecting curve The direction of the straight segment is close to vertical or horizontal but is not parallel to one of the axes i e not exactly horizontal or vertical Contour appears to be closed visually but is defined as open Use Fix button on the error reporting dialog box to automatically correct this situation Curve or line is short enough to be deleted You can switch off any of the FontAudit tests by switching off their check box in the FontAudit options page As you can see FontAudit testing can detect errors that are invisible with
9. 1 Position the mouse cursor on one of the link s lines 2 Press the left mouse button and drag the mouse You will see that when you move the cursor onto the outline s nodes they become highlighted 3 Position the mouse cursor on the node where you want to connect the link it will become highlighted and release the mouse button 4 Release the mouse button while the link is not connected and a vertical link will disappear A horizontal link will become a ghost link in this case more on ghost links later 5 Click the right mouse button while dragging a links line to remove a link 479 Hint and Link Popup Menu To open the hint or link popup menu right click one of the hint or link s lines The Hint popup menu includes the following commands Convert to Link Converts the active hint to a link Define a Stem Defines a vertical or horizontal stem global hinting parameter as equal to the width of the current hint Properties Opens the hint property panel The Link popup menu includes the following commands Convert to Hint Converts the active link to a hint Reverse Reverses the direction of the link Delete Removes the link Properties Opens the link property panel 480 Hint Commands The Tools gt Hints amp Guides menu contains several commands related to hints Remove Hints Removes vertical or horizontal or all hints and links This command is duplicated in the rulers context menu Autohinting
10. 5 Usethe Metrics Table To drag the sidebearings lines just position the mouse cursor on the line press the left mouse button and drag the mouse Release the mouse button when you are done To drag a glyph within the editing area position the mouse cursor on the glyphs image press the left mouse button and drag the mouse to position the glyph inside its width Press the right mouse button while dragging the mouse to modify the glyph s width You can also modify the vertical position of the glyph relative to its baseline Just press and hold the Suirr key on the keyboard while dragging the glyph 555 556 Using the Keyboard When the glyph is active you can use the keyboard to adjust the metrics Left and right Moves the glyph by one font unit inside the sidebearings without arrow keys changing the advance width Hold the SHIFT key to move the glyph by 10 font units Ctrl left and Moves the glyph together with the right sidebearing This changes right arrow keys the left sidebearing and the advance width Hold the SHIFT key to move by 10 font units at each key click Any character Selects the character you have clicked as the current character for or digit editing You can also enter the glyph name if you want to access glyphs that are not assigned to any key combination Ctri and Moves to the next and previous glyphs in the font Ctrl Using the Metrics Panel mjo mmm am ET h a mi b T r g Ad i 5
11. 597 598 Kerning Classes and OpenType Kerning OpenType fonts TrueType or PostScript flavored may have kerning in two places the kern table and the kern positioning feature The kern table may contain only plain kerning not dependent on any classes It is used by applications that don t know how to use OpenType positioning features The kern feature allows you to define very complicated kerning which includes class based kerning and even more complex things like three glyph kerning or context dependent kerning Fontlab Studio 5 allows you to generate both types of kerning data blocks in the exported OpenType font file This is controlled in Tools gt Options gt Generating OpenType and TrueType gt Kerning Export kern table _ Expand class kerning while building kern table zos Generate kern Feature if it is not defined As you can see there are two check boxes Export kern table and Generate kern feature if it is not defined The first check box also has some options that control kerning expansion conversion of class based kerning to plain kerning supported by the table We will discuss kerning expansion in the next section Is important to understand that the only way to put class based kerning into the final font file and keep it as class kerning without expanding it to plain table is to build the kern feature You can do it manually using the OpenType editor described on page 841 or you c
12. Autohinting Process When you select the Convert Hints to Instructions command in the popup menu or apply the same action in the Transform or Transform All dialog box FontLab Studio 1 2 2 1 2 2 2 3 3 1 3 2 Converts all hints to links to find what points are linked by the hint For every horizontal link If one of the linked points is in the top or bottom alignment zone adds an AlignTop or AlignBottom command and connects another point to it by the SingleLink command Automatically links the SingleLink command with one of the standard stems If none of points is in the alignment zone links them by a DoubleLink command or by a single link command if one point is linked to another outline point Checks all outline points and if one of them is on the same horizontal line as one of the linked points links it by the SingleLink command It doesn t do this if the point is adjacent to an already connected point For every vertical link Connects two points by the DoubleLink command or by the single link command if one of the points is linked to another outline point Checks all outline points and if one of them is on the same horizontal line as one of the linked points links it by the SingleLink command It doesn t do this if the point is close to an already connected point FontLab Studio optionally detects cusp points and links them to one of the single and double link commands For single and doubl
13. Selecting all glyphs that have no outline or components fl Unselect for g in fl font if len g 0 and len g components 0 fl Select g index First thing we do is deselect the font It is faster to deselect all glyphs at once than to change the selection of all glyphs In our example we are selecting only those glyphs that comply with the condition 901 902 Modules More complex Python programs can be written using so called modules refer to your Python documentation for more information There are three different folders in which FontLab Studio looks for modules FontLab Studio user data folder Macro System Modules typically C Documents and Settings Your Username My Documents FontLab Studio5 Macro System Modules Put your own FontLab specific Python modules here Python folder Lib site packages typically C Python24 Lib site packages Put your non FontLab specific Python modules here that you would like to use in stand alone Python outside of FontLab Studio as well as in FontLab Studio FontLab Studio application folder Macro System Modules typically C Program Files FontLab Studio5 Macro System Modules Do not put your own modules here reserved for modules from Fontlab Ltd and registered FontLab scripting vendors Note that the location of the FontLab Studio user data folder can be changed in Options gt Folders and Paths gt FontLab Studio 5 files Please refer to our website http www fo
14. 4 Note VectorPaint tools have an option to automatically activate the Free Transform operation when any of the painting operations is completed This option allows you to instantly move scale rotate or slant the newly created shape Here is a list of all available VectorPaint tools with a short description of each 7 Freehand Used to select non rectangular areas of a glyph It selects not the Select nodes like the Edit tool but actually cuts lines and curves and selects black areas that can be moved or otherwise transformed ef Pen Used to create new contours or modify existing ones It is not really a paint tool because it deals with contours but it is a very natural and flexible tool used to adjust the result of the application of VectorPaint tools lt Brush Exactly that a brush It can be round or calligraphic A calligraphic brush can be of any size and slant angle a Polygon Has two modes point by point polygon drawing with easy combination of straight segments and curves or point by point definition of a polygon that will be drawn by using the selected brush T Text Used to enter text vector based using any TrueType font installed in the system 385 386 Freehand Select Tool This tool works like a precision knife You can cut part of a contour and it will be automatically selected so you can transform it delete it or copy it To select part of a glyph with the freehand select tool 1 Select t
15. Another key feature of the OpenType format is the fact that from the user s point of view there is only one font format for Mac PC or any other platform From the inside there are two possible forms of OpenType fonts OpenType TT and OpenType PS The general structure of the font file is the same and both versions of the format provide the same functionality There are some technical differences Version OpenType TT OpenType PS Outlines 2nd order like in TrueType 3rd order like in Type 1 fonts fonts aaa cee nnn Tey aera nnn e eee al extension Comments Technically these fonts are an Outline data is stored in a CFF extension of the PC TrueType Compact Font Format table format and are backwards When printed to a PostScript compatible with them device the font is converted to Therefore in FontLab Studio Type 1 so it is backwards we refer to them as TrueType compatible with all PostScript OpenType TT From the devices practical point of view any PC TrueType font is automatically an OpenType TT font and vice versa 821 What Format to Prefer It is not easy to say which version is better Both formats will work on both platforms For Windows centered office use we would recommend TT flavored OpenType fonts as they will provide better compatibility with the old versions of the OS For cross platform and DTP oriented applications OpenType PS fonts seem to have some advantage because they will provide better
16. Copyright the name of the company or person that owns the copyright and the copyright year In Type 1 fonts this information is stored in the Notice entry and in TrueType fonts in the Copyright entry Build Copyright Press this button to create the standard Copyright record based and Trademark onthe Created By and Creation Year fields Records Notice name 10 Additional information that you want to include in Font Info Exported in Type 1 fonts as the Copyright entry and in TrueType fonts as the Description entry Font Embedding Font embedding settings Embedding settings FsType Editing of the document is allowed ka Allow subsetting Bitmap embedding only Make current selections a default choice These settings control how the font may be embedded into documents Embedding is a feature of the Windows operating system and some applications that allow programs to include fonts into documents to guarantee that they will be reproduced correctly However this feature may cause problems with font piracy It is not very hard to extract embedded fonts from a document so the TrueType font format includes a special setting that can control font embedding There are four types of font embedding Everything is allowed After the document is opened the font works as if it was installed in the system Only printing and The font may be embedded but editing of the previewing document it contains is not allowed is allowed E
17. Ear oa E C Alllayers CO Outline C Guidelines C Hints I Mask Grid C Vertical metrics C Global mask ae C Glyph metrics L Components C C Anchors and carets C C Alignment zones Shape groups Neighbors Background Center of selection Ba Ga Center x P mB C D 3 FontLab Studio Glyph A from Palatino Linotype s0000 7 x 3 i PER CEL E A JK M Njo Ba 0 x Jn Poe a File Edit View Contour Glyph Tools Window Help D ad elo Alas 7 Fonts IE nl Bf a gt ul 3 Ece 7 alos vi a A 300 Td X Curve tool v Top level v Testing Macro Editing Layers ris TY 150g Ey Palatino Linotype E F Palatino Linotype pala vfb Total Fonts 1 Grouped by Family Name Classes ag eA K _Aring K B ec K _Cacute KD kE K Eacutel K _Eacute Kerning Ee OpenType gr doit sups ordn subs sinf smcp cpsp kern Frac c2sc onm a ti feature aalt IAAKK 3 glyphs in this BS feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature Ge A Aogonek A unitEAQ 4 _A 4 Aogonek unitEAO fel bor sups ordn sinf subs frac c2sc onum pnum 1EA0 a EJ e 2 i EREE 200 Eo O Al layers C Outline C Guidelines C Hints C Mask OKOK DOORS amp Grid O Vertical
18. Read OpenType layout tables GPOS GSUB GDEF This option has several sub options Store binary OpenType layout tables Enable this to store the original binary OpenType Layout tables they will be stored in your vfb file This is useful if you wish to make some changes to an existing OpenType font e g add or fix the design of some glyphs or change the hinting but you do not want to touch the OpenType Layout tables Remember that FontLab Studio cannot compile all lookup types so if you are editing complex script fonts that extensively use GPOS features Arabic Devanagari etc you most likely want to preserve the original OpenType tables You can later remove the binary tables from your vfb file using Font Info gt Binary and custom tables Disable this to prevent FontLab Studio from storing the binary OpenType Layout tables in the vfb file Interpret OpenType layout tables Enable this to have FontLab Studio try to interpret decompile the binary OpenType Layout tables into the feature definition language If you are opening a font with Roman Greek or Cyrillic glyphs FontLab Studio will likely succeed in interpreting the features 837 838 If you are opening an Arabic or Devanagari font FontLab Studio will probably interpret the features but many of them will be disabled commented out in the feature definition language This means that FontLab Studio will not be able to rebuild these features In this case it s be
19. Select the characters to which you want to apply the Mask to Master action Click on the Tools gt Multiple Master gt Mask to Master command A dialog box appears Mask to Master Select a master which you want to replace by the mask layer wit ABCabc123 If you switch on Do not insert points option then FontLab Studio will copy outlines as they were in the Mask layer regardless their compatibility with the font Use this option only if you are sure the Mask layer is completely compatible with the outline Select the master that you want to replace by its Mask layer in the masters list box Press the OK button to begin the transformation Using Interpolation to Make Masters If two styles are completely incompatible you can use the Interpolate operation described in the Glyph Window chapter to make masters Put one style on the outline layer and define an axis Put the other style on the Mask layer using the Assign Mask dialog box Select the master that should look close to the appearance of the style on the Mask layer and activate an Interpolation operation Use Interpolation to stretch the outline on the Mask layer This is relatively easy to do because the destination points of the interpolation links will stick to the Mask layer After you complete work with the Interpolation tool use the Edit tool to fine tune the master 797 798 Match Maste
20. This dialog lets you choose the mapping file The structure of a mapping file is described below but its purpose is simple to map Unicode codepoints to a set of predefined names 187 Set the options helping to control the process Use this table as default The selected mapping file will become the default one You will not need to select it again the next time the dialog opens Try to keep existing If this option is on glyphs having Unicode codepoints Unicode codepoints assigned will keep them untouched Assign PUA indexes to If this option is on FontLab Studio will assign to unencoded glyphs unencoded glyphs Unicode indexes from Private Use Area Apply only to selected If this option is on FontLab Studio will apply the glyphs operation to the selected cells only You select the appropriate file and click OK Then FontLab Studio will 1 Remove all Unicode data if Try to keep existing Unicode indexes is off 2 Search the selected name Unicode database for each glyph s name 3 Ifthe name is in the database it adds the Unicode codepoint linked with this name to the glyph s list of Unicode codepoints 4 Because the database may link more than one Unicode codepoint with a name steps 2 and 3 are processed whenever a glyph s name is found in the database 188 Structure of the Name Unicode Database The database that links Unicode codepoints and glyph names is nothing more than a text file standard nam or agl nam l
21. This panel lists all anchors defined for the glyph To change the properties of one of the anchors select it in the list and the anchor will be highlighted To change the position of the anchor use the editing fields below the list Positior i ai 499 To rename the anchor left click the selected anchor in the list and rename it in the editing field 127 499 503 504 Using Anchors to Build Composites The main purpose of anchors is to mark important positions in the glyph space In addition anchors may be used to link some glyphs and form composite glyphs Yv 4 ho an SE i ee You can define a composite glyph using the Composites tool at any time but that operation creates fixed composites and you would need to perform it manually for every composite glyph you want to create For composites that consist of a base glyph and one or more accent glyphs this operation may take a lot of time In contrast with anchors you can create virtual composites which can be converted to the fixed state at any time with the Generate Glyphs command in the Glyph menu To define a virtual composite you need to define pairs of anchors in the base and the accent glyph Each pair of anchor names must match by the underscore rule for each base anchor there must be a corresponding accent anchor with the same name except that it starts with an underscore So
22. Uniforrn Center Zero point bad Enter the scaling factor and select a center point of transformation Use the Uniform option to scale proportionally Center Zero point z Enter the slant angle degrees positive value slants to the right and select a center point Mirror as Center Center of selection Enter the direction of the mirror axis and select the center point of the transformation Use the buttons to mirror horizontally or vertically quickly 405 406 Press the Apply button or ENTER key to apply the transformation to the selected area Pressing the button will align all selected nodes horizontally or vertically If you press the L button the Actions dialog box will open see the Actions chapter below Pressing this button is the same as choOsing the Tools gt Action command If you press the button the previous transformation action will be repeated It is the same as choosing the Tools gt Repeat Action command Using Transform Tools In the Edit mode you have access to three transform tools in the Tools toolbar 1 Rotate Rotates the contour 7 Slant Slants the contour vertically or horizontally To transform the outline 1 Select part of the outline you want to transform or undo all selections to transform the entire glyph outline 2 Activate one of the transform tools 3 Position the mouse cursor at the center of transformation press the left button
23. You can switch the ruler bars on and off with the Rulers option in the View menu A quicker way is to right click the ruler and choose the option in the context menu Rulers oom Ear Remove Hints d Remove Guidelines d Add New Horizontal Link we Add New vertical Link At the very bottom right corner of the Glyph window you will find a little expand button that when clicked on opens the Glyphs bar F greater question at ns SirleMfs cloleir cin This is nothing more than a slice of the Font window making it easier to access cells in the font window while the glyph window is maximized for precise editing work At the bottom left corner of the windows you will find two more buttons Lock and Meter The Lock button controls quick access to the font glyph when it is in the unlocked state s you can use the keyboard to directly access the glyphs I e when you press a key the corresponding glyph will automatically open in the glyph window The Meter button t controls the appearance of the Meter panel which usually sits at the right end of the glyph window toolbar and shows the current coordinates and other parameters of the cursor k 51451 0h 40863 0 RSET OSS OEDS A 325 To the right of the meter button you will find a zoom selection menu If you click on it you will get the zoom menu that has same options that you may find in the zoom toolbar This menu is useful if z
24. You may print the Waterfall preview of the font if you click on the button on the Standard toolbar Refer to the Printing and Proofing Fonts chapter for further details Preview Options To edit the contents of the sample strings list click on this button You will see a dialog box that contains all the strings that appear in the list plus a few other options Preview Options Contents of the preview text combo box hamburgevorns LMNOPQRSTUV W rA abedefghijklm IIELMANOPORS TUW is PORSTU ASTUTE defghijklmna ABCabc ABCabel 23 HAMBUAGEYONS SHE VERSE ASHORE Font to use in the preview combo box E List of point sizes to preview in waterfall mode 535 36 40 42 48 By clicking the Open button you can select the text file that will be used to preview sample strings This option Font to use in the preview combo box allows you to choose the system font that is used to show text in the sample string You may need to change this font if you are working with non Latin fonts peep pyce Kono IlpumMep 383 384 VectorPaint Mode VectorPaint is FontLab s unique set of tools that allow you to paint vector contours with tools that look and feel like bitmap tools You can choose brushes pens freeform selections and even enter text The idea of VectorPaint is that all the tools produce contours that combine wit
25. 580 In the options area select the metrics that you want to change MB Left sidebearing Right sidebearing Enter the amount by which you want to adjust the values and select the units which can be font units or a percentage of the source value Enter a positive number to increase metrics distances or kerning or a negative value to decrease Normally metrics are measured from the bounding box You can change this however if you want to measurement from a measurement line by using the check box The Affect composites option lets you choose what will happen with composite glyphs that reference glyphs whose metrics you adjust using this action If the checkbox is on which is the default the position of the components in composites will be adjusted to compensate for the change of the left sidebearing of the referenced glyph so the shape of the composite is not changed If you want to avoid this effect uncheck this option The measurement line is a horizontal line defined in the Glyph Window that defines a slice which is used to measure the distance from outline to sidebearings Please refer to the Glyph Window chapter for more detail Class Based Kerning Some glyphs in a font may have a similar shape and may be kerned equally For example A and Acaron will have the same kerning value if kerned with T or Tcearon With the standard kerning system this will require 4 kerning pairs I
26. Convert to links Use this action to convert Type 1 hints to links FontLab Studio will analyze the outline of the glyph and try to make links that will replace the hints Refer to the Glyph Window chapter for information about hints and links Convert to hints This action is the reverse of the previous one It converts all links to hints Because this operation is always possible conversion of hints to links is not you can be sure that it will replace all links by hints Drop TT Hints This action removes all TrueType hints including visual manually created and imported from the source TrueType font Reassign stems This operation will check all TrueType hinting program for a glyph If there are some links single links or double links that are attached to standard stem it will try to automatically select the best stems This operation is useful if you performed some heavy editing of the TrueType standard stems and want to make sure that correct stems are assigned to links 629 630 Metrics Transformation These transformations let you automatically set metrics calculate metrics in glyphs increase or decrease a glyph s sidebearings and width and center glyphs in their advance width Available metrics transformations are Set Width Sets a fixed advance width and aligns the glyph within the advance width Autospacing Automatically calculates the glyph s metrics using the same algorithms that are used in
27. Ellipse Circle or ellipse CD o amp Free Rectangle that can be freely rotated rectangle Star Star with customizable number of rays Polygon Polygon with customizable number of vertices To add a shape to a glyph s outline select the shape that you want to add and press the Place button on the Smart Shapes panel Or just double click the shape s name in the list 516 When you press the Place button you will see the shape appear in the middle of the Glyph Window Shapes have a blue outline and several control handles that you drag to customize it Drag the cross control handle in the center of the shape to move it The behaviour of the other handles depends on the shape s type For example in the Star the handles determine the internal and external radius of the star s rays and the angle between vertices that form a ray Try placing some shapes into the Glyph Window and drag their control handles to see what they do Use the Suirr key to constrain the movement of handles For example in the Rectangle shape holding the Suirr key down will produce a square instead of a rectangle Every shape has a property panel where you can set the shape s parameters precisely Press the Properties button on the control panel to open the Properties panel for the shape Smart Shape ES es ee Te Here is a preview of the Star s panel Star Properties Number of raps 5 Internal Radius 200 External A adius 1 oo In t
28. English 129 Envelope 456 457 638 EPS 20 68 518 519 905 906 Eraser 331 364 Estonian 129 Exceptions 862 Expand 639 Export Terminal 98 exporting bitmaps 750 font 95 814 glyphs 518 metrics 55 External Programs 44 Extrapolation 776 786 extreme points 88 Extremes 418 625 F factory defaults 65 FB threshold 260 Feature Definition Language 823 Features 819 Features Preview Panel 850 fina 871 Final Delta 728 751 Find and Replace 409 Flex Hints 669 Flip Horizontal 417 Flip Vertical 417 FLW 115 FogLamp 29 118 font 27 class 898 creating new 119 exporting 95 814 family 27 features 816 formats 118 height 338 metrics 526 opening 114 preview 115 printing 277 proofing 277 293 recently used 117 reencoding 184 saving 167 template 119 UPM 337 Font Family how to make 222 Font Info 125 212 Alignment Zones 256 Ascender 245 Basic PCLT options 271 Caps height 245 copying 215 Copyright 232 Created by 232 Creation year 232 Descender 245 Designer 235 Embedding 233 Family Name 217 FOND Name 218 Font Name 218 Font Names 216 Font Smoothing 268 Full Name 218 221 Global Hinting 260 head Table 270 hinting 255 Identification 242 Italic 217 Italic angle 245 License 236 Mac Name 221 Menu Name 218 Metrics and Dimensions 244 Notice 232 OpenType names 221 PANOSE 240 PCLT Codepages 274 PCLT Identification 27
29. Fonts in the Fonts List 2 Click on the L button to the right of the Apply action set control to open the Fonts List dialog box Fonts List Options C Append suffix to the Font names Append suffix to the file names Destination Format Same as source Destination folder Save into source Folder l 3 4 Click on the L button to add fonts to the list using the standard File Open dialog box Note that you may select multiple font files to add Fonts CAAPSFONTS 6BLG85 C PFB CANPSFONTSSBLGSE C PFB LANPSFONTSSFARS45 CPB C PSFONTSSFAS65_ C PFB To remove a font from the list select it and click on the button Click the button to remove all fonts from the list Use the Options controls to define the optional suffixes that will be added to the font name and to the file name during transformation i Anpend suffix to the font names Outline lf Append suffix to the file names Lo In the same area you can select the destination format in which the font will be exported Destination format Same as source Ww Same az Source Use the Same as source choice to leave the font s format unchanged The font s customized export options if source fonts are in FontLab Studio format or the currently selected export options will be used to build the destination font You may change the current options if you press the Options button Tip if you do not speci
30. Installing Python When you run FontLab Studio for the first time it will know nothing about macro programming and Python All Python related tools and interface components are hidden and disabled This means that if you don t want to use these tools you are not required to and FontLab Studio will work smoothly without any Python integration If you want to use macro programs or perhaps create some programs yourself however you have to install the Python interpreter FontLab Studio can work with the Python interpreter starting from version 2 2 1 to version 2 4 x Version 2 4 1 or newer is recommended Go to the FontLab Python site http www fontlab com python and follow the links for the download After you download the Python installer run it and follow the instructions to install Python Please note that even if you have a version of Python that is not compatible with FontLab Studio you need to install a compatible version to run macros inside FontLab Studio 885 886 Macro Toolbar You can use macro programs without any programming FontLab Studio includes some sample programs in its basic installation and more programs are available from our web site and from other sources The easiest way to run a macro program is to use the Macro toolbar To open the toolbar click View gt Toolbars gt Macro If this command is disabled it means that the Python system is not installed Exit FontLab Studio follow the instructions
31. Open one of the accent glyphs on Add an accent anchor named _ bottom at the point in the accent glyph where it will snap to the bottom base anchor in the base glyph Add the accent anchor _ top where it connects to the top base anchor _ l m top JE You may use the Add anchor command to add these anchors Tip Again there is a special shortcut that creates anchors with predefined names that match the previously CrrL ALT SuH1FT Right click will first add an anchor named _top if you use it again it will add the anchor named _bottom then _ left _ right and later _anchor4 etc 506 4 Notes Whether you use the Add anchor command and use arbitrary names on your own or the special shortcuts using the predefined names what really matters is that the anchor names match by the underscore rule Instead of positioning the top base anchor above the glyph you can position it at the baseline and only adjust its horizontal placement In such case you would also place the _top accent anchor in the accent glyphs at the baseline They need to snap to each other so their relative position needs to be consistent Also it doesn t always make sense to place all types of anchors to all glyphs it really depends on the desired character set of your font 507 508 Using the Anchors Panel Use the Anchor panel to preview
32. OpenType TT ttf or OpenType PS otf format Automatically reorder glyphs 4opend OpenType name records to the names exported by default Ignore Unicode indexes in the font Use the OpenType names as menu names on Macintosh Write stored custom TrueType OpenType tables Export OpenType Layout tables Compile Feature definitions Contextual substitutions in invalid legacy Format Use this option only iF you know what you are doing Generate GDEF table Export VOLT data Automatically If this option is enabled FontLab Studio will try to reorder reorder glyphs glyphs to match the Mac cmap encoding table Technically this is a requirement of the Apple TrueType specification but it is not required on Mac OS X or Windows Writing Name Records 4opend OpenType name records to the names exported by default Append OpenType name records to the names exported by default Do not export OpenType name records Export only OpenType name records ignore default names All font naming family and style names copyright and version strings etc in OpenType and TrueType fonts are stored in the name table In most cases the name table contains separate sets of names for the Macintosh and Windows platforms sometimes also non English names are stored separately In the Font Info dialog naming entries are stored in the native form of the OpenType name table Font Info gt Names and Copyright
33. Please refer to the Editing Fonts Glyph Window and Editing Metrics chapters to get detailed information about the windows and their features Font Window As an exercise let s create a font in order to demonstrate the FontLab Studio Windows Use the New command in the File menu or click this button k on the Standard toolbar You will see the Font window G Font Untitled hehe b EUDEL As you can see this window has a caption with a few buttons and options and a big table of cells that represent characters and glyphs Each cell has a caption that contains glyph identification information name Unicode index or some other data Cells can also contain little icons that show properties of glyphs but more about that later 47 48 There are no glyphs in the font that we just created but the Font window nevertheless shows some pictures in the glyph cells These are template images that show which character should be placed in the cell FontLab Studio has templates for thousands of characters so you will usually know where to place new characters We ll discuss navigation in the Font window later in the Editing Fonts chapter so let s talk about the Font window command bar which is located either at the bottom or at the top of the window Size Ei IP il Caption I Names mode ka Il Default Encoding Ea FEN Name vl Default Encoding ie Oe A A You can s
34. Shape groups and neighbors Metrics window Font4udit Opening Type 1 Opening OpenType amp TrueType TrueType OpenType TT ttf Generating Type 1 Type 1 autohinting Generating OpenType amp TrueTyp Digital signature TrueType OpenType TT ttf TrueType Autohinting OpenType TT Encoding OpenType PS otF Kerning Trace Options T _ Generating OpenType TT TrueType encoding Use Following codepage For first 256 glyphs Do not reencode first 256 characters v C Export only first 256 glyphs of the selected codepage Use following codepage to build cmapf1 0 table MacOS Roman M C Put MS Char Set value into FsSelection field Kerning Export kern table Expand class kerning while building kern table Generate only pairs with glyphs in Following codepage MacOS Roman Limit total number of pairs in the table to 400 Generate kern feature if it is not defined You may want to tweak the kerning settings or use Tools gt Kerning Assistance before generating your font to manually expand the kerning table into plain kerning Also make sure that Tools gt Options gt General Options gt Unicode and OpenType gt Add all glyph classes to OpenType is enabled 311 312 Options for Converting Fonts We recommend selecting different options for converting fonts between different formats In addition to the font generat
35. Use the button in the OpenType panel to open a menu and then select the Save Features command to open a File Save dialog box Select VOLT project files vtp as the destination format and FontLab Studio will try to save the features in VOLT format 2 Enable the Export VOLT data option in the Tools gt Options gt Generating OpenType amp TrueType menu and generate the font as a TrueType OpenType TT FontLab Studio will write both binary OpenType tables and tables that VOLT can read so you can open this font in VOLT and continue editing features VOLT itself cannot decompile OpenType binary tables into source information So Option 2 is the only way that you can open an existing OpenType font with binary tables and turn these into VOLT source information 881 Macro Programming One of the unique features of FontLab Studio is an integrated macro programming language With this feature you can program repeated tasks define custom font transformations create your own editing tools integrate FontLab Studio into a font development system which may include other tools and use FontLab Studio in many other powerful ways Macro programs in FontLab Studio are written in the well known and well documented Python programming language FontLab Studio uses the standard version of the language so almost all macros written in Python will work in FontLab Studio In addition to support of Python FontLab Studio provides a detailed set of classes
36. Vertical Orientation Right to Left The vertical font metrics or the vertical glyph metrics if defined are used to vertically align glyphs Right to left preview mode still works when the Preview panel is vertically oriented so you can align glyphs to the left or to the right to check the balance of their sidebearings Waterfall Preview When you are working on a glyph you may need to see it in many sizes at once Open the glyph in the Glyph Window and switch the Preview panel to the waterfall mode with Waterfall command in the Preview Options menu You will see multiple sizes of the glyph previewed 088BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB B B B B Per Sticiqi2i21idif 16 17 is 1 20 21 22 22 24 25 Z6 ZF ZS 38 40 42 42 Size is measured as PPM which means Pixel Per eM This is a resolution independent way of defining the pixel height of the glyphs For standard PC screens the point size which you enter to define text size in text editors or page layout programs is equal to 34 of the PPM With the Preview Options dialog box you can choose which PPMs you want to preview List of point sizes to preview in Waterfall mode You can choose what sizes you need to see in the waterfall preview mode Enter the sizes separated by or use to define size ranges Click the Reset button to select the default PPM ranges 381 382 Waterfall preview also works in vertical mode with left to right or right to left writing mode
37. Vertical metrics Background bitmap Mask Shape group Components Cutline Outline echo Outline background Global mask Neighbors Path direction mark BC opacity Mask background tu Ho a mm In FontLab Studio the color of practically each element of the Glyph Window can be customized so for example you can edit white outlines on a black background You can also control the opacity of the control vectors here 81 82 Tracking F Hints tracking Tracking offset wo of UPMI Guidelines tracking Hints tracking When enabled and you move a hint by a distance less than the Tracking offset setting all nodes that are on the hint will be moved with it Use it to keep an outline on the hint when you modify the hint s width Guidelines tracking When enabled and you move a guideline by a distance less than the Tracking offset setting all nodes that are on the guideline will be moved with it Track global When enabled and you move a global guideline by a distance guidelines less than the Tracking offset setting all nodes that are on the global guideline will be moved with it Note this may affect all glyphs in your font Shape Groups and Neighbors The shape groups layer displays a number of semi transparent glyphs stacked behind or above and below the outline of the current glyph The neighbors layer shows glyphs left and right of the current outline The composition of
38. aa AW Class kerning w Class kerning with exceptions Class kerning in key pairs only Individual pair kerning class kerning is off Class kerning If this option is active only class kerning is editable and no exceptions are allowed So if you have kerning defined between left _A class and right _T class then if you change the kerning between any two members of the class it will be the same as if you had changed the kerning between the two key glyphs Class kerning with exceptions In this case if you modify the kerning between two members of a class that are not key glyphs you will define an exception Class kerning in key pairs only This option allows you to modify kerning only in key glyphs all other members of the class are locked Individual pair kerning If this mode is active class kerning is completely ignored Previewing Class based Kerning In the Metrics table key glyphs of the classes have a light blue area to the right of the glyph name A C 49 A T 25 If you click on this area Fontlab Studio will automatically generate a sample string that contains the second glyph of the pair kerned with all glyphs of the class oc w O If you press the ALT key and click on the class area of the pair of two key glyphs it will generate a sample string that contains all combinations of all glyphs of the two classes Instead of clicking on the class area you can press CONTROL and click on the glyph name
39. and period Spaces and special characters are not permitted in class names There are three types of classes Kerning classes These are used to group together glyphs that will share the same kerning value If a kerning pair is defined or changed for one of the glyphs in the class the remaining glyphs will automatically share the same kerning value The name of a kerning class must start with an underscore e g _a Metrics classes These are used to group together glyphs that will share the same metrics advanced width and sidebearings If metrics are changed for one of the glyphs the user can quickly propagate the change to other glyphs using Metrics Assistance Note that unlike with kerning classes the changes made to one of the glyphs in a metrics class are not automatically reflected in the other glyphs The name of a metrics class must start with a period e g n OpenType classes These are used in OpenType Layout feature definitions For example the layout feature for old style figures onum may replace a class of lining figures with a class of old style figures The name of an OpenType class must start with an uppercase or a lowercase letter e g smcp2 Each kerning class and each metrics class must have exactly one key glyph defined this is done by following one of the glyph names in the glyph definition by the quotesingle character The key glyph acts as a representative of the class The user
40. another with AAT features You can download free Arabic OpenType amp AAT fonts from http scripts sil org cms scripts page php site_id nrsi amp item_id ArabicFonts and use them as reference When you open existing OpenType fonts it is important to realize the interaction of the two crucial options in FontLab Studio 5 The combination Store binary OpenType layout tables _ Interpret OpenType layout tables means that the binary OpenType tables will be retained in your vfb file but they will not be decompiled into human readable feature definition language When you re generate your OpenType font later the stored original binary tables will be written into the font 839 840 You can decompile them later by choosing Interpret Stored Binary Layout Tables from the OpenType panel The combination _ Store binary OpenType layout tables Interpret OpenType layout tables means that the binary OpenType tables will not be retained in your vfb file but they will be decompiled into human readable feature definition language When you re generate your OpenType font later the feature definition language will be compiled and new binary tables will be written into the font Limitations discussed earlier unsupported lookup types apply here The combination _ Store binary OpenType layout tables _ Interpret OpenType layout tables means that no OpenType information will be imported The combination Store binary OpenTyp
41. components by the respective outlines If the components were scaled or shifted this information is retained accordingly Applied to the whole font it makes the font free of composites Curves to PostScript This action converts all TrueType curves 2 4 order quadratic B splines in the selected glyphs into PostScript curves Type 1 curves 3 4 order cubic Bezier curves TrueType curves are used in TrueType and OpenType TT fonts PostScript curves are used in Type 1 OpenType PS and MM fonts Use this command if you want to manually prepare a TrueType font for conversion into Type format or if you opened a TrueType font but prefer to edit outlines in the Bezier form This action does not change the contour direction do not forget to correct the direction of the contours to make the glyphs compatible with the Type 1 or the OpenType PS format requirements Curves to TrueType This action is the reverse of the previous one It converts PostScript curves into TrueType curves Usually it is used to prepare a Type font for manual TrueType hinting This action does not change the contour direction so you need to correct the direction of the contours in an extra step using the following action Contour Direction Set direction to PostScript black on the left Set direction to TrueType black on the right Reverse all contours This action automatically detects the direction of contours and corrects them according to t
42. get If instead of fl for example If you click on the button you can choose and open the text file with glyph name definitions prepared in advance Check the Mark new glyphs option to mark created glyphs in the Font window with color Check the Replace existing glyphs option to place created glyphs in the occupied cells of the font chart An old glyph will be moved to the end of the chart in this case 4 Tip By default FontLab Studio automatically recognizes if an uppercase composite glyph is generated and shifts the accent components up by the difference of the font s caps height and x height If you are unhappy with the default positioning of the accents in the generate uppercase glyphs temporarily modify the font s caps height setting in the Font Info dialog and generate the glyphs again If your font contains an extra set of specially positioned uppercase accents and you do not want FontLab Studio to shift them up use the command in the recipe e g A acute case Aacute 4 Note If you are generating a composite glyph from components that already have corresponding base anchors and accent anchors the anchor positioning will override the positioning used in the composition recipe 513 514 Aliases Table FontLab Studio comes with an alias dat file located in the Program Files Common Files FontLab Data folder which is the text file that defines the decomposition of common composite glyphs Here is a pa
43. glyphs that have no characters mapped to the current keyboard layout FontLab Sample Text Notation Character Meaning of the following text Glyph name follows the slash A Follow the name with another to continue entering glyph names or enter a space after the glyph name to continue entering ANSI characters Acaron Adieresis BCDEF You may enter the code of the character according to the currently active encoding or a codepage 128 130 In this case the code number must contain only digits Unicode index of the glyph in hex format 0446 eee ee es ee 0445 0448 u0446 BCDE sn 3 D ee pene T 541 542 Customizing the Sample String List If you click on the button L to the right of the sample list control you will see the following dialog box Load Text ABCabciz3 hamburgevons HAMBURGEVONS SHE VERSE ASHORE 45 AGREES RUNAS GORGEOUS MAME HAHHA AODHA A HBHHBOHBOOBO Se Second preview string HOHOHO As you can see there is a big multiline editing field that contains all the strings in the sample list Change it as you want or click on the button to fill it from a text file You may use special characters as described in the previous section to enter glyph codes names or Unicode indexes Type n to force a line break in the sample text The Second preview string textbox contains text that will appear as an additional line below
44. i Cancel Click Cancel to avoid activating the Type 1 hinting tool or OK to convert the glyph to Type 1 curves Check the Always do correction option to convert all glyphs that are opened for Type 1 hinting When the Type 1 hinting tool is successfully activated you will see a pixel preview panel r Current PPM 12 and a small toolbar Type 1 Hinting gt hit ta ae es 673 The buttons on the toolbar mean gt O Automatic hinting Preview Opens the Preview panel Ww Preview Paints rasterized picture of the glyph as a background of the Pixels editing area Preview Previews Flex hint zones in the current glyph in red color Flex EI I When the Type 1 hinting tool is active the contents of the Glyph window change G Glyph B from Adobe Caslon Pro Sle alin w e A ee THO BOO 500 j d 200 200 1000 f 100 eno 300 pang Soo ony Too 800 S00 10 A tenn 1300 ta H cit Pis allzu 674 Here is a brief description of what appears in the editing field Thick green lines Currently active set of stem hints Arrows Direction of contours There are active and inactive contour segments and active and inactive stem hints Active hints work when the active part of an outline is processed by the rasterizer The hint replacement points separate contour segments from each other You can select different active parts of the outline by clicking on the outl
45. not just the reference to it as in the case of the Remove command described in the previous section Autoreplacing The easiest way to build a hint substitution program is to click the button on the command panel We recommend that you begin from the automatically generated hint substitution program and make adjustments as necessary Preview Pixels While you are editing hinting you can preview your glyph rendered as black white picture You have two options use Pixel Preview panel of the Hinting Options panel Hinting Options X Current PPM 12 4 1 1 E zH E 31 E 4 1 Ey el or you can put a rasterized image of the glyph into the background of the glyph outline 679 680 To select the PPM of the rasterized sample use the Current PPM control of the Hinting Options panel Current PPM It is possible to quickly browse different PPM sizes using the CrrL PGUP and CrrL PGDown keyboard shortcuts You can also enlarge sample of the glyph in the Pixel Preview panel using the zoom buttons to the right of it O 41 O i E aa OES O 6 1 Preview Panel The Type 1 Hinting Tool has a preview panel that shows how Type 1 hints will affect the character s appearance The preview panel uses the Adobe Type Manager rasterizer to preview the font so you may be assured that in the final font you will get exactly the same look Of course you need to have some version of Adobe Type Manager ATM instal
46. opens the class information from the text file Copy classes from a Font copies all classes from another opened font Generate Classes automatically generates kerning and metrics classes using advanced optical algorithms Clean Up Classes checks all glyphs in all classes and allows you to remove nonexistent glyphs or tries to automatically create them Save classes saves information about the font classes to a text file Close panel closes the Classes panel We will discuss all these commands below Choose view mode Use this button to select one of the class preview modes in the drop down menu 00 Large Icons a o List O Details Select class Selects all glyphs that belong to the current class in the Font window 4 Mark class Marks all class glyphs in red gt Remove glyph Removes the glyphs selected in the class preview panel from the class Add as Component Adds the glyph selected in the class preview panel to the current glyph window as a component Three additional buttons are in the status bar Add class Defines a new class mT Remove class Removes the current class Accept Click this button to accept the changes made to the class definition code 585 586 Class Definition Every class is defined as a list of glyph names preceded by the class name _s3 s scircumflex scaron The class name may only include uppercase and lowercase English letters digits as well as underscore _
47. scale 407 skew 407 slant 408 Set Sidebearings 631 Set Startpoints 456 Set Width 630 Shadow 636 shape groups 83 452 Shared folder 30 Shift 621 shortcut 43 Show 911 Connection mode 349 Control vectors 349 Glyph metrics 549 Guidelines 549 Nodes 349 549 Positions 349 Preview 549 Vertical metrics 549 SigMaker 29 Simplify Path 456 461 Single Link 711 753 Single Positioning 867 Single Substitution 855 Single Master Font 810 Sketch mode 329 486 slant 408 430 623 angle 245 Small caps 816 Smart Shapes property panel 517 Smart Shapes Panel 60 515 Smoothing 268 snap to 80 332 sorting glyphs 196 Standard Encoding 138 Standard Stem Widths 663 Standard Stems 258 710 Rounding 731 Star 516 Startpoint 342 Status Bar 33 stem widths 258 Style 773 Subscript 249 Subtable Breaks 870 supercurve 344 Superscript 249 Symbol 139 T Template 333 templates 73 testing fonts 291 text editing 295 Text mode 56 912 tile 198 Toolbar Macro 33 886 893 Paint 384 Panels 33 Show Layers 33 Standard 33 Tools 33 331 toolbars 33 creation 41 customization 35 Tools Add Corner 331 Add Curve 331 Add Tangent 331 Contour 387 Draw 331 Edit 331 Eraser 331 364 Knife 331 Magic Wand 331 Meter 329 Pen 387 TrueType Hinting 690 Type 1 Hinting 673 VectorPaint 384 touched points 686 trace options 111 tracking guidelines 82 433 hints 82 478 T
48. scaling factor to fit the font unit space in the Glyph Window Two vertical levels in the font space define this scaling Visual Ascender and Visual Descender Visual Ascender Editing Field Visual Descender When you select 100 zoom it means that Visual Ascender is fitted to the top of the editing field and Visual Descender to the bottom The same values are used to build the icons that you see in the Font Window or panels like the Classes panel To set Visual metrics use the Glyph Window gt Dimensions page of the Options dialog box Tools gt Options menu Visual ascender and descender te of UPM Values are measured in percentage of the font UPM size so 20 is 200 if UPM size is 1000 and 410 if UPM size is 2048 Tools and Operations FontLab Studio s Glyph Window may work in several modes The four most important modes are b Edit mode The main mode used to draw new glyphs move everything in the glyph from guidelines to nodes to glyph margins H Sketch mode Used to draw new outlines in an alternative manner using only on curve points remotely similar to Ikarus g VectorPaint A set of tools used to create new glyphs or modify existing mode glyphs using vector drawing tools that simulate natural bitmap tools amp Meter mode Used to measure contours distances or angles Other modes include TrueType and Type 1 hinting and eight additional operations i Free Transform Scales rotate
49. target sequence of glyphs for a ligature substitution rule must be a part of a larger context sub period a b c period by D Only when abc is surrounded by two period glyphs will substitution take place Note that we have marked the target glyphs with the single quote character positioned immediately after the glyph name The rule is specified as follows substitute lt marked glyph sequence gt Target sequence with marked glyphs by lt glyph sequence gt Sub run replacement sequence A lt glyph sequence gt comprises one or more glyphs or glyph classes lt marked glyph sequence gt is a lt glyph sequence gt in which a set of glyphs or glyph classes is identified i e marked We will call this marked set of glyphs a sub run A sub run is marked by inserting a single quote after each of its member elements This sub run represents the target sequences of the lookups called by this rule The lookup type of the lookup called by this rule is auto detected from their target and replacement sequences in the same way as in their corresponding stand alone i e non contextual statements Example 1 This calls a lookup The rule below means in sequences a d or e d or n d substitute d by d alt substitute a e n d by d alt Example 2 This also calls a single substitution lookup The rule below means if a capital letter is followed by a small capital then replace the small capital by its
50. that you can use on PostScript devices or printers To build a Multiple Master Type 1 font for PC choose the File gt Generate font command When the standard Save As dialog box appears select Windows Multiple Master format in the Save As type combo box All Font Files All Font Files True ypeOpent ype TT tte OpenType P S otf b ASCIUnis Type 1 pal ASCIUns Multiple Master pta FontLab tb Press the Save button to save the font in Multiple Master format 4 Note 1 If you choose this format when exporting a single master font a generic Type 1 font will be built Z Note 2 PFB and MMM files will be saved if you make a MM Type font These files are necessary to install MM fonts in Adobe Type Manager Select ASCII Unix Multiple Master format to make a MM font in downloadable format Fonts in this format can be instantly downloaded to a PostScript printer OpenType Fonts In this chapter we will discuss working with the OpenType fonts The OpenType font format jointly developed by Microsoft and Adobe allows us to combine the best features of the TrueType and Type 1 font formats OpenType fonts are stored in a single font file use Unicode as their encoding and work in Windows and Mac OS X This all has been true for older TrueType fonts but the advantage of OpenType against older font formats is the support of layout features which allow better typographic layout and precise support of complex
51. these will be written into the font If no binary tables exist none will be written into the font Contextual substitutions in invalid legacy format Due to a misunderstanding between Adobe and Microsoft early versions of Adobe InDesign 1 0 1 5 and 2 0 contained a bug in the interpretation of contextual substitutions for features such as calt or clig so only invalid contextual substitutions work in these early versions In Microsoft applications only valid contextual substitutions work InDesign CS and CS2 have a special routine so both invalid and valid contextual substitutions work If you enable this option FontLab Studio will generate a font with invalid contextual features that will work correctly in InDesign 1 0 1 5 and 2 0 as well as InDesign CS and CS2 but these contextual features will not work in OpenType savvy applications from Microsoft or other vendors If disabled valid contextual OpenType features will be generated that will work in InDesign CS and CS2 and all other applications but not in InDesign 1 0 1 5 2 0 It is recommended to keep this setting disabled Generate GDEF table Turn on this feature to save information about the glyph types and caret positions to the font file Note that this is a requirement if you have used the lookupflag operator in feature definitions Export VOLT data If this option is switched on FontLab Studio will try to export feature definitio
52. unlocked and editable Use the panel in the expanded mode to have more control over all layers Outline Layer The Outline layer is the most important of all the layers It stores information about the glyph shape while all the other Studio editing layers and most of the tools are designed to help you create good outlines Before we turn to the outline editing tools let s talk about outline structure Units of Measurement The coordinates of any object in the font are presented in a standard measurement system One unit of this system is called a font unit The scale of font units used in a particular font is the Units Per eM UPM size The program that scales the font knows the UPM size of the font and can use it to properly scale it To get a text string of the same visible size a font that has a larger UPM size must be scaled with a smaller scale factor Usually Type 1 and OpenType PS fonts have a UPM size of 1000 font units Therefore to get a text string with a height of 100 pixels assuming that we use a raster output device we would scale this font with a scale factor of 10 TrueType fonts can have practically any UPM size They often have a UPM size of 1000 or 2048 units If a font has the UPM size of 2048 to get a text string of 100 pixels we would scale this font with a scale factor of 4 9 337 338 A more graphical font parameter is the font height The font height measured in font units is the measurement
53. you can put one of the masters on the mask using the mask s snap feature or some other techniques that will be discussed later The mask layer can be filled in two ways by copying the selected part of the outline to the mask layer or by using the Assign Font Mask command To copy the selected part of the outline to the Mask layer use the Copy Outline to Mask command in the Tools gt Mask menu If nothing is selected in the outline layer the entire glyph outline will be copied You can customize colors of the Mask layer background and outlines on the Glyph Window gt Colors page of the Options dialog box described in the FontLab Studio Options section 439 440 Editing Mask To edit the mask layer with the usual editing tools you need to activate it with the Editing Layers panel Editing Layers Outline Metrics Guides Hints Mask Auto select layer Alternatively you can use the Edit Mask command in the View gt Show Layers menu When the Mask layer is selected for editing the outline layer will be shown as a mask and may be filled if Fill Outline preview mode is active so you can use it as a reference The editing field changes its color to remind you are in the Mask layer Use any tool of the Edit mode to create edit or remove the nodes and contours of the Mask layer outline Re Activate the Outline layer when you are finished working on the mask You can switch to the Mask layer and ba
54. 1 Select the Print command in the File menu or click on the button in the Standard toolbar and select the Font Sample item at the left of the Printing dialog box Printing Font sample Font Table 4 text to print The quick brown Fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox Text size 48 v Wordwrap Print right to left Font Waterfall Fill outlines Al Apply kerning _ Print kerning values Glyph Sample C Print metrics data E Print underline nA 2 At the right type the text you want to be printed and set the size of text Note that metrics information is printed only when larger sizes are selected 3 Set other printing options Word wrap If this option is on FontLab Studio will wrap words when printing Fill outlines If this option is on characters will be printed filled Apply kerning If this option is on and the kerning is defined for the font the text will be printed kerned Print kerning If this option is on and the kerning is defined FontLab values Studio will print kerning values Print metrics If this option is on and the text size is large enough the data values of the glyph width and sidebearings will be printed Print underline If this option is on the text will be printed underlined 282 4 Click OK You will see the standard Windows Print dialog box Printout of the font sample with default printing options Adobe Systems Incorporated FONTLAB FONT SAMPLE Font BellM
55. 841 841 844 844 845 846 847 849 850 852 853 854 855 857 859 860 864 865 866 868 871 875 876 877 880 883 884 885 886 887 888 Macro Tool Edit Macro Panel Naming the Programs First Steps FontLab Studio Python Classes FontLab Font Glyph Modules INDEX 890 891 893 894 896 896 898 902 903 15 Introduction The year 2005 marked an unusual anniversary 30 years of digital font technology In 1975 at the ATypI conference in Warsaw Peter Karow from the Hamburg based company URW introduced Ikarus the world s first digital type design system that worked with outline fonts Ten years later Adobe created PostScript and the Type 1 font format which both became standards in publishing In the early 1990s Apple introduced the TrueType font format and the Unicode Consortium published the Unicode Standard Both initiatives laid the foundations for multilingual text processing and were subsequently implemented in Microsoft Windows and Mac OS The turn of the millennium brought about OpenType a significant initiative that unified PostScript TrueType and Unicode and added a sophisticated system of advanced typographic features The development of the digital font technology makes it easier for end users to do text processing typesetting and layout without sacrificing the typographic quality and logical correctness of the text But nothing gets lost in Nature using fonts is g
56. 96 dpi With such a setting 12 pt type is rasterized using 12 96 72 16 PPM Windows users can specify other dpi resolutions for on their systems in Control Panel gt Display gt Settings gt Advanced gt General gt DPI Setting e g 120 or 133 dpi The general formula for converting between point sizes and PPM sizes is lt point size gt 72 lt dpi gt lt PPM size gt lt PPM size gt lt dpi gt 72 lt point size gt 653 654 Coordinate Rounding Gridfitting Output devices take the vector outline of a glyph and rasterize it That is they calculate from the outline data where they need to place each pixel to get an accurate output representation of the glyph Since the final output is on a discrete raster i e a grid of numbered pixels the scaled pixel coordinates need to be rounded somehow to integer values For example if you have an outline point with coordinates 120 100 and scale it down 7 times you will get the coordinates 17 1429 14 2857 After rounding to the closest integer values the resulting coordinates will be 17 14 and so the rounding error will be 0 1429 0 84 pixels for the horizontal coordinate and 0 2857 2 for the vertical coordinate If we instead scale this point down 13 times then the scaling errors will be 2 5 for the vertical coordinate and 3 8 for the horizontal coordinate You can see that the rounding error increases as the size of the final outline is reduced
57. A script and or language statement must be present before the first rule in the feature in order to indicate to the feature file parser that this feature is not to be registered under the language systems specified by the languagesystem statements The feature s lookups will be registered under the script and language attributes current at the definition of the lookup The attributes may be changed as follows script statement Script lt script tag gt For example script kana When a script statement is seen the language attribute is implicitly set to DFLT and the lookupflag attribute is implicitly set to 0 The script attribute stays the same until explicitly changed by another script statement or until the end of the feature language statement The language attribute stays the same until explicitly changed until the script is changed or until the end of the feature To change the language attribute use the language statement language lt language tag gt excludeDFLT includeDFLT required The script and lookupflag attributes stay the same as before If no script assignment statement has been seen thus far in the feature block then the script attribute is set to latn but it is recommended that an explicit script statement be used in such cases for clarity Here is an example statement language DEU As a result of this statement a the language attribute is changed to DEU and
58. ALT 9 To do so 1 Select the macro program using the two combo boxes on the toolbar 2 Click on the button and select a combination in the popup menu Cancel empty Sh Alt 0 ampky Sh Alt 1 empty Sh Alt 2 empty Sh Alt 3 empty Sh Alt 4 empty Sh Alt 5 empty Sh Alt 6 empty Sh Alt 7 empt Sh Alt 5 empty Sh Alk 9 The next time you press the key combination FontLab Studio will run the assigned macro program 887 888 Integrating into Menus You can integrate macro programs supplied with FontLab Studio written by you or downloaded from the Internet into many context menus in FontLab Studio If a menu has macro programs assigned they appear in the Macro submenu at the bottom create Opentyne Invert selection Mark problems Prink Font Select alphanumeric Select composites Integration of macro programs into menus is done automatically when macro programs are stored in one of the event subfolders within one of the following two folders FontLab Studio application folder Macro System FontLab Studio user data folder Macro System while FontLab Studio application folder usually is C Program Files FontLab Studio5 and FontLab Studio user data folder usually is C Documents and Settings Your Username My Documents FontLab Studio5 Note that the location of the FontLab Studio user data folder can be changed in Options gt Folders and Paths gt Font
59. Also you should fill in the important Font Info fields see the Font Header chapter for details When this is done you can generate your font in the font format of your choice e g OpenType PS otf install it on your system and test it 119 120 The Font Window The Font Window is used to display an entire font It opens automatically when you open an existing font for editing or choose to create a new font In FontLab Studio you can open many fonts at once and every font will have its own Font Window The Font Window is a representation of the font so when you close this window the font will also close You can do a lot of things using the Font Window from browsing a font for a desired character to rearranging and remapping the font to editing the Font info fields The following sections of this chapter will tell you how to use this window a Puii Teuio ead eiiie drintu EL ogonek caron dotlessi D eo i PAE BOBODOORNNRORAAD three four five six seven eight equal greateriquestio oltjalsi isi l7 sists k AEk u Mic Fira NONARNANANANNANM fgrave a b Size z Size gt Ileal ad Caption gt Caption Te mode eT Default Encodin The Font Window consists of the command bar at the bottom and a glyph table where a single cell represents each glyph Each cell has a caption at the top that shows some identification information it may be the name of th
60. Automatic Kerning generation dialog boxes AY Opens the Add pairs dialog box where you can define new pairs the easy way ia Opens the Assistance dialog box which may be Metrics Assistance or Kerning Assistance depending on the current mode Selecting a String for Previewing or Editing To prepare text for editing you have the following options 1 Select one of the predefined sample strings in the sample text combo box SE Cabel23 hamburgeyions H4MBURGEVONS SHE VERSE S5HORE abeodefighijklm nopqrstuyv iy 1234567890 2 Enter the text in the sample text field of the control area top or bottom located HAMBURSEVONS w 3 Enter the Text mode and type sample text directly in the Editing area 4 Append glyphs to the sample text by dragging them from other windows 539 540 Selecting a Predefined Sample String Click on the button to the right of the sample text field and select the string for editing ABCabe 123 harmburgeyons HAMBUR GEYONS SHE VERSE ASHORE 45 AGREES RUNAS abcdefghijklm noporstuyws2 1234567890 Or use the spin buttons to the right of the field to select the next or previous string 123 MG You can also use the CrrL PGUP and Crr_ PGDn keyboard shortcuts to navigate the list of sample strings up and down Editing a Sample String Just click the sample string text field and modify it as you want You may type text into it or you may use FontLab glyph access notation to access
61. Bezier Drawing 331 bitmap background 445 bitmaps 745 editing 747 embedded 94 Bitstream 252 Blend 627 blend coordinates 774 Blending Fonts 207 blue marks 342 BlueFuzz 260 261 668 BlueScale 260 667 BlueShift 260 667 BlueValues 256 BMP 130 Bold Outline 634 Break 370 494 BTBD 248 Build Names 218 C CacheTT 106 266 Caps height 245 Caret Positioning 876 cascade 198 cell sizes 126 Center glyph 631 Central European 138 CFF flavored 108 character 26 131 codes 128 mapping standard 128 moving 165 Character List 643 Character set 252 Microsoft 252 OEM 252 ShiftulS 252 Symbol 252 Character Set 304 CJKV 194 class Anchor 900 904 Component 900 Feature 898 Font 898 FontLab 896 Glyph 900 Hint 900 kerning 86 109 289 Node 900 TrueTypeTable 898 Class Based Kerning 581 editing 591 Classes Panel 60 69 86 376 583 Clipboard 170 closepath 77 88 cmap 108 253 codepage custom 147 158 double byte 147 Codepages 144 251 Codepages mode 49 97 134 College 635 collinear vectors 88 colors customization 81 Compiling 847 Component 498 Adding 496 composite 90 504 characters 495 creating 511 glyphs 495 hinting 743 Connections 345 625 Context Menu 31 162 Context Dependent Substitutions 860 continuous 161 171 Contours 340 Control marks 318 convert curve to vector 369 Convert to hints 629 instructions 629
62. Bold or Bold Italic Leave other settings unchanged 9 Basic set of font names epee nnns Family Name FreeFontPro Cond SS he a a a a a Weight Bold x 700 S Font is italic J Width Condensed al Font is bold More Styles gt esesaesesesssseesssaesasasy Style Names Bold Build Style Name L See neeescesseseseseessasase PS Font Name FreeFontPro CondBold Full Name FreeFontPro Cond Bold LE OE E gs Menu amed FreeFontPro Cond en ONN FOND Name FreeFontPro Cond Bold gt Build Names Mi MyFonts com 10 Repeat this for all styles in your family and you should be done 227 Non English and Special Names 228 Hon English or special font names name table 4 gt N E LID aii Text a a EEE ENE esr A ale aj gu iow 2 1 j 0 Regular 3 0 j FontLab Ltd lnc FreeFontPro 2003 4 1 j 0 FreeFontPro 5 i 0 Version 1 002 2003 vl fe 1 Font Family name Platform Encoding Language 1 Macintosh w 0 Roman w 0 English v FreeFontPro The TrueType and OpenType specifications let you put many names into the font Most of them can be defined on specialised pages of the Font Info dialog box Basic Names OpenType names Copyright etc but these names are in English If you need to have non English names or names that are not covered by the FontLab Studio FontInfo pages you
63. Font file 222 r DOlem 117 118 Font Formats The vfb file format used in FontLab Studio 5 is fully backwards compatible so FontLab Studio 5 can open any vfb file created in FontLab 3 x and 4 x The format is also cross platform compatible so vfb files saved from the Windows version can be opened in the Mac version and vice versa In addition the format is largely upward compatible This means that a vfb file saved from FontLab Studio 5 can be opened in FontLab 3 x or 4 x as well as other Fontlab Ltd products such as TransType or TypeTool Only those elements of the format that were supported by the old version will be retained and some information may change slightly However the most important elements of the font such as key Font Info entries glyph outlines and kerning pairs will be retained For example vfb files saved from FontLab Studio 5 for Windows can be opened in FontLab 4 6 for Macintosh and vice versa with as much as possible information retained FontLab Studio 5 also opens vfa files saved from FontLab 2 5 but not 2 0 If you have fonts saved in a proprietary format of another application and would like to open these fonts in FontLab Studio the best way is usually to create a Windows compatible Type 1 font from your other application and open the Type 1 font in FontLab Studio If you wish to move your fog files created in Fontographer 3 5 or 4 1 to FontLab Studio you can use our FogLamp produ
64. Glyphs Bar expand button e Note icon e Lock button e Meter panel button e Glyph mark area The Local Toolbar is the command center of the Glyph Window There is a combo box with zoom selection and two groups of buttons o 100 v ao g The first group of buttons includes two buttons that are used to select the zoom level You can drag the local toolbar to any place on your screen or you can dock it at the top or bottom area of the Glyph Window To show and hide the local toolbar use this button in the top right area of the Glyph window m Some editing tools which we discuss later may have their own toolbars that may also be docked to the sides of the Glyph Window or they can be left floating around gt i a os There is a control marks panel in the right top area of the local toolbar Control Marks This panel duplicates some of the information that appears in the character cell of the Font Window so that you can instantly get important information about the current glyph 319 320 Three icons may appear in this area a The glyph has either imported or visual TrueType hints a The glyph has a Mask layer that is compatible with the outline Control marks area may also be located on top of the horizontal ruler In any case it will be somewhere in the top right area of the Glyph window Below the default top location of the Local toolbar and at the left of the window you may see rulers that
65. Group By OT Family Double click a font name in the list to activate the Font window containing that font All other operations are accessible from the toolbar Opens the Font Info editor for the font selected in the list Closes the selected font If you have unsaved changes FontLab Studio will issue a warning message fe Merges fonts adds glyphs from the font selected in the list to the currently active font contained in the active Font window F Opens a menu with macro programs that can be applied to the font selected in the list 2 Allows you to arrange fonts in families using the Family Name or OT Family Name entry When you open some glyphs for editing you will see names of those glyphs appear in the Fonts panel Cronos Pro Fo Cronos Pro CronosPro Regular otf G eogonek G T G question Each glyph name is a reference to the glyph window opened with that glyph You can use these references to bring glyph window with some glyph to the front just double click on the glyph name or to close it select it and click on the close button on the Fonts panel toolbar When you open some Metrics windows you will see they also appear in the Fonts panel Chaparral Pro l F Chaparral Pro ChaparralPro Regular otF M ABCDE MM Hamburgefons 201 202 Merging Fonts You can merge fonts append all the glyphs from one font to another with the Merge Fonts command in the Tools menu or
66. MN Jo PlelR s Marking is very useful when you need to show visible differences among characters for easy identification Read more about that later in the Marking Glyphs section When you modify a glyph in any way a black bar below their caption appears The black bar indicates glyphs modified since the last save When you save a font all black bars disappear The E glyph has been modified Font Window Command Bar On the Font Window command bar in the top position you see one button on the left and five buttons in the right area You can switch between the top and the bottom location of the command bar by clicking on this button B in the top right corner of the Font Window The left button opens the Font Info dialog box for the current font This is the same as choosing the Font Info command in the File menu The first four buttons on the right allow you to select one of the encoding modes HANE Switch to the Names mode Switch to the Glyph Index mode The last button in the Font Window command bar is used to save current encoding to the enc file This command can be reached via Glyph gt Glyph Names gt Save Encoding The Font Window command bar is not fixed to the top edge of the window You may drag it to any place on the screen or dock it to the bottom of the window Font Window v iE Defaut Encoding Mane De FE Bg You may also close it at all to get more space for char
67. Multiple Master Fonts As you know in FontLab Studio you can use hints and links to do character level hinting You can also do character level hinting of MM fonts using hints or links Hints are pairs of parallel lines that define the position and width of a vertical or horizontal stem Hints are independent from the outline they exist in a different layer And they are multilayered just like outline nodes are If you use hints to do character level hinting you will have to hint all the masters separately A better way is to use links Links connect nodes so they are not dependent on the number of masters in the font On export of the MM font the links will be automatically converted to hints and hints will be automatically generated according to the master s design So to hint MM fonts most efficiently use vertical and horizontal links to connect the outline nodes and you will save time in direct proportion to the number of masters your font has You can make a hint replacement program using the Type 1 hinting tool if necessary The preview panel of the Type 1 hinting tool will show an intermediate version of the hinted font according to the design coordinates selected in the Axis panel Use the sliders of the Axis panel to see how your font will look on the screen when different font instances are generated 813 814 Generating a Multiple Master Type 1 Font When you finish your work with a MM font you need to build a font file
68. Only when the context is matched is positioning performed Please note that glyph positioning is performed after substitution and that all positioning lookups must be defined for the glyph string that is a result of substitution Glyph positioning rules begin with the keyword position this keyword may be abbreviated as pos The enumerate or ignore keywords may precede the position keyword in some cases The GPOS lookup type is auto detected from the format of the rest of the rule Glyph Geometry Positioning lookups may change one of the glyph positioning metrics Placement X and Y NS Advance X and Y A single positioning lookup may tweak any of four values placement_X placement_Y advance_Y and advance_Y Modification of the origin point of the glyph will shift it and all following glyphs Modification of the advance vector will shift the next glyph in the glyph string 865 866 Value Record A lt valuerecord gt is used in positioning rules to define offsets to shift glyph origin or advance vector It must be enclosed by angle brackets except for format A in which the angle brackets are optional Note that the lt metric gt adjustments indicate values in design units to add to positive values or subtract from negative values the placement and advance values provided in the font in the hmtx and vmtx tables Value record format A lt lt metric gt gt Angle brackets are optional Here
69. Read all OpenType name records All font naming family and style names copyright and version strings etc in OpenType and TrueType fonts are stored in the name table In most cases the name table contains separate sets of names for the Macintosh and Windows platforms sometimes also non English names are stored separately When FontLab Studio opens an OpenType or TrueType font it interprets the name table extracts the most important names and in any case presents them to the user in a friendly manner in the Names and Copyright section of the Font Info dialog However if several language versions of the same name entry e g style name are found in the font FontLab Studio will only present the English names in the Style name field If different names are stored for the Macintosh and Windows platform FontLab Studio will pick one of them In such cases the user may with to also store and edit the native form of the name table The native form of the name table can be then viewed and edited in Font Info gt Names and Copyright gt Additional OpenType names With the setting Read only non English name records names recommended for Western fonts the Additional OpenType names page will only contain non English names while the English names will be presented in the friendly manner The setting Do not read OpenType name records discards all non English name entries so the Additio
70. TrueType hinting e Automatic transformation of glyphs with more than 25 filters e Library of predefined Smart Shapes e Automatic testing of glyph outlines with our unique FontAudit technology e Integrated Python scripting language e Unique Sketch mode with easy drawing tools e VectorPaint tools e Support of 4 encoding modes and an unlimited number of encodings e Easy to use completely customisable drag drop based user interface e Popup menus and property panels everywhere e Sample printing of fonts sample strings and individual glyphs e Automatic Multiple Master compatible font blending e Smooth outline preview About this Manual This manual covers the Windows version of FontLab Studio 5 0 The following chapters describe all of Studio s features in full detail They are organized to cover all the functions in their usual sequence FontLab Studio User Interface This chapter covers the basic definitions of the FontLab Studio user interface and its customization and gives a short description of all the Studio editing windows and panels All FontLab Studio options are discussed here as well Editing Fonts This chapter explains how to modify fonts copy characters change encoding tables select characters for editing and edit font info fields The Font Header This chapter provides a detailed description of the Font Header data and the FontLab Studio tools intended to manage it Printing And Proofing Fonts This cha
71. Windows XP required FontAudit Opening Type 1 Automatically open Output panel if message is waiting Opening OpenType amp TrueType Generating Type 1 H Generating OpenType amp TrueType ABRaegl23 Trace Options Sample text to show in File Open and Generate dialogs Font used in Python and OpenType editors Courier New Output panel Font Lucida Console The dialog structure is quite simple There is a list of pages combined in categories on the left the contents of the currently selected page on the right and some buttons on the bottom You will notice that the structure of this dialog bears resemblance to the structure of the Font Info dialog 63 To select a page use the list on the left General Options Font window Glyph window Metrics window H FontAudit Opening Type 1 H Opening OpenType amp TrueType H Generating Type 1 H Generating OpenType amp TrueType Trace Options E E E Expand one of the categories to see all the pages E General Options Folders and paths Open and Save EPS and bitmap background Multiple Master Unicode and OpenType Select a page and you will see its contents appear at the right of the list User interface Allow to enter Unicode strings in dialogs Windows 2000 or Windows P required Automatically open Qukput panel if message is waiting Sample text bo show in File Open and Generate dialogs ABRaegl23 Font used in Python and OpenType editors Courier M
72. a TrueType OpenType TT or a OpenType PS font it is override FontLab Studio s default encoding options and use a custom cmap table editor instead On this page if the option Use custom cmap encoding is enabled the user can specify how each subtable of the cmap table should be built Please refer to the OpenType specification for the cmap table for detailed explanation of the platform and format settings http www microsoft com OpenType OTSpec cmap htm Use the button to add a custom cmap subtable and the button to remove one The adds a set of three cmap subtables 1 0 for Mac OS Classic 3 1 for Windows Unicode and 0 3 for Mac Unicode This is a typical configuration of the cmap table for an OpenType font In the Contents combo box you can select Unicode to write the mapping according to Unicode indexes specified in FontLab Studio or choose a custom codepage mapping Selecting Font window chooses the Codepage that is currently shown in the Font Window codepage mode 253 254 Supported Unicode Ranges Supported Unicode ranges a W Basic Latin x W Latin 1 Supplement iv Latin Extended W Latin E stended B IPA Extensions W Spacing Modifier Letters C Combining Diacttical Marks wW Greek W Cyrillic C Armenian Hebrew nal TrueType and OpenType fonts must declare Unicode ranges that the font can Support so that the operating system can decide which characte
73. a glyph that has several Unicode indexes will appear several times when one of the Unicode modes Ranges or Codepages modes is selected in the Font window All copies of the glyph are marked by a small blue mark in the left top corner of the glyph cells To make a duplicate of a glyph select it you may select many glyphs at once position the mouse cursor on the selection press the left mouse button press the CTRL and ALT keys and drag the selection to the place where you want it to be duplicated It is important to have the Crri and AT keys pressed when you release the mouse button You can later correct Unicode codepoints assigned to the glyph by using the Rename Glyph dialog or the Glyph Properties panel described later 175 176 Deleting Glyphs To remove glyphs from the font 1 Select the glyphs that you want to remove 2 Select the Delete command from the Edit menu or from the popup menu Or press the DELETE key on the keyboard 3 A dialog box appears asking you if you are sure that you want to delete Z Note 1 Deleting glyphs from the font is not undoable so save your work before deleting glyphs Z Note 2 If you are in Unicode mode and deleting glyphs with the blue mark in the top left corner they may be removed without any questions because they are just one of the indexes of a multi Unicode glyph Creating New Glyphs If you want to create a new glyph in an empty place in the font a grey cell in the Fo
74. a node use these check boxes fa To edit the position of the curve s control vectors switch on the Control vectors check box it will be gray if you are editing a node between two straight segments and modify the relative position of the previous or next control point that belongs to that node Use the buttons with arrows e gt to edit the previous or next node Tip when you are editing node positions in the Properties panel press the ENTER key to accept changes and move the focus to the editing field of the Glyph Window There you can use the keyboard to move the selected node and the PaGE Down PaGE UP keys to select another node for modification You will see the node properties change in the Properties panel as you move the node by keyboard or mouse Click ALT ENTER to put the focus on the Properties panel to set the node position more precisely 375 376 Previewing Glyphs Sometimes you need to get a high quality preview of the glyphs you re editing You can preview any glyph in its Glyph window with the key the key under Esc but it doesn t give you a feeling of how this glyph will look in a line of text or in multiple sizes To get a better preview use the Preview panel Open it with the Preview command in the Window gt Panels menu You will see a panel containing three pages OpenType Features Preview and Anchors The OpenType Features and Anchors pages will be described later so activate th
75. and Settings Your Username My Documents FontLab Studio5 Codepage if you want to make the codepages available within FontLab Studio only Refer to Tools gt Options gt General Options gt Folders and paths for the actual locations of these folders All custom cpg files should be located in one of these folders Double byte If your font contains many characters from one of the Far East languages you may need to use double byte codepages If you select one of these codepages you will see an additional control to the right of the codepage selection list in the toolbar els Windows 950 Chinese Traditiona A E 520E 5216 5243 5306 5321 5320 5370 5371 a i 2 ten O54 5400 5408 5403 540E 5406 5412 56E0 Telalale el elm lel a alalalelel aml or on the Font window bottom command bar Pages mode w LMS Windows 936 Chin F op This control allows you to select a page of the codepage Theoretically we may have 256 pages of 256 codes each which give us 65 636 codes In practice none of the known codepages has that many codes and usually less than half of that number 147 148 Advanced Glyph Naming and Encoding Custom Glyph Naming General provisions Theoretically the OpenType specification permits the designer not to supply any glyph names at all at least in case of OpenType TT fonts However realistically it is essential to create fonts with glyph names that ful
76. and drag the mouse to make the transformation Remember that you can press the key the key under Esc at any time to get a high quality preview of the transformed glyph 4 Usethe Suirt and CTRL keys to constrain the transformation 5 Release the mouse button to complete the transformation of the outline Using the Free Transform Operation To activate the Free Transform operation select the Free Transform command from the Contour gt Transform menu or click on the 4 button in the Tools toolbar Or you can double click on any selected red segment to activate the Free Transform operation When this operation is activated you will see a transformation rectangle surrounding the selected area If nothing is selected the entire glyph will be subject to transformation Slant handle Rotate handle Center handle Scale handles So what do all these handles mean and how can they be used To move a Selection 1 Position the mouse cursor somewhere inside the transformation rectangle but not on the center handle 2 Press the left mouse button and drag the rectangle to its new place 3 Release the button The selection will be moved To scale or skew a selection 1 Position the mouse cursor on one of the scale handles E 2 Press the left button and drag the mouse You will see that the transformation rectangle is scaled Hold down the Suirt key on the keyboard to constrain the scale proportionally 3
77. and then switch the panel back on to see the results of your work How the Type 1 Preview Panel Works For Type 1 preview FontLab Studio uses Adobe Type Manager ATM When FontLab Studio starts it makes a connection with ATM and prepares it for work When the Type 1 preview panel is open and something is changed in the character FontLab Studio performs the following operations 1 FontLab Studio creates a very small Type 1 font that includes the empty notdef character the current character and all characters from the sample string 2 All characters in this font are mapped to codes starting at 20h 32 the code of the space character The empty character is not mapped 3 This font is exported in Type 1 font format and a PFM file is created for it The font name is set for this font in such a way as to avoid conflict with names of any of the installed fonts 4 Fontand metric files are saved in the Windows TEMP directory with a name beginning with FL The font file has a PFB extension and the metrics file has a PFM extension 5 The font is installed in ATM using ATM commands 6 All previews are made with this font Previews in the Preview panel can use grayscale output if it is available in the system To see preview without grayscale switch it off in the system Display Properties panel 7 When the font is no longer needed it is uninstalled and the font and metric files are removed 681 682 Expand
78. and variables that open all the FontLab Studio data structures to the programming interface FontLab Studio 5 supports Python 2 2 2 3 and 2 4 but Python 2 4 is recommended Please note that this chapter covers only the very basic features of FontLab Studio macro programming More information specifications and sample programs is available at http www fontlab com python 884 The Python Programming Language Python is a very high level object oriented programming language It combines a very clear and easy to understand syntax with great power flexibility and extensibility Python works on all known platforms and is intensively maintained and updated by many professionals around the world It is not surprising that during the last few years Python has become a de facto standard for macro programming related to fonts FontLab Studio continues this trend and extends it to a new level providing full integration of macro programming tools with its user interface More information about Python programming manuals and samples is available on the official site http www python org which we recommend highly if you are not already familiar with the language We will provide minimal instruction in Python programming in this chapter as that is better obtained elsewhere We will assume that if you plan to write FontLab Studio macro programs that you have read the Python tutorials and have some experience in Python programming
79. applications for OpenType PS or TT fonts published by Adobe Runs on Mac OS X or Windows http partners adobe com public developer opentype afdko topic html We also recommend extensive application testing of your fonts Many text editing or layout applications are available in demo or trial versions and can be used for testing We recommend testing the fonts on screen and in print for at least following applications e Microsoft Word XP or newer for Windows XP e Microsoft WordPad and Microsoft Notepad on Windows XP e Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac OS X e Microsoft PowerPoint XP or newer for Windows XP e Adobe InDesign CS or newer for Windows and Mac OS X e Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop any version e QuarkXPress 4 1 5 0 and 6 5 for Mac OS e Apple TextEdit and Apple Keynote on Mac OS X 315 The Glyph Window The Glyph Window is a standard tool in all FontLab Studio based applications It is a universal and very powerful contour editing module that also allows you to perform many font specific operations 318 Glyph Window Contents Open the Glyph Window by double clicking any character sample in the Font Window or Metrics Window G Glyph D from Adobe Caslon Pro SEs 1686 1636 x A i e 230 t p am TF i oo E 4 oll The Glyph Window The Glyph Window has the following parts e Toolbar area e Control marks area e Editing Field e Top and left rulers e Left Top box e Scroll Bars e Glyphs Bar e
80. b the DFLT lookups of the current script are automatically included into the language system specified by the current script and language attributes If b is not desired as may occasionally be the case then the keyword excludeDFLT must follow the language tag For example language DEU excludeDFLT The keyword includeDFLT may be used to explicitly indicate the default DFLT lookup inheriting behavior For example language DEU includeDFLT Sameas language DEU 831 832 lookupflag The chapter Common Table Formats in the OpenType Font File Specification describes the LookupFlag field in the Lookup table The lookupflag attribute defaults to 0 at the start of a feature block The lookupflag attribute stays the same until explicitly changed until a lookup reference statement is encountered that changes it until the script is changed or until the end of the feature To change the lookupflag attribute explicitly use the lookupflag statement which takes two formats lookupflag format A lookupflag lt named lookupflag value gt lt named lookupflag value gt Here the individual lookup flag values to be set are expressed in a comma separated list of one or more lt named lookupflag value gt s in no particular order A lt named lookupflag value gt is one of the following RightToLeft IgnoreBaseGlyphs IgnoreLigatures IgnoreMarks At most one of each of the above 5 kinds of lt named lookupflag value
81. box appears Type 1 Export Terminal In this dialog box you can change text dictionanes data exported in the Type 1 font Please refer to the Type 7 Font Format specification for the detailed description of the data fields you can enter here CY Wrong data entered here will make font unusable Please be extremely caretull Select a data section Open Dictionaries SIPS AdobeF ont 1 0 FreeFontPro 001 002 cLreationD ate Mon Aug 18 12 04 59 2003 ae Musage 120000 150000 17 dict begin Fonthifo 14 dict dup begin Aversion 001 002 readonly det fMotice Copyright c Fontlab Lid Inc 003 All rights reserved readonly det fFullN ame FreeFontPro readonly det dup 35 fhumbersign put Discard Changes _ Accept Changes Cancel Export As you can see this dialog box previews and allows you to edit text data contained in the open and private sections of the exporting Type 1 font file Use the Select a data section control to choose the part of the Type 1 font file that you want to edit and modify the text in the edit field below Note that there is no external control of changes you make in the export terminal Use it only if you really know what you are doing or you may create a font which will not only be unusable but can even crash your operating system Refer to the Type 1 font format specification http partners adobe com asn developer pdfs tn T1_SPEC PDF for information about the
82. by the rasterizer to allocate vertical space to render characters WinDescent OS 2 The same as WinAscent but for the lowest line of all normal characters Ascender hhea This value is used by the Mac OS in about the same situation as Windows uses the WinAscent value from the OS 2 table to define the topmost position of all important glyphs Descender hhea In short the Macintosh version of the Windows WinDescent parameter If there are any pixels below this line the glyph will be squashed in the vertical direction to match metrics defined by the Ascender and Descender parameters Line Gap hhea This value is used by the Mac OS to compensate Ascender and Descender values and calculate the correct distance between baselines of the text Refer to the formulas below to see how baseline to baseline distance is calculated 247 Baseline to baseline distance calculation Windows Windows Metric OpenType Metric ascent WinAscent external leading MAX 0 LineGap WinAscent WinDescent Ascender Descender BTBD ascent descent external leading It should be clear that the external leading can never be less than zero Pixels above the ascent or below the descent will be clipped from the character this is true for all output devices Macintosh Macintosh Metric OpenType Metric ascender Ascender descender Descender leading LineGap BTBD ascender descender leading 248 Superscript and Subsc
83. can create the glyph names using the uniXXXX scheme where XXXX represents the PUA codepoint Additional naming guidelines Refer to the Adobe guidelines for additional guidelines on making glyph names especially for creating complex glyph names that involve uniXXXX and uXXXXX glyph names as elements http partners adobe com public developer opentype index_glyph html Assigning Unicode codepoints Refer to the Unicode Standard code charts and assign proper Unicode codepoints to the glyphs discussed in the section Simple glyph names earlier As discussed above if the more than one Unicode character share the same glyph shape two approaches are theoretically possible a create multiple glyphs with identical content but different names and assign one Unicode codepoint per glyph for example create a periodcentered glyph and encode it as U 00B7 and create a uni2219 glyph and encode it as U 2219 One of the glyphs can refer to the other one as a component This is the approach recommended by Fontlab Ltd for OpenType fonts in particular for OpenType PS fonts b alternatively either assign multiple Unicode codepoints to your glyph for example for periodcentered assign U 00B7 and U 2219 153 154 Private Use Area codepoints For glyphs discussed in 0 0 you may assign custom codepoints from the Unicode Private Use Area PUA from U E000 to U F8FF However you also may choose to l
84. click on the Save l button on the Standard toolbar To save all opened fonts click the File gt Save all command or this button on the Standard toolbar Gil Font s will be saved in FontLab Studio format vfb extension to the folder where the original font was opened If this option in the General Options gt Open amp Save page of the Options dialog box is active i Create backup files FontLab Studio will save the previous version of your font in the same folder as the currently saved vfb file but will use the bak file extension instead If you would like to go back and open the previous backup version of your vfb file use File gt Open navigate to the folder in that you saved your file and type in bak in the File name field then press Enter You will then see the backup file and will be able to open it If you are working with a new font or you want to select the destination folder or change the name of the file use the File gt Save As command Please note that you cannot save fonts with more than 6 400 glyphs If you try to save a bigger font you will see a warning message that will recommend splitting a font into smaller parts If you want to work with bigger fonts consider using our AsiaFont Studio product More information about it is available at this page http www fontlab com asiafontstudio 167 168 Save As After you select File gt Save As in the menu you will see the standard File Save
85. close to point 38 In this and similar cases you can use the interpolate command This command sets the position of a point in the same proportion between two other points as it was in the original outline Or the intermediate point could be aligned to he grid and serve as the starting point for a single link or another interpolation command This command has two base points and one affected point To set the interpolate command 1 Select the interpolate tool 7 2 Position the cursor over the first base point 3 Holding the mouse button down move the cursor to the interpolated point and release the button 4 Move the cursor to the second base point and click the left mouse button In the Glyph Window the interpolate command appears as two directed lines from the interpolated point to base points In the Program panel the interpolate command appears as InterpolateV 34 gt 11 lt 38 where 11 is the interpolated point and 34 and 38 are the base points Customizing the Command To customize the command right click the command icon small green circle In the context menu you can use the Delete command to remove the command and the Align destination menu to align the destination point to the grid In the Programs panel the Interpolation command options look like this From To Point Align The Options panel allows you to choose the source and destination points for the command and to customize the alignment of th
86. consists of the program listing and four buttons Removes the selected command More gt gt Expands the panel to include the command options controls Here are the mnemonics that are used to represent commands A detailed description of each command and its parameters will follow AlignTop Align a point to the top alignment zone AlignBottom Align a point to the bottom alignment zone Align Align a point to the grid SingleLinkH Single Link commands in horizontal and vertical directions SingleLinkV DoubleLinkH Double Link commands in horizontal and vertical directions DoubleLinkV InterpolateH Interpolate commands in horizontal and vertical directions InterpolateV FDeltaH FDeltaV Final Delta commands Click on the More gt gt button to expand the panel TrueType Program Instructions i SingleLinkH 113 1080 SingleLinkH 39 gt 115 rna AlignTop 14 44 AlignTop 16 44 AlignTop 19 44 AlignTop 24 it AlignBottom 7 0 AlignBottom SO 04 AlignBotkom 55 0 i AlignBottom 5800 From 113 To 108 Stem Do not round Align Closest boundary In expanded mode you see the command options panel in the bottom Select the command and use the controls in that area to change the command parameters Click the Apply button after you make changes to accept them 699 700 The commands in the list have a two way connection with the Glyph window when you click on the visual representation of th
87. contents of the Type 1 font file Use WinAscent When disabled the Type 1 font will be generated with the and WinDescent vertical metrics information based on Font Info gt Metrics and as font vertical Dimensions gt Key dimensions gt Ascender Descender ran When enabled the Type 1 font will be generated with the vertical metrics information based on Font Info gt Metrics and Dimensions gt TrueType specific metrics gt WinAscent WinDescent This can be used to generate a Type 1 anda TrueType OpenType TT font that both have identical vertical metrics Note We recommend disabling this option Autohint unhinted When enabled all glyphs that include no hints will be glyphs autohinted Export FSType When enabled the embedding information Font Info gt font embedding Names and Copyright gt Embedding will be written in the parameter Type 1 font Note that this is a custom extension to the Type 1 font format and is not supported by all devices so we recommend keeping this option disabled Type 1 Autohinting Remove all existing hints before autohinting When this option is enabled and a glyph is autohinted existing hints will be removed When disabled the automatically generated hints will be added to the existing hints Note that this may cause some unwanted interferences 99 100 Generating OpenType amp TrueType These settings control some technical parameters of fonts that you generate in the TrueType
88. control You can select one of the standard names or you can enter any other name Click the OK button and wait while FontLab Studio generates a font Some glyphs cannot be blended usually these glyphs have different number of contours If they are present FontLab Studio will show a warning dialog box and these glyphs will have the first font on the outline layer and second font on the Mask layer so you can correct outlines and use the Mask to Master feature described below to build the MM font 791 792 To not let FontLab Studio add nodes to compatible contours leave the Do not interpolate compatible outlines option switched on Those glyphs that had compatible outlines and do not get additional nodes during the blend operation will be marked with green color in the font window If you want you may check the Remember source and destination fonts option to ask Studio to remember your choice of the fonts until you repeat the Blend Fonts operation Assigning a Master With this command you can take glyphs from one font and put them into one of the masters of the current MM font The glyphs of the fonts are linked using their names so the glyph with the name zero in the assigned font will be placed into the master of the glyph with the name zero in the font where the master is being assigned When you select the Assign Master command from the Tools gt Multiple Master menu you will see the dialog box Assign Maste
89. corners in the new outline Note that the weight changing values are in font units so the visual effects of this action depend on the font s UPM value College Distance to outline Weight of outline The best way to explain this effect is to see a sample of it Sample The parameters of this effect are very simple Weight of the outline Distance to outline 635 636 Shadow Horizontal shift 50 Weight of outline Vertical shift 50 This is a very nice effect that can save you a lot of time Those who have tried to make a shadow font manually know what a miracle this transformation performs sSamole The parameters set the shift of the shadow positive values are to the right and up and width of the outline Weight of the outline Horizontal shift Vertical shift 3D Extrusion Horizontal shift Weight of outlline vertical shift This action is similar to the Shadow action but it simulates a 3D thickness of the glyphs samole The parameters of this action are the same as in the previous section 3D Rotate Rotation M Rotation With this action you can rotate your glyphs in 3D space Sample The parameters of this action set angles of rotation for glyphs around imaginary axes Z Rotation means rotation around the vertical axis Y Rotation is around the horizontal axis The vertical axis goes through the middle of the glyph Gradient
90. definition of new features Language system In practice most or all of the features in a font will be registered under the same set of language systems and a particular feature s lookups will be identical across the language systems that the feature is registered under The languagesystem statement takes advantage of this fact It is the simplest way to specify a language system in the feature file One or more such statements may be present in the feature file at global scope i e outside of the feature blocks or any other blocks and before any of the feature blocks languagesystem lt script tag gt lt language tag gt When these statements are present then each feature that does not contain an explicit script or language statement will be registered under every language system specified by the languagesystem statement s If no languagesystem statement is present then the implementation will behave exactly as though the following statement were present at the beginning of the feature file languagesystem latn DFLT 829 830 Script and Language Occasionally you may need to specify a feature whose lookups vary across the language systems of the feature or whose language systems vary from the set of language systems of the rest of the features in the file specified by the languagesystem statements In these cases the script and language statements should be used within the feature block itself
91. dialog box With this option on the Free Transform operation will be activated immediately after entering the text string allowing you to modify its size or position To enter a string of text 1 2 Select the Text tool T in the Paint toolbar Position the mouse cursor with the crosshair and the suggested rectangle of the future string on the place in the editing field where you want to add the string Click the left mouse button In the dialog box enter the character string Use the Font button to select the font that will be used Enter Text Sample Anal at 300 units Below the sample string you will see the name of the current font and the size of the text string The size is presented in font units You can change the string size in the Font dialog box The size of the placed text will be 10 times the selected point size For instance if you select a 24 pt font you will get a string that will be 240 units in height Press OK to enter the string or Cancel to abort this operation 395 396 Selections Many operations can be applied not only to single nodes or segments but also to several nodes together For example you may want to move many nodes or delete part of a contour First select the nodes that you want to process To select nodes with the selection rectangle 1 Make sure that the Edit tool is active 2 Press the left mouse button anywhere in the empty area and drag the mouse to
92. editing layers will be switched automatically to your preferred environment 391 392 Line Tool The Line tool allows you to apply brushes to straight line segments To draw a line segment 1 Position the mouse cursor on the beginning point and press the left mouse button 2 Move the mouse to the end point and release the button Hold down the SuiFt key to constrain the direction of the line to 15 degree increments Polygon Tool The Polygon tool can be used in two modes as a tool to draw a polygon consisting of lines and curves or as a tool to draw an outline of a polygon with a selected brush The second mode can be treated as a series of applications of the line tool The mode of the polygon tool can be selected in the Paint Options dialog box To draw a polygon using the Polygon tool 1 Ds 6 Select the Polygon tool in the Paint toolbar Be sure that the Polygon tool is in the polygon mode Move the mouse cursor to the first point of the polygon and click the left mouse button Move the mouse cursor to the position of the next polygon point To add a line segment click the left mouse button To add a curve segment click the Tas key press the left mouse button and drag the mouse to define the control vector of a curve Hold down the Suirr key to constrain the direction of the control vectors to 15 degree increments If the polygon in its present state is finished by a curve the next segment that
93. ee Eii u 150 e e z cj vi AN i l T In Metrics mode you can change the glyph sidebearings using either visual or digital controls T m v Am a gm 4p 150 E eja E eet ias taal 124 1366 1133 1706 i473 AY In Metrics mode the string of glyphs is previewed without kerning In Kerning mode you can edit pair kerning mise m mg 3H Pairs 910 Kerning 137 366 na 706 i pan oe 57 58 Metrics Panel The Metrics Panel is a horizontally oriented table that may appear above or below the editing area H H A m E EEE G E Y wi 853 743 981 B60 746 637 81g 630 706 35 3 31 amp 52 48 46 28 37 0 31 B4 7 13 36 29 13 ke You may control the appearance of the Metrics Panel using the Panel command in the Options local menu when the local command area is at the bottom or with the Panel button on the Metrics window toolbar FF Click on this button in the top right area of the panel to move it top or bottom ra When the Metrics Panel is visible the properties area of the command area if it is at the top disappears Panels Some FontLab Studio operations are accessible through Panels small windows that are located in front of the main Font Glyph and Metrics windows Editing Layers amp Classes rea e E s l E C All layers 30 ce 4 fa v xKA Mev Name Unic Width lt z ng lAring oocs 15
94. enable View gt Show Layers gt FontAudit and walk through all your glyphs Review and fix potential problems reported by FontAudit Hints If you have manually hinted your glyphs skip this If you re making an OpenType PS or Type 1 font choose Tools gt Hints amp Guides gt Autohinting then Tools gt Hints amp Guides gt Autoreplacing Go to File gt Font Info gt Hinting Settings and click on Auto zones In Standard stems T1 hinting click on Auto stems You can now review your hinting manually or just leave it as is FontLab Studio will take care of the rest as good as it can 305 306 Kerning Open Window gt Panels gt Classes and choose Clean Up Classes from the flyout menu Open the Metrics Window and review your kerning Open Tools gt Kerning Assistance and click on the Check for overlap button and then on Update kern feature OpenType Layout Features Open Window gt Panels gt OpenType and click on the Compile button Observe the Output panel for possible error messages and debug your feature definitions if necessary Relevant Generation Options In Tools gt Options dialog box use the following settings Generating Type 1 Options Tracking 4 Generating PostScript Type 1 Shape groups and neighbors eee aes Metrics window Make PFM file Make AFM and INF Files FontAudit Opening Type 1 EG 2 Opening OpenType amp TrueType Select encoding automatically TrueType OpenTy
95. font library with this set of professionally designed effects From outline to 3D shadow to gradient fill these transformation filters always produce good results glyph ae EE ea RR TET eee re arene eee ee EREE EEN Lae aR RE ae a EEEE T RRR e e a nT OEN T eel i ae ae i ee eee ares eee Seo can ee pin A ee a a Fc gS I ee REN RE eee or alae gt a apr re E E a E e RR A E E e E PE fen eure ea cae 633 634 Bold Outline H weight 20 Keep glyph dimensions Y weight p _ Make round corners Change weight of the glyph O Make outline version of glyph This is one of the most used actions in FontLab Studio With it you can precisely change the weight of the glyph s stems make an outline version of the glyph or change the contrast sample Original glyphs sample Bold 20 units in both directions Keep glyph s dimensions is ON Sample Bold 20 units in both directions Keep glyph s dimensions is OFF Note that the size of all the glyphs has changed Sample Bold 20 units in the horizontal direction sample Outline 20 units in both directions Make round corners is OFF Enter the horizontal and vertical values that will be used to increase positive numbers or decrease negative numbers the weight of the outline Switch on the Keep glyph s dimensions check box to scale the glyph so the weight increasing effect will be compensated Switch on Make round corners to make rounded
96. generate an ultra light variant of your font Unicode and OpenType Add all glyph classes to OpenType Feature definition code Do not add metrics classes Default Unicode Namne mapping table Standard Table yt Add all glyph With this option enabled classes defined in the Classes panel classes to OT are automatically and implicitly added to the OpenType panel feature definition when OpenType feature definitions are compiled Disable this code option if you defined your classes explicitly in the lower right portion of the OpenType panel Do not add metrics With this option enabled when the above option is enabled classes the metric classes those with names starting with a period are not added to the OpenType feature definition code The metric classes are typically used only with the Metrics Assistance feature and are not referenced by OpenType features or class kerning Disable the option if your feature definition language references any metrics classes that you defined in the Classes panel Default Unicode This allows you to choose the Unicode to glyphname mapping Name mapping file that FontLab Studio uses to generate Unicodes based on table glyph names or vice versa Change this if you created your own NAM file and prefer to use that one over the default one Refer to the Generating Unicode codepoints section of the Editing Fonts chapter for details 69 Font Window The options on the Font Window page control di
97. generate hint replacement programs for every character where necessary but you can also set hint replacement programs manually if necessary to get the best possible results You can see the state of the character s hints and hint replacement program instantly in the Font Window There is a small mark in the left bottom area of each character cell If this mark is present it means that a hint replacement program is present If the mark is green it means that the program is OK that is there are no overlapping hints If this mark is red it means that the character has overlapping hints The hint replacement program will be removed if you insert or delete a hint or a node or apply any transformation operation to the character Consequently we recommend that you set advanced hinting information only after you finish editing the character s outlines at the last stage of font development Type 1 Hinting Tool Use the Type Hinting Tool to create a hint replacement program To activate the Type 1 Hinting tool select Type 1 Hinting in the Tools gt Hints amp Guides menu Or just click on the i button in the Tools toolbar If the glyph that you are hinting contains TrueType curves FontLab Studio will open the warning dialog box Attention f Current glyph doesn t match Type 1 requirements Contours have wrong directions or 2nd order curves are present Do you want to correct problems before continuing Always do correction
98. get exactly the same menu Status Bar ka Standard Panels iv Tools Paint Contour Te Macro Autoa hide Customize Following is a list of common toolbars with a few comments about each Status Bar Status bar at the bottom of the window Standard Contains basic commands like file open and save copy paste print and help Panels Controls the appearance of FontLab Studio panels shared windows used to control most professional FontLab Studio features Tools Probably the most important toolbar gives access to editing tools that you will use to work on glyph shapes Macro Opens the Macro panel which gives quick access to pre written macro programs that can automate various font editing tasks You may notice a few italic terms We will describe them later Specifically panels and Glyph window will be described in a few pages Editing layers in the Glyph Window chapter and macro programs in Macro Programming chapter OK we are almost ready to open a sample font but before we do let s talk about customization of the FontLab Studio user interface 33 34 Customizing FontLab Studio s User Interface As you may infer from the title of this section most of the FontLab Studio user interface which means menus toolbars and keyboard shortcuts is customizable We believe our default interface is the easiest to use but if for some reason you don t like it you are free to make any changes
99. glyphs shifted in the vertical direction Sample ext You can also shift glyphs in the vertical direction in the metrics mode of the Metrics window hold the Suirr key and drag the glyph Use the Shift the Mask Layer control to shift the mask layer together with the outline or to leave it untouched Mirror Horizontal mirror _ vertical mirror H F Mirror metrics Here is the result of this simple transformation camgqis fext The letters in the word Sample were mirrored horizontally and the letters in the word text vertically Use the Mirror Metrics control to swap left and right sidebearings of a glyph 621 622 Scale Horizontal scale Proportional scale rH Jepe aale Scale hints Scale metrics Scale center Origin point 0 0 This action lets you scale your glyphs proportionally or non proportionally Enter your desired vertical and horizontal scale factors in the edit fields Switch on the Proportional scale option to keep the vertical and horizontal scale factors the same Switch off the Scale hints option to avoid scaling hints along with the glyph s outline Scaling hints width is not always precise so if you scale hints with the outline you sometimes find that some hints now miss the nodes that they were supposed to hint We recommend converting hints to links before this transformation to keep the proper width and position of hints Here is an example of this transformat
100. glyphs that are used as key glyphs into the kerning editing string and select a pair of them for kerning editing you will see two buttons appear below the glyph images A JA If you click on one of these buttons you will see a popup menu that lists all classes where the glyph acts as a key glyph 14 LE Key glyph in class Y Select the class name and it opens for preview in the Classes panel Similar buttons appear when you edit kerning using the Kerning Editor dialog box MEE BE Their purpose is the same to preview classes in which the currently selected glyph serves as a key glyph Tip hold down the Ctrl key and click on the class menu icon If a glyph is a member of the class it will be replaced by the key glyph of that class 591 Side of the Class When kerning for the key glyphs is defined you may apply the kerning value to other glyphs of the class To do that you need to specify if the class contains glyphs that must have the same kerning on the left or on the right side For example the B D EF H glyphs all have the same shape on the left side so in many cases the kerning pairs where they are the second glyphs will be the same oB oD oF oF oH This means that in this case B is the key glyph of the right or second class its members are the second glyphs in a pair which is right in the case of left to right writing scripts From the other side such glyphs as D O Q and Oslash have
101. gt Additional OpenType names as well as in a friendly form all the other sections of the Names and Copyright section of the Font Info dialog With the setting Do not export OpenType name records the generated font will obtain its naming only from the friendly portions of the Font Info dialog i e the Basic set of font names page the OpenType specific names page the Copyright information page etc The Additional OpenType names page will be ignored With the setting Append OpenType name records to the names exported by default recommended the generated font will obtain its naming from the friendly portions but the information from the Additional OpenType names page will be appended With the setting Export only OpenType name records ignore default names only the native naming defined on the Additional OpenType names page will be written into the font and the friendly information will be ignored This is a setting suitable for complicated multilingual esp Asian fonts 101 102 Encoding Options Ignore Unicode When disabled recommended the font will be generated in indexes in the Unicode mode The Unicode indexes assigned to the glyphs font will be used as base for the encoding When enabled the encoding selected in the Names mode will be used as source of the encoding of the generated font instead of the Unicode indexes assigned to glyphs There are two possible methods of making TrueTyp
102. gt may be present in a lookupflag statement For example to skip over base glyphs and ligature glyphs lookupflag IgnoreBaseGlyphs IgnoreLigatures lookupflag format B lookupflag lt number gt Here the entire lookup flag value is specified simply as a lt number gt The format A example above could equivalently be expressed as lookupflag 6 Format A is clearly a superior choice for human readability when the lookupflag value is not 0 However a lookupflag value of 0 can be set only with format B not with format A lookupflag 0 The base glyphs ligatures and marks are defined in the Glyph Properties dialog This information is stored in the OpenType font file in the GDEF table Please be sure to allow export of this table in the Options gt OpenType if you are using the lookupflag feature in the feature definition file i Export GDEF table 833 834 lookup The font editor can label a set of rules and refer to it explicitly later on in order to have different parts of the font tables refer to the same lookup This decreases the size of the font in addition to freeing the editor from maintaining duplicate sets of rules To define and label a lookup use a named lookup block lookup lt label gt rules to be grouped lt label gt To refer to the lookup later on use a lookup reference statement lookup lt label gt For example lookup SHARED lookup definition ee SHARED F loo
103. guideline to the new place While you are dragging the guideline and the mouse cursor is within the snap to distance the guideline will stick to the node Nodes must be visible The guideline will snap to all nodes regardless of the mouse cursor position if the option View gt Snap to gt Outline is on and the following checkbox on the Glyph Window page of the Options dialog box is also switched on Align to all contour points iF snap bo contour is on To slant the guideline 1 Move the cursor onto the guideline near one of the sides of the editing field of the Glyph Window 2 Press the left mouse button The mouse cursor will change to a pair of curved arrows that shows you the guideline slant direction 3 Moving the mouse slant the guideline to the angle that you want Hold down the Suirt key to constrain the slanting angle to 3 degree increments To remove the guideline I 1 Start moving or slanting the guideline 1 2 While holding down the left mouse button click the right mouse button II 1 Position the cursor on the guideline and click the right mouse button II 2 In the menu select the Delete command You can use this option Remove hints and guides by moving out of the window located on the Glyph Window page of the Options dialog box to remove any guideline or hint by simply dragging it from the editing field of the Glyph Window To remove all guidelines use the Remove guidelines command in the Tool
104. in the Unicode Standard or is listed in AGLFN use the glyph name of the basic form as the base name followed by a period followed by a suffix For the suffix use the tag of the OpenType Layout feature that you would most likely access that glyph through 151 152 For example for a small caps A use A smcp for a stylistic alternate R use R salt for a swash Q use Q swsh for a Superior m use m sups for a tabular 5 use five tnum etc If there are multiple OpenType Layout features that can be used to access a glyph pick the one that is the most prominent If a combination of features should be used to access your glyph order the appropriate feature tags alphabetically and concatenate them using the underscore glyph _ For example for a proportional old style 2 use two onum_pnum for a swash small cap use Egrave smcp_swsh Compound glyph names If your glyph represents a compound character i e a ligature or an accented character that does not have a precomposed Unicode codepoint and if the character is not explicitly listed in AGLFN or the Unicode Standard construct the compound glyph name as follows For each element of the compound character take the base name or the entire glyph name if there is no suffix Concatenate these using underscore to make the compound base name For each element of the compound glyph that has a suffix concatenate the suffixes using und
105. is the list of all the layers that you can see in the Glyph Window Later we will describe them in full detail i Outline Main layer containing the glyph s outline i A ag ce ic aaa ee paca ci N E ia aces aE EAN O ere rere RAAT fixed distance eae a E diene ee Alignment Special zones that define the overshoot positions in the font zones Vertical Vertical font metrics such as ascender descender or cap metrics height mom Anchors and Anchors are special named marks and carets that define carets stop positions in ligatures TI Neighbors Shapes of glyphs defined as neighbors of the current glyph You can control the layers appearance and features with the View menu Show layers Lists all layers and a few other options and lets you switch them on or off You cannot switch off hide the outline layer Lock layers Lists the layers that you can lock to protect from accidental modification E g if the Outline layer is locked you will not be able to add move or delete any nodes or change any curves Snap to layers Controls which layers have the snap to feature activated 333 334 An alternative way to control the editing layers features is the special Editing Layers panel which you can put on the screen with the Window gt Panels gt Editing Layers command or with this button on the Panels toolbar Editing Layers Metrics Guides _ Hints Mask Auto select layer In this panel you ca
106. key while you drag the mouse to constrain the measurement to 15 degree increments You may dock the Meter panel to any edge of the Glyph Window 436 While you are dragging the mouse you will see that the Meter tool arrow sticks to any object that it can find in the editing field To measure the distance from a contour 1 Put the mouse cursor on the contour from which you want to measure 2 Press the left mouse button and drag the mouse to what you want to measure to Hold down the Suirr key and the direction of the mouse s movement will be constrained to the normal direction of the contour startpoint 3 When you re done release the button 437 Setting Guidelines Anchors and Sidebearings With the Meter tool you can not only measure angles and distances but also mark glyph elements with guidelines and anchors and set right and left sidebearings Press the right mouse button instead of the left one and measure the distance When you release the button a popup menu appears Here is what you can do Add two guidelines Two guidelines vertical and horizontal will be added The point where they will be added depends on the option selected in the secondary menu 100 means that the guidelines will be added at the end point of the measured distance 50 means that the guidelines will be added in the middle of the measured line segment and 200 means that guidelines will be added at twice the measured distance Add hori
107. line if it is active all metrics are based on its position Refer to the next section for more information about the measurement line Previewing Dependent Composites Some of the glyph names in the Metrics table have a light green mark at their right This means that this glyph works as a base glyph in one or more composite glyphs For example if you have an a glyph and adieresis acaron and agrave composites the a will get this mark If you click on the mark while no glyph is currently selected for metrics editing in the main panel Fontlab Studio will automatically generate a sample string which has the base glyph first and all dependent glyphs following fafaacute acircumflex adieresis agrave aring atilde al ee N O ew daddada Use this feature to check that the metrics of the base glyph and dependent glyphs are compatible 561 562 Generating Context If no glyph is selected for metrics adjustment and you click on a row in the table Fontlab Studio will automatically generate some text around your glyph to help with metrics editing HOHanon HHHannn OOQOaoo0o XHXaxox The content of this context depends on the type of the glyph an uppercase glyph will have more uppercase neighbors while a lowercase will get lowercase context on the right side The Measurement Line To activate the measurement line click on this button f You will see a red line appear in the editing ar
108. links 629 PostScript 624 TrueType 624 converting fonts 312 kerning 852 Coordinate Rounding 654 copy 402 copying glyphs 170 Copyright 232 creating glyphs 324 cubic b splines 343 Custom Encoding 155 custom tables 276 Custom Unicode Ranges 157 customization 34 customizing keyboard 42 links 44 menu item 38 menus 37 toolbars 35 Cyrillic 66 128 138 range 142 Czech 129 D decompose 90 624 decomposing 495 497 deleting curves 363 glyphs 176 nodes 363 pairs 572 Delta Instructions 722 Descender 245 247 design axes 769 design coordinates 774 Designer 235 digital signature 104 dock 61 Double Link 716 753 Double Byte Codepages 194 drag and drop 70 drag drop 117 172 Drop TT Hints 629 DSIG 104 Duplicate 402 dynamic range 770 809 E echo 78 358 Edit Macro Panel 60 67 891 Edit mode 329 331 Edit tool 331 editing axis graph 807 bitmaps 747 Class Based Kerning 591 fonts 113 guidelines 430 hints 476 678 kerning 567 links 479 mask 440 metrics 468 553 neighbors 455 shape groups 455 text 295 underline 551 Editing Field 318 Editing Layers Panel 60 EID 229 Ellipse 516 embedded bitmaps 106 746 embedding 99 233 Empty curves 88 ENC 139 encoding 27 29 136 250 custom 96 155 253 export options 97 imported 91 139 modes 125 127 options 102 Standard 96 standards 128 tables 155 encoding files custom 155
109. located in separate files There are two possible formats for the metrics files that are used with Type 1 fonts AFM and PFM AFM files Adobe Font Metrics are text files containing all the metrics and kerning information for a given font These files are legible as text and can be edited in any text editor PFM files Printer Font Metrics are metrics and kerning files used by the Windows operating system They are binary files and cannot be read without special utilities AFM files are a standard format for the exchange of metrics information for PostScript fonts This information can be read directly by several operating systems and programs In the Windows OS Multiple Master Type 1 fonts store metrics information in another format There is a binary Multiple Master Metrics file which usually has the file extension MMM and a text Multiple Master metrics file MMM files include information about the font s axes and masters multiple master data for glyphs metrics and kerning and other font header data The text metrics files have a composite structure there is a linking file that describes the font header axes and masters information and separate AFM files with metrics and kerning data for each master font FontLab can import and export metrics and kerning information in any of these formats 531 Metrics Window FontLab has a special window where you can edit the metrics and kerning information It is called the Metrics window
110. metrics or kerning generation and other commands mG G o M me EF ae FO E a i a By default the toolbar is docked to the top of the window but you can drag it to the bottom or leave it floating around A Metrics Tools toolbar with four buttons that allow you to select one of the metrics tools By default this toolbar is vertically aligned and docked to the left side of the window You can drag it anywhere or dock to any side ser A local command area that is used to select a mode for the Metrics window and a string for metrics or kerning editing E gt Keming v size 72 gt Jaa ad Options Toos laecoerch v LJ LE The local command area of the Metrics window may be located in the bottom default or top area of the window When the local command area is in the top location it includes controls to modify metrics or kerning re v eber UO The content of this properties area depends on the current mode of the Metrics window 55 Metrics Modes The metrics window works in four modes text preview metrics and kerning In Text mode you can enter and edit text in the main editing area of the Metrics window It works very similar to any standard text editor lss kmi Preview mode is used to preview text with kerning applied and check it at different sizes Also the position and width of the underline and middle stroke line can be adjusted in this mode T 56 v JKLMN an ee
111. mode or copy other modes glyphs between fonts Create Glyphs This option controls what happens if the user double clicks on command generatesan empty glyph cell in the Font Window chooses Glyph gt them if possible Create Glyphs or Glyph gt Create Glyphs If Empty When disabled the resulted glyphs will be always blank no outlines If enabled FontLab Studio will attempt to generate a glyph Refer to the section about Generating Glyphs for more details All generated This option controls the way FontLab Studio generates ligatures are right ligatures if the previous option is enabled and the user double to left clicks or on an empty glyph cell that is intended for a ligature glyph If enabled the ligatures generated that way will be right to left i e the first component of the generated ligature will be right most This does not affect the way ligatures are generated when Glyph gt Generate Glyphs is called explicitly Sorting glyphs that Controls the way glyphs are displayed in the Font Window are out of encoding that are shown outside of the yellow area that is the glyphs that do not belong to the currently selected encoding codepage or Unicode range Only show glyph When multiple fonts are opened the screen can quickly get windows from cluttered With this option enabled FontLab Studio will only active font display Glyph Windows from the currently active font while it will hide other open Glyph Windows Disable th
112. neighbors page of the Options dialog box 4opl kerning to neighbors Clicking on the neighbor s outline will open it for editing in the same Glyph window This feature can be switched off in the Options dialog box Editing Groups and Neighbors Shape groups and neighbors are defined in two files groups txt and neighbors txt located in the Studio5 Data user data folder Open these files in any text editing application and you will see their structure is very simple FONTLAB GROUPS hamburgefonstiv qckwxjplzyd zero one two three four five six seven eight nine zero AVTY BPR YKFONTLAB NEIGHBORS lhn period 1 J i j period hkK In the groups txt and neighbors txt files groups and neighbors are defined as lines of glyph names delimited by space Each line of text is a group Lines of neighbors may contain only 3 names The middle glyph name is the main while others are neighbors You may edit the content of these files to fit your needs You can also click on the Edit Groups button on the Glyph Window gt Shape groups and neighbors page of the Options dialog box to edit shape groups 455 456 Outline Operations In FontLab Studio operations are temporary tools that let you modify your glyph Operations are activated by pressing on their buttons in the Tools toolbar or by selecting a command in the Contour and Tools menus When an operation is activated one or more handles appear depending on the operation Aft
113. not care about the font s width Font is Italic OS 2 fsSelection Switch on this check box if you are creating an italic font 217 Font is bold OS 2 fsSelection The Font is defined as bold Usually this checkbox is related to the Weight setting but it is not required For example if you are making a family containing Light and Normal styles you may need to mark the Normal style as Bold so you will not need to split these styles into two separate families More styles Press this button to open a popup menu where you can select one of the additional font styles Only TrueType fonts use this information but we recommend you always set it properly to simplify future font identification Style Name name 2 Contains complete style information about the font We recommend that you fill in the Weight Width and Italic data to automatically generate this field using the Build Style Name button and edit this field if necessary Build Style Press this button to automatically generate the Style Name field Name Style names are based on the Width Weight and Italic information Font Name name 6 PostScript name This name will be used by a PostScript print driver to reference the font Do not include spaces in this name Full Name name 4 More detailed font name It may include spaces as well as any other characters this is the name that is exposed to users when the font is installed in Windows Menu Name The name used to access t
114. o aa Face rey Gunner om Sareea n i ee ae en a eae 4 Note You can make a line or a curve a current object and arrow operations will move it as a whole Just left click on a curve or a line with the Edit tool and it will be highlighted by a pair of short lines 359 360 Non node editing Sometimes you may want to modify a contour in a more flexible way than by moving nodes For example to adjust the shape of a curve in node editing you would usually make the control points of a curve visible and move them to modify the curve A more intuitive way would be to grab the curve somewhere between the nodes and move this imaginary inside point The curve s shape changes accordingly We call this method non node editing This means that you can move not just nodes but every point of a glyph s contour You can even switch off nodes and still be able to edit the contour as you wish To modify a curve or straight segment using the non node editing method 1 Move the mouse cursor onto the place on the segment that you want to move 2 Press the left mouse button You will see a small color point that will show you the temporary point that you are moving 3 Drag the mouse and observe how the shape of the curve changes After a few experiments which can be undone you will have enough experience to use this method of editing Several notes that you should remember 1 Innon node editing guiding objects are no
115. of the axis in the Full Name list You can enter your own custom name but we strongly recommend you use only names that are in the list in order to make the font compatible with font interpreters When you are adding a new axis to a Multiple Master font the names of the axes that are already present in the font will not appear in the list The short name of the axis is used when a font interpreter needs to make a name for an intermediate font Usually the name looks something like MinionMM_245 wt 580 wd where MinionMM is the name of the MM font 245 and 580 are design coordinates of the intermediate font and wt and wd are short names of two axes Weight and Width respectively 781 The axis type is necessary to identify a new axis As we said in previous sections there are four registered axis types Weight Variation of the font s weight Optical Size Variation of the font s design to make it more legible at different font sizes Serif Modification of the font s style Usually this is used for modification of the font s serifs For example from serif to sans serif font or variation of the serifs width Usually it is not necessary to fill in all three edit fields Just select or enter the axis name and FontLab Studio will automatically fill in all the other fields Check the Convert hints to links before adding new axis option to automatically apply the Convert Hints to Links action to all characters of the font We r
116. of the font that is used to align strings in text It is important not to confuse UPM size and font height UPM size is just a scaling base and for example all Type 1 fonts have the same UPM size of 1000 Font height depends on the font design and may be different The font height can be defined as the distance from the bottom of a letter that is partially located below the baseline like the p character and the topmost point of an uppercase character like H or a tall lowercase character like b Sometimes a font contains special glyphs that can be taller than b like an integral sign but usually these glyphs are not counted when font height is measured Z Note When a font is shown on screen on printed the UPM size is always scaled to the chosen point size Let s say that your UPM size is 1000 units and that your uppercase H letter is 700 units high If you set some text in your font at 10 pt size the 10 pt will correspond to the UPM size that is 1000 units This means that your uppercase H letter will be 7 pt high In a different font the uppercase letter H can be 800 units high so set at 10 pt the letter H will be 8 pt high This is why point size of typeset text is not really related to any graphic element of the typeface Therefore if you would like to make your letter H to appear visually larger when set at a specific point size you need to increase the ratio of the size of the letter in unit
117. on the key or CTRL 0 325 326 Alternative keyboard shortcuts are Mac Windows CMD OPTION SPACE CTRL ALT SPACE Zoom out then click SPACE and drag Scroll hand cursor appears After you select the zoom tool move the mouse pointer to one of the corners of the rectangular area that you want to zoom on and click the left mouse button Then holding the button down define the zoom in area by dragging the cursor to form a rectangle Release the button and the new custom zoom level will be selected If your mouse has a wheel use it to scroll the Glyph Window vertically press the Sutrt key to scroll it horizontally press the ALT key to zoom in and out and press the CTRL key to go to the next or previous glyph Quick Zoom Selection You can quickly change the zoom level of the Glyph Window by selecting the Zoom In or Zoom Out command from the View menu Alternatively you can click the Z key for zooming in or the X key for zooming out This command increases or decreases the zoom level by a factor of two If the mouse cursor is in the editing area of the Glyph Window the new zoom level will be centered around the cursor position These keys are active even when you drag something with one of the editing tools If you have a wheel on your mouse you can press the ALT key and use it to change the zoom level 327 328 Vertical Alignment Options When you select 100 as the zoom value FontLab Studio needs to choose a
118. option for an imported font you need to manually delete the OpenType classes to avoid duplication The Output Panel The Output panel opens automatically when there is something to show and looks very simple ie of more glyphs not found in the font Basically it is just a text output window with a scroll bar You can right click the panel to open the context menu Clear Select All Close panel Use the commands in the menu to close the panel or clear or copy the selected text You can manually open the output panel with the Window gt Panels gt Output command in the main FontLab Studio menu The output panel is also used by the FontLab Studio Macro system to show the results of macro program interpretation 849 850 OpenType Features Sample Panel When OpenType features are compiled you can preview them with the OpenType Features Sample page of the Preview panel To open the Preview panel use the Window gt Panels gt Preview command or click on the button located on the OpenType panel toolbar When there are OT features defined the OpenType Features Sample panel looks like this Preview Script latn epsp ABCabe123 kern aalt Source c2sc ABCabc123 inum Result pnum ABCADC123 sinf In the top part of the panel you find a command bar that contains script and language selection lists and some buttons When more than one script or lan
119. option to revert to the FontLab 4 x behavior Refer to the Node Type section of the Glyph Window chapter for more information about node symbols Black white nodes When disabled node symbols are displayed using color as in FontLab 3 x When enabled node symbols are displayed using color as in Fontographer Show node position One node may be selected as the current node It will be highlighted and its position will appear on screen 446 211 To deselect the node click anywhere in the empty space of the editing field or click the Esc key Node position is on Position of the node see above may appear below or above top of the outline the path Sarat 275 bre Highlight first node When this option is on start and end nodes of the open of an open contour contour are highlighted with a small diagonal cross ag Tagen Bezier control When this option is on and Show Layers gt Control Vectors is points are visible in off the control points become visible when the curve is selection selected m Show selected When enabled Multiple Master fonts will highlight selected nodes in inactive nodes in all masters When disabled only selected nodes in masters the active master will be highlighted Connect selected When this option is active nodes that are selected in the nodes in all masters current master are connected by straight line segments to nodes in all visible masters Show anchor names When enabl
120. or any of the toolbars A new menu appears and you can start adding commands to it using the drag drop technique described above With the Customize dialog not only can you customize the main menu but also most of the context menus which appear when you right click FontLab Studio windows Open the Menu page in the Customize dialog box and choose a context menu in the right combo box Select contest menu Brush Size Brush Strokes Component Tool Edit Tool Font Window Glyph Window ering Editor Meter Tool Metrics Editor Preview Window Ruler Toolbars A menu appears on screen and you can customize it by dragging commands from the toolbar other menus or the list of the commands on the Commands page To reset changes you ve made in menus use the Reset buttons on the Menu page of the Customize dialog box Use the left Reset command to reset changes in the main menu and the right Reset button to reset changes in the context menus 37 38 Customizing Individual Items You can customize the appearance of any menu item or toolbar button The following appearances are available for most items Image k Text Mew Font Image and Text New Font To change the appearance of the menu item or toolbar button position the mouse cursor on the button and click the right mouse button Select the new appearance method in the context menu Reset to Default Copy Button Image Delete Button Appearance w Image Text Imag
121. otf These settings only apply to fonts that you generate in the OpenType PS otf format Decompose all composites Use subroutines to compress outlines in the CFF table Autohint unhinted glyphs Use the PostScript FontWame as Full Mame on Windows Decompose all When enabled all composite glyphs in the font will be composites decomposed Recommended for maximum compatibility When disabled the composite glyphs will be exported as such Use subroutines Allow to automatically generate outline subroutines if font is to compress generated as CFF flavored Outline subroutines store outlines in the repetitive parts of outlines and allow to reuse with references CFF table from outline definition code Autohint unhinted When enabled all glyphs that contain no hints will be glyphs autohinted Use the PostScript When enabled the PostScript Font Name record will be FontName as Full copied to the Full Name record for the Windows platform It is Name on Windows recommended to keep it enabled on all the time as this is a requirement of the OpenType specification Kerning These settings control what types of kerning are written into TrueType OpenType TT ttf and OpenType PS otf fonts Export kern table _ Expand class kerning while building kern table zos Generate kern Feature if it is nok defined Export kern When enabled a plain kern table will be included in the font table with the kerning informa
122. outline will be forced equal to the width of the rounded standard stem 663 664 Type 1 and TrueType Standard Stems In FontLab Studio 5 every font may have two sets of stems Type 1 stems and TrueType stems They are applied in different hinting modes and have some differences e Number of Type 1 stems is limited by 10 in each direction vertical and horizontal e TrueType stems may have names Number of TrueType stems is not limited e It is possible to define stem hinting for TrueType stems which will control their scaling We will talk about it in a section dedicated to TrueType hinting If some font has Type 1 standard stems and no TrueType stems they will be automatically converted when such font is opened to FontLab studio In following paragraphs we will discuss tools to define Type 1 standard stems TrueType standard stems are described in the TrueType Hinting section Editing Type 1 Standard Stems Standard stem widths are controlled through the Standard Stems page of the Font Info dialog box Hinting Settings Standard stems T1 hinting Type 1 hinting standard stems gt Set stems For the master v stems iad stems 36308 E _ ForceBold fused to make Type 1 Font looking bold Stem width controls are in the bottom part of this page Y stems tons There are controls for vertical and horizontal standard stem widths All available stems appear in the horizontal
123. outline where you want to insert a point Alternatively you can add points with the Edit tool 1 Position the cursor on the outline 2 1 Press the ALT key and left click the outline or 2 2 Press the right mouse button Without releasing right button click left button Reversing Contours Crru click one of the nodes of the contour with the left button to reverse its direction Selecting Points As in the standard Edit mode you can select many points and perform group operations like moving the selection or copying to and from the Clipboard To select points with the edit tool press the left mouse button in an empty area and drag the cursor to surround the points you want to select with the rectangle ce H aN r Tos ol i L 4 ty i m he lt a Hold the Suirr key down to invert the selection state of the points To select the whole contour double click it Note that you must not double click one of the points this operation will change its type Alternatively hold down the CTRL key and click anywhere near the contour You can use commands from the Edit menu to select or deselect parts of the outline Select All to select the whole outline Deselect to remove all selections Invert Selection to invert the selection state of all nodes Left click anywhere in the empty area anytime to remove all selections 491 492 Using the Magic Wand Tool With this tool you can easily select multiple cont
124. overshoots that have to be aligned to the baseline OtherBlues includes up to 5 bottom alignment zones To add a new alignment zone press the Add button below the list To edit the position of the zone select the zone you want to edit in the list and edit it in the edit fields below the list To remove an alignment zone select the zone you want to remove from the list and press the Del button below that list You can see a preview of the zones by switching on the Alignment Zones layer in the Glyph Window and pressing the Apply button in the FontInfo dialog box You will see the alignment zones in the Glyph Window in light blue Press the Auto zones button to automatically calculate alignment zones in the Primary zones list box How FontLab Studio Calculates Alignment Zones To calculate alignment zones in the BlueValues list FontLab Studio finds characters with overshoots and characters that are flat in the position of the overshoot Then it measures the top and bottom vertical positions of these characters and detects a zone Examples of such characters are o and x O and H p and g and so on FontLab Studio tries to find many different characters from different languages so it is usually able to locate some examples Alignment zones are also used in TrueType manual and automatic hinting Family Alignment Zones To support the common appearance of fonts that belong to the same font family t
125. price for this was a little decrease in the quality of typeset text With Multiple Master fonts it is possible to define two optical size masters one for small point sizes and another for large point sizes and use MM interpolation to create the proper font design for the final selected point size 72 pt master font 6 pt master font In the following example you can see two lines of text typed with the same font but different optical size selection VBCSPC LPE Pesqer four VBCSPC LPE fexf four For better comparison both lines were typed at the same point size 28 pt but with the different optical sizes Note the different contrast and inter character spacing Style This design axis can cover many different design properties Here s one example of what you can do with it APU AAT IPU EH EH EE HHA HHHHHH There is no standard definition or real property of this axis And there is no standard for its dynamic range 773 774 Design Coordinates and Weight Vectors You know that all axes have ranges These ranges can vary from 0 to 9999 but a more practical range of 0 to 1000 is usually used Somehow we have to define a way to designate the position of an intermediate MM design in the design axis space A very natural way to define the position of the intermediate font is to use its position on each design axis These coordinates are called design coordinates Width axis Weight axis There is also a
126. regardless of the mouse cursor position if the option View gt Snap to gt Outline is on and the following checkbox on the Glyph Window page of the Options dialog box is also switched on Align bo all contour points iF snap bo contour is on Z Note While you are editing the hint its parameters are shown on the status bar 476 To remove a hint 1 1 Start editing the hint 1 2 While holding the left mouse button down click the right button II 1 Position the cursor on the hint and click the right mouse button II 2 Select the Delete command from the menu 477 478 Hints Tracking If the Hints tracking option of the Glyph Window page of the Options dialog box is on Tracking Hints tracking Tracking offset o of UPMI and you move hints a distance less than the Tracking offset setting all nodes that are on the hint will be moved with it Use this feature to keep an outline on the hint when you want for example to modify the hint s width Note that this feature also works when you change a hint through the property panel described below Editing Links Links connect two nodes The only way to edit links is to connect them to different nodes of the outline To add a new link 1 Click on the Add New Horizontal or Vertical Link command in the Tools gt Hints amp Guides menu 2 Click the first node of the link 3 Drag the mouse cursor to the second node and release the button To edit a link
127. remove hints and guidelines by guides by moving moving them out of the window out of the window Double click on When enabled the user can double click on the bitmap placed background to on the Background layer to position or scale it When change its disabled this is only possible via Tools gt Background gt Move properties and Scale Mask layer has its When enabled the Mask layer has its own advance width own metrics information When disabled the Mask layer always has the advance width of the Outline layer Selection in the While editing a glyph the user often selects some contours or Glyph window is nodes With this option enabled the step of selection is stored undoable as a separate undo step so can be undone separately from other editing actions Tap on Ctrl key When enabled the user can press the TAB key to temporarily toggles Edit tool enable the Edit tool if a different tool is currently active and press the TAB key again to revert back to that tool 75 76 Appearance options Small nodes Nodes may be small or large T m i Node shape shows When enabled each node symbol will indicate both the type of point and the adjacent contour and the connection type When disabled connection type each node symbol will only indicate the type of preceding contour while the connection type will be indicated with a separate small symbol next to the node Enable this option to see tangent points shown as such Disable this
128. s actions to edit glyphs or metrics automatically Actions may be applied to one glyph to a range of glyphs selected in the Font window to a special set of glyphs only to letters or only to digits for example or to a whole font All actions are carefully designed and often produce high quality results that do not require manual control or correction In this chapter we will show you how to use the actions and give a detailed description of each available action 616 The Actions Dialog Box The easiest way to apply actions is to use the Actions dialog box It is accessible from the Tools menu while the Font or Glyph window is active Select the Action command from the Tools menu and you will see a dialog box Actions Select an action H contour W Hints and Guidelines Metrics E Effects Current action Apply to entire Font Note in previous versions of FontLab this dialog box was called Transformation By default the box is empty If you open this dialog while the Glyph window is active the action will be applied only to the glyph currently open If you open it while the Font window is active then the action will be applied to all selected glyphs To choose an action to run use the list of actions Select an action F Hinks and Guidelines Metrics Effects Expand one of the categories to see all the actions Shift 0 0 Mirror H Seale 80 0
129. scaling all your artwork to a particular height e g 700 pt in Illustrator you can also have FontLab Studio automatically scale the artwork for you This is particularly useful if you import pre existing logos or similar symbols to FontLab Studio If you wish that FontLab Studio automatically scales all pasted or imported artwork to fit the font s height enable the Fit EPS files to Ascender Descender height option located in the Options gt General gt EPS and bitmap background dialog box Fit EPS files to 4scender Descender height 4 Nodes in digital fonts can only have integer coordinates On the other hand your Illustrator artwork can have nodes with fractional coordinates such as 161 352 pt or 354 78 mm When FontLab imports a drawing it has to round them to integer values because it cannot generate fonts with fractional coordinates The smaller your object is the more extreme the rounding and therefore distortion will occur Therefore we advise that you always scale your artwork in Illustrator to the appropriate size before copying it to FontLab Studio so that no rounding will be minimal Also if you work in Illustrator or similar applications avoid fractional coordinates altogether by setting your grid to 1 pt and making sure that all your nodes snap to it Z Note Remember that FontLab Studio can only edit font outlines not features such as color of outline outline width or fill color Regardless of the sett
130. scripts 816 Font Features OpenType fonts come in two formats sometimes called flavors OpenType TT and OpenType PS Both sorts of OpenType fonts may include so called OpenType Layout features The layout features are rules that change the standard behavior of the font For example the small caps layout feature abbreviated smcp may change all lowercase glyphs to their small caps counterparts Effluent EFFLUENT Small caps The standard ligatures layout feature abbreviated liga can replace some letter combinations with ligatures Effluent Effluent Ligature The old style numerals layout feature abbreviated onum can replace lining figures with old style figures 12345 12345 Old Style Numerals OpenType Layout features can serve typographic purposes like shown above In this case applications such as Adobe InDesign Adobe Illustrator CS Adobe Photoshop CS Apple Pages or Apple Keynote on Mac OS X 10 4 offer the user some user interface to turn selected features on an off OpenType Layout features also play a crucial role in rendering complex scripts i e writing systems such as Arabic Devanagari or Thai These writing systems have complex rules for displaying characters For example Arabic uses different forms of letters if a letter is found at the beginning in the middle or at the end of the word Also complex scripts often use vowel marks that are positioned dynamically over consonant letters In all the
131. shape groups and neighbors changes automatically for each glyph that you edit This composition can be fully customized Apply kerning to neighbors Neighbors Filled iF outline is Filled w IF glyph is in Mask mode show outline Shape group is Filled iF outline is Filled w Edit Groups IF glyph is in Mask mode show outline we Shape group opacity Yo Shift glyphs in the shape group o lo OF UPMI Use glyph metrics _ Center glyphs horizonally Double click to edit neighbor or shape group glyph 83 Apply kerning to When enabled the neighbors will be positioned taking neighbors kerning pair values into account Mask layer view These settings control the behavior of neighbors if the user is in the Mask layer Filling shape groups These settings control when the shape groups should be filled Edit Groups button Click on the button to open the shape groups definition file in a text editor e g Notepad After you finished editing the shape groups definition file save it in the text editor switch back to FontLab Studio and click on Apply in the Options dialog box to load the new shape groups Mask layer view These settings control the behavior of shape groups if the user is in the Mask layer Shape group opacity This controls the opacity transparency level of the shape groups Shift glyphs inthe With the settings 0 x 0 all shapes in the shape group are shape group shown stacked behind the current glyph Incre
132. so it is usually able to locate some examples Alignment zones are also used in TrueType manual and automatic hinting 661 662 Family Alignment Zones To support the common appearance of fonts that belong to the same font family the Type 1 hinting system allows so called FamilyBlues alignment zones that are used in the whole font family Typically the alignment zones of the regular weight are used as Family Blues in all members of the family To set family alignment zones switch on the Set family alignment zones check box Then edit the alignment zones as usual To return to editing local alignment zones switch on the Set local alignment zones check box You also can copy family alignment zones defined for the current font to any other font opened in FontLab Studio Just press the Copy family zones button and select the destination font in the appeared dialog box W Copy Family Zones Select Fonts where wou wank to copy current Family Zones V 4CaslonPro Bald V ACaslonPro Italic TrueType Alignment Zones In FontLab Studio 5 you may define different alignment zones for Type 1 or TrueType hinting TrueType zones have no limitations in their number and allow better control over their scaling We will discuss them in full detail in TrueType Hinting section Note that if some font has some Type 1 zones and no TrueType zones Type 1 zones will be automatically converted and used in TrueType hinting So it is a good id
133. standard uses two bytes 16 bits for every character So it s possible to map 65 536 characters Multi byte mapping standards use from one to four bytes for every character expanding the code space to billions of characters The biggest problem of single byte encoding standards codepages is the limited capacity With only 256 slots available codepoints usually only characters from one alphabet writing system can be encoded It is not possible to encode e g Latin and Cyrillic text in the same codepage Pi flakonow wody OK3eMIIIAp d actual text Pi flakon w wody Yecl d du text encoded as Windows 1250 Central European Pikx flakonyw wody OK3eMIVIAp text encoded as Windows 1251 Cyrillic 256 character codes are not even sufficient to encode various accented diacritic characters from different languages that use the Roman alphabet This is why separate codepages were created for Western European languages English German French etc Central and Eastern European languages Polish Czech Hungarian etc Baltic languages Latvian Lithuanian Estonian etc and so on In addition different companies assigned character codes differently For example the letter 4 adieresis is represented using the character code 228 in the Windows Western codepage used by Microsoft and using the character code 138 in the MacOS Roman codepage used by Apple The confusion becomes evident if you realize that the sam
134. stem to become the same width as the left stem in the hinted character In the following sections we will discuss font level hints and the process called hint programming that is required at times Font Level Type 1 Hints Font level hints are used to keep important character elements similar at all PPM sizes There are three types of font level hints Alignment Zones Positions and width of important heights Control Data Controls the hinting process All font level hinting is set in the Alignment page of the FontInfo dialog in FontLab Studio 657 658 Alignment Zones Alignment zones are typically used to perform a process known as overshoot suppression Rounded characters and characters with sharp ends usually are created a little bit larger than flat characters Notice that the top and bottom of the O extend just a little beyond the top and bottom of the H This is called overshoot It is necessary to compensate for a visual effect that makes rounded characters look slightly smaller Usually the overshoot height is set to 3 4 of character height However at small PPM size this value may be rounded to one pixel When the PPM is small one pixel may be 15 of the character height or even more Here s how it happens Assume that the topmost position of the H character is 700 units and the top position of the O is 715 At 12 PPM 1000 font units scaled to 12 pixels the rounded height of the H will be 8 pixels Th
135. swsh Z swsh T_h swsh m init ENDINGS a e z ENDINGS_SWASH a fina e fina z fina Beginning of word swashes ignore substitute LETTER BEGINNINGS substitute BEGINNINGS by BEGINNINGS_SWASH End of word swashes ignore substitute ENDINGS LETTER substitute ENDINGS by ENDINGS_SWASH cswh If a feature targets only glyphs at the beginning or ending of a word such as the init and fina features then the application could be made responsible for detecting the word boundary the feature itself would be simply defined as the appropriate substitutions without regard for word boundary 863 864 Positioning Lookups The OpenType specification allows you to define many positioning lookups The lookup types may be separated into three groups 1 Basic lookups single and pair positioning 2 The Cursive attachment lookup that allows smooth connection of script and cursive glyphs 3 Mark attachment lookups that define relative positions of glyphs and marks z FontLab Studio can support only the first group of lookups single and pair positioning We expect to support cursive and mark attachment lookups in one of the next releases of FontLab Studio As in the case with substitution positioning lookups may be context free and context dependent Context dependent lookups are the same as context free but add a context that is verified against the source sequence of glyphs
136. the Map to jump to the glyph that is mapped to it To switch to another plane of the codespace use the Plane control in the status bar Plane 0 E Font Map automatically tracks changes you make to the font If you are not sure that it is correctly updated this may happen with some macro programs click on the button to manually update the Map 193 194 Managing Double Byte Codepages If you are working on a CJKV the acronym for Chinese Japanese Korean and Vietnamese font you may want to look at your font in a double byte codepage Open the Font Map panel and in the Font window of your font select one of the double byte codepages You will see this button 22 enabled in the Font Map toolbar Click it and you will see the Font Map rearrange to represent your font with the applied double byte codepage In this mode every row represents 256 glyphs that are assigned to the specific first byte In the following picture you can see a Traditional Chinese font in Unicode mode in the left picture and in Codepage 950 mode right eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee Unicode mode Codepage 950 In the codepage mode green pixels represent codes in the codepage that are covered by one of the glyphs in the font Cyan pixels mean codes in the codepage that are not covered by any glyphs in the font Notes Sometimes you may need to add a description or some other informatio
137. the Mark submenu of the context menu You will see the following dialog Mark glyphs Sanu eecueaneeneecareunenueseerserennenteoerrantensseersenrannsntmearaanenresuseenrennsenrsareanes ansnnnusnnunnnunnnnnnnnnnn Mark value 194 Enable the checkbox and use the slider to select your custom color or enter its numeric value in the edit box Click OK to mark the glyphs To simplify repetitive marking operations you can drag the mark menu by its tiny header and convert it into a toolbar To remove the color mark click on the None button within the Mark submenu toolbar or uncheck the checkbox in the Custom Mark dialog 179 180 Searching for Glyphs Sometimes you need to find a particular glyph in your font especially in large fonts Select the Find command in the Edit menu or press CTRL BackSpPace on the keyboard You will see a dialog box Find Glyph Name begins with Create unexisting glyph To find a glyph 1 In the left top combo box select the method by which you want to search for the glyph Name Searches for the glyphname A aE PE SAE SO ST Fae EAH pa the current encoding or codepage ANSI character Searches for the glyph that is mapped to one of the ANSI glyphs in the selected codepage or encoding Bottom Top Searches for glyphs whose bottom or top line falls in the specified range Components Searches for glyphs that have the specified number of components
138. the glyph highlight to the leftmost glyph on the eee ee ee ee ee OO sae ee eet ee ele End Moves the glyph highlight to the rightmost glyph on the EAA eee CUITENE TOW hk Ctrl Home Moves the glyph highlight to the first glyph on the chart Ctrl End Moves the glyph highlight to the last glyph on the chart 160 Selecting In addition to the current glyph you can select sets of glyphs in the font chart These selections behave similarly to selected text in a text editor you can copy selected glyphs to another place in the font or to a different font you can apply different effects to the selection etc Selected glyphs have inverted colors The last selected glyph is the current glyph greater EES A B gt 12 1 i j i k B i E H H gana To select one or more cells press the left mouse button on the first or last cell of your selection and drag the cursor across the cells you want to select You will see the selection highlighted If you drag the cursor outside the visible part of the chart it will scroll accordingly To cancel your selection click on any glyph cell Alternative Using the navigating keys on the keyboard set the current cell highlight on the first or last cell of a selection then press the SHIFT key Move the current cell highlight as described earlier to select the cells Selection does not have to be continuous If you press the CTRL key you can select and deselect cells in any order and combina
139. the manual field See below for more information Character This 8 byte field identifies the symbol collections provided by Complement the font each bit identifies a symbol collection and is independently interpreted Symbol set bound fonts should have this field set to all F s except bit 0 274 File Name Treatment Flags Text normal book etc Italic oblique slanted etc Bold Bold Italic Bold Oblique Demibold Demibold Italic Demibold Oblique Black Black Italic Black Oblique Light Light Italic Light Oblique Condensed Condensed Italic Condensed Oblique Bold Condensed Bold Condensed Italic Bold Condensed Oblique Semibold lighter than demibold Semibold Italic Semibold Oblique AWNTMSENVOTOOAAMO CWO D Character Set Table FontLab Studio stores the list of pre defined character set codes with descriptions in a special text file named pclset dat located in the FontLab Studio Data folder This file has a simple structure Undefined 19M Adobe Symbol OV Arabic McKay s Every line contains a Character set code followed after a single space by a description of the character set You can open this file in any text editor like Windows Notepad and make any changes you want 275 276 Binary and custom tables Binary and custom tables Tag Comment T Stored binary OpenType layout tables BASE Baseline data OpenType and TrueType fonts may contain tables that are unknown to FontLab
140. the right a separator bar will be added between it and the previous button Standard To move a button to another toolbar just drag drop it there To copy a button hold the CTRL key while you drag the button To remove a button from a toolbar drag it out of the toolbar Standard In FontLab Studio there is very little difference between a menu and a toolbar so you can re arrange copy or remove menu items just like you did with toolbar buttons View Show Layers d Lock Layers d Snap to Layers P Toolbars d je M Rulers Teg oom d oom In oom Que You can also drag a menu item onto a toolbar to add a toolbar button Hold the CTRL key to copy the item 35 36 To get access to all the FontLab Studio commands open the Commands page in the Customize dialog box Customize Commands Toolbars Tools Keyboard Menu Options Categories Commands re Tee 0 N A Edit LI New VIEW Contour Open Installed Search Close ee Menu Li ee Macro Programs Editing Tools Gave As Hinting Tools Glyph Window m GF Savea Description Opens existing font In the list select a group of commands and use the list of commands in the right list as a source of menu items and toolbar buttons just drag the commands from there Customizing Menus If you want to create a new popup menu just select the New Menu group in the left menu and drag it onto the main menu bar
141. to edit outlines that are also stored in a binary form To define features in human readable form Adobe has developed the feature definition language FEA It is very easy to read and it is the most compact way to represent OpenType font features Let s take a simple example a ligature feature that covers the basic fi and fl ligatures that are present in almost every Western font In feature definition language this feature will be defined as follows feature liga sub f i by fi sub f by fl liga Other possible features are defined in a similar way keeping the feature definition both compact and readable When FontLab Studio opens an OpenType font file that contains features it tries to decompile the binary tables into the feature definition language With a few exceptions it works for most possible combinations of substitution and or positioning features In the following sections we will describe the feature definition language in more detail The next section covers the basic rules of the language 823 824 Language Syntax Information in this section is partially taken from the official Feature File Format specification by Adobe with their permission Only those parts of the language that are supported by FontLab Studio are described Comments The character indicates the start of a comment the comment extends until the end of the line Special characters pound sign Denotes start of co
142. to set the Ascender value higher than actual height of the ascender b character to have some additional space between lines 245 246 Advanced Vertical Metrics Additional font metrics TrueType specific e O Calculate values automatically recommended Set custom values 05 2 Typodscender 752 hhea Ascender 972 TypoDescender 280 Descender TypoLineG ap Linel ap e Windscent qe WinDescent 27T Recalculate Strikeout position Strikeout thickness so gt Recalculate Average width jo Leave zero in this field to calculate value automatically In TrueType font files vertical metrics can be stored in the OS 2 and hhea tables Different programs and operating systems use vertical metrics from these tables Windows usually uses data stored in the OS 2 table while the Mac OS uses only data located in the hhea table It is important to correctly define all vertical metrics if you want your font to align properly In most cases FontLab Studio can calculate vertical metrics according to the system recommendations but in some cases you may want to customize these values We recommend you generally leave these values untouched in an existing OpenType font Of course if you perform heavy modification of the font you will need to update the advanced vertical metrics If you want FontLab Studio to automatically calculate all vertical metrics select the option Calculate values automatically If
143. used in drawing apps such as Illustrator and Freehand so letterforms can be drawn precisely and outlines need not be converted May contain up to 65 535 glyphs supports Unicode and can contain OpenType Layout features Suitable for Western Roman fonts non Latin fonts multilingual fonts and advanced typography May include class kerning allowing for moderately sized kerning tables Uses Type 1 hinting that is relatively easy to create Can include embedding rights information defining whether or not the font may be attached to electronic documents Cons Type hinting does not allow precise control in small screen sizes Can theoretically contain bitmaps but they are not displayed Since this is a relatively new format there are problems with old some applications some styles are not displayed in menus kerning for non Western characters does not work The multilingual and advanced typography features only work with new OpenType savvy applications otherwise just the basic character set is available Two alternative family namings within each font must be devised one where a family contains an arbitrary number of styles and second brief family where one family does not contain more than four styles Does not work on Mac OS 8 299 300 T 0 Windows TrueType OpenType TT Also known as Data fork TrueType Windows TrueType TrueType flavored OpenType TTF File extension ttf also possible otf Pros Works on Windows L
144. v Rulers l v Rulers E J Glyph Metrics Zoom sm Vertical Metrics Zoom gt Zoom In Nodes Ctrl Sh N Zoom In Zoom Out 7 Control Vectors Ctrl Sh W Zoom Out 7 Connections Ctrl Sh C Ah Preview Mode Sh Not all menus have this feature but you may find it really useful OK that s almost all about customizing toolbars and menus Just a couple more things To reset changes you ve made in toolbars use the Reset All button on the Toolbars page in the Customize dialog box Customize Commands Toolbars Keyboard Menu Options Toolbars WwlHenu Bar Gio how Layers Wl Standard Wl Tools Use the New command on the same page to create a new toolbar After doing this add commands to it by the drag drop method described earlier in this section 41 42 Customization of the Keyboard Open the Keyboard page of the Customize dialog box Customize Commands Toolbars Tools Keyboard Menu Options Category ae Commands Current Keps FilelmportE PS Ctrl Alte G Filelrporthetrics z Font Into Generate All Generate Font Mac Font File Mew Open Installed Pres New Shortcut Kep Description F G enerates TrueType Type Toor OpenType font In the left area of the page you can select the command which you want to customize Choose the commands category in the top list and the command itself in the list below
145. vertical scroll bar will appear allowing you to view all the editing areas of the Metrics Window 547 548 Right to Left Mode If you are working on a font that requires right to left reading like Arabic or Hebrew you can change the Metrics window to the right to left mode Click on the button on the toolbar and you will see that the preview string is written from right to left W Preview Metrics Traditional Arabic B06 E Ere Geer gt al al eters gt Coos gt erer VII Note The Metrics window in FontLab Studio does not support OpenType Layout features so Arabic shaping is not automatically performed You need to explicitly enter the glyph names or Unicode codepoints of the presentational forms to display the text Flipped Mode Sometimes it is useful to see your font without being able to read the text It may help you to better visualize the even placement of the stems and to recognize the rhythm of the black and white features Click on the Flip button to flip all the glyphs around their horizontal axis psu OLE tE The text remains editable and all the tools will work with the flipped text Previewing Outline and Nodes Some commands in the View gt Show Layers menu work when the Metrics window is active T Guidelines Global guidelines are visible in the current line mia Vertical Font vertical metrics are visible in the current line metrics Fi Nodes Nodes are visible rr Preview Outline
146. virtual composites Open the Preview panel Window gt Panels menu Select the Anchors page of the Preview panel Tat F r e r i e id OpenType Features Preview Anchors Open the base glyph in the Glyph Window The Anchor panel will immediately list all of the anchors and all matching accent glyphs that have link anchors OpenType Features Prewiewy Anchors Anchor 7 asterisk O02a equal 003d grave 0060 The left list includes all accent glyphs that can be linked with the base glyph using one of the defined anchors The first 10 resulting virtual composites are previewed in the sample string Use the check boxes to the left of the accent list to choose which composites to preview IM acute wring i hungarumilaut Choose another anchor in the list to update the accent list with accents that can be connected to that anchor Anchor to hattar AA 5 Double click one of the virtual composites to select one of the accented glyphs for preview OpenType Features Previews Anchors Anchor _botkom i 1 A 0041 C 0043 As you can see now the anchor list includes all virtual composites that can be created using the selected accent glyph and the selected anchor Double click one of the virtual composites to select it for previewing 6 Ifyou move anchor point currently selected in the Anchors panel with the E
147. you want If you don t want to change anything in the FontLab Studio user interface you can fast forward to the next section The general idea of customization is simple there is a long list of commands that you can use and three kinds of controls menus toolbars and keyboard shortcuts Through customization you can assign any command to a menu item button on a toolbar or combination of keys pressed on a keyboard In addition you can organize commands in popup menus or toolbars Most of the customization commands are concentrated in the Customize panel that you can open with the Customize command from the Tools menu or the same command located in the context menu which appears if you right click on a menu toolbar or toolbar dock area Customize The Customize dialog box consists of several pages Commands List of all the available commands grouped into several categories Tools On this page you can connect an external program to a menu item in FontLab Studio s Tools menu Menu Customization of menus While the Customize dialog box is open all interface elements are in editable mode so you can simply drag drop buttons and menu items between different toolbars You can also customize the appearance of menu items and toolbar buttons Customizing Toolbars To move a button within a toolbar just press the left mouse button on it drag it to the new location and drop it If you drag the button slightly further to
148. 0 100 00 HZ Rotate 15 00 Cw 2 Some action names are followed by their parameters in brackets Select an action and you will see a parameter panel appear below the list Current action Rotate glyph Rotation angle clockwise Counterclockwise FM Rotate around Origin point 0 05 al The contents of the parameter panel depend on the action selected Note the red MM mark in the right top corner of some parameter panels This mark means that the currently selected action may be applied to a single master of a Multiple Master font All actions that do not have this mark are not compatible with MM fonts You can use them but all the masters will stick together and you will lose the multiple masterness of your font 617 618 After you select an action and set its options press the OK button to run the action If you are applying the action to a lot of glyphs a warning message will appear telling you how many glyphs you will modify and asking you for confirmation Action applied to many glyphs is not undoable so it s a good idea to save your font before running this action You can repeat the last action by choosing the Tools gt Repeat Action command or by pressing the button in the Transformation panel Below you will find a detailed description of each available action A description of the more sophisticated Action Set dialog box where you can build an Action Set that can include many actions finishes
149. 1 Before You Generate 302 Font Info 302 Character Set 304 Glyphs 305 Hints 305 Kerning 306 OpenType Layout Features 306 Relevant Generation Options 307 Generating Type 1 307 OpenType PS 308 OpenType TT 310 Options for Converting Fonts Testing Fonts THE GLYPH WINDOW Glyph Window Contents The Glyphs Bar Selecting a Glyph for Editing Creating Glyphs Changing the View in the Glyph Window Quick Zoom Selection Tools and Operations Edit Mode Editing Layers Easier Way to Control Editing Layers Outline Layer Contours Outline Appearance FontAudit Moving Nodes Using the Keyboard Non node editing Changing Connection Type Deleting Nodes Deleting Lines and Curves Eraser Tool Inserting Nodes Using the Drawing Tool Adding Points to a Contour Converting Segments Breaking and Joining Outlines Node Commands Node Properties Previewing Glyphs VectorPaint Mode Freehand Select Tool Pen Contour Tool Brush Tool VectorPaint Options Line Tool Polygon Tool Ellipse and Rectangle Tools Text Tool Selections Using the Magic Wand Tool Moving the Selection 395 396 397 398 Selection Commands Selection Properties Panel Copying the Selection Transforming the Selection Find and Replace Outline Operation Building an Outline from Blocks Contour related Commands Creating Contours Merging and Intersecting Contours Converting Contours Outline Optimization Grid Layer Guidelines Layer Editing Guidelines G
150. 1 sorting 97 Glyphs Bar 52 321 GPOS 109 822 Gradient 637 Greek 138 green marks 343 grid 80 428 907 908 Grid 516 gridfitting 654 GSUB 822 Guidelines 333 429 438 editing 430 global 429 properties 434 property panel 432 tracking 82 433 H hdmx 106 266 head 270 Highlight Differences 749 hint commands 481 hinting 255 295 651 character level 474 font level 474 Strategies 751 Hinting Diagonals 758 Multiple Master Fonts 813 Serifs 757 Sidebearings 742 Symmetrical Characters 759 White Space 755 hints 123 editing 476 678 layer 474 property panel 484 tracking 478 TrueType 686 Type 1 656 Hungarian 129 IBM 242 IBM Identification 242 Identification IBM 242 Microsoft 243 PANOSE 240 PCL 243 PCLT 272 Ventura Publisher 243 Ikarus 17 115 Illustrator 518 image editor 39 importing bitmaps 746 glyphs 518 metrics 610 OpenType fonts 837 Including files 828 Index mode 49 135 INF 95 init 871 Instructions Removing 730 Interpolate Nodes 456 Interpolation 463 687 720 760 797 Intersection 417 isol 871 J Join 370 494 K Kanji 142 kern feature 109 852 table 109 kerning 528 automatic generation 576 class 109 123 converting 852 editing 567 export options 109 manual editing 568 pair 86 pairs 71 resetting 578 table 289 852 Kerning mode 57 Key Glyph 589 keyboard 887 customization 42 short
151. 16 K Tiz J 10 This table contains metrics or kerning information for all the glyphs in the font Actually you can decrease the number of glyphs or kerning pairs that appear in the table using the filter control that is located below it All glyphs Selected glyphs Glyphs in encoding When the Metrics window is in metrics mode every row in the table contains the name of the glyph the glyph width and left and right sidebearings In kerning mode every row contains the names of the first and second glyphs in the pair and a kerning value Sometimes cells may contain additional marks that help to manage class based kerning but we will discuss that later Context Menu As in all other windows of FontLab Studio if you right click the editing area you will see a context menu which contains commands that are related to the current mode of the Metrics window We will describe the contents of each menu when we talk about the different modes 537 538 Metrics Window Toolbar This is a simple list of all the buttons available on the toolbar T Opens a metrics file PFM AFM or MMM format Th Saves a metrics file f Quick Save saves the current metrics files to a temporary file Sr ec gr egies Gri AA Ep AA A Activates support for the measurement line When it is active all metrics are measured along the line Ea Opens the Ruler The Command menu contains the following commands P Opens the Automatic Metrics or
152. 2 PCLT Metrics 273 Revision 237 Slant angle 245 Standard Stems 258 Style Name 218 221 Subscript 249 Superscript 249 Supported Codepages 251 Trademark 232 TrueType Unique ID 238 TrueType Version 237 Type 1 Unique ID 238 Underline 245 Unicode Ranges 254 Vendor Code 238 Version 237 Weight 217 Width 217 x height 245 XUID 238 Font Map Panel 60 192 Font Metrics What are 526 Font Window 47 120 123 159 162 545 modes 134 navigating 160 options 70 popup menu 162 FontAudit 87 352 FontDirectionHint 270 FontLab class 896 Font Level Type 1 Hints 657 Fontographer 18 118 346 fonts blending 207 converting 312 editing 113 merging 202 testing 314 Fonts List 642 Fonts Panel 60 199 224 Free Rectangle 516 Free Transform 456 FreeHand 518 French 129 G GDEF 822 German 129 Global Hinting 260 Global Mask 444 glyph 26 49 131 appending 173 caption 123 cell 122 classes 183 826 composite 174 compound names 152 creating 177 deleting 176 geometry 865 index 132 marking 178 marks 123 name 28 182 Note 195 properties panel 875 renaming 182 searching for 180 Symbol names 153 glyph cell 72 caption 72 empty 71 note 72 Glyph class 900 Glyph Window 50 317 change a view in 325 Local Toolbar 318 open the 318 options 75 glyphname 132 suffix 164 glyphs copying 170 creating 324 exporting 518 importing 518 pasting 171 selecting 16
153. 25 The quick brovsn fox ju mps over The quick brown fox jumps over a The quick brown fox jumps over s The quick brown fox jumps over o The quick brown fox jumps over The quick brown fox jumps over The quick brown fox jumps over The quick brown fox jumps over The quick brown fox jumps over 2 The quick brown fox jumps over 2 The quick brown fox jumps over 2 The quick brown fox jumps over The quick brown fox jumps over The quick brown fox jumps over s The quick brown fox jumps over s The quick brown fox jumps over e The quick brown fox jumps over e The quick brown fox jumps over 295 Generating Fonts In this chapter we will discuss the most important aspects of generating workable fonts in the most popular formats Please note that all recommendations and guidelines in this chapter only address typical and common cases There can be exceptions and special situations For those you need to refer to the specific sections of the manual and to the appropriate font format specifications This chapter also assumes that you have read the rest of the manual FontLab Studio 5 Relevant Font Formats The following lists the most relevant font formats and lists some of their advantages and disadvantages 298 0 OpenType PS Also known as OpenType CFF PostScript flavored OpenType OTF Filename extension otf Pros Works on Windows Linux Mac OS 8 6 9 and OS X Uses the Bezier curves that are preferred by designers and
154. 39 427 S06 Bld 50E 341 455 imi a 43 36 2 5 24 14 mee 49 3 26 39 12 1 3 A 535 427 G06 50d 506 34i 455 The Panel always consists of four lines Error Objects cannot be created from editing field codes Click on any number in the panel to enter an exact value Just use the keyboard to adjust the number and press the ENTER key when you are done The Esc key or a left click outside the cell you are editing will cancel the changes Use the up and Down arrow keys on the keyboard to move up and down in the panel Use Tas key to move right and SHirr Tas to move left 557 558 Referencing Metrics In the Metrics Panel you can use glyphnames as a reference instead of the real numeric values For example if you want to set the left sidebearing of the glyph P to be equal to the left sidebearing of the glyph D click on the cell located at the intersection of the B column and the third row and instead of the numeric value for the metric enter D When you click ENTER key to accept changes the data will be copied from the source glyph Using the Calculator FontLab Studio has very simple calculator embedded in most editing fields that allow you to enter formulas Instead of entering a value you can enter an equation 650 2 Which will produce 325 the value that appears in the editing field This calculator works in the Metrics Panel The standard 4 operations and are accepted Using
155. 5 606 Metrics Assistance Another way to use a kerning class is to adjust the metrics advance width and left and right sidebearings in the glyphs that belong to the class Use the Tools gt Metrics assistance command to open the Metrics assistance dialog box Metrics Assistance i MO Class Name Copy Metrics Adjust ca left width O units Mec left width O units D D left width 0 units ERE left width 0 units left width 0 units left right 0 units left width 0 units left width 0 units left width 0 units left width 0 units Pete ee Bio Es Mt Oe Mw ica ic ic M ale lee tad pak 0 P C_ Use the measurement line 404 Aring Sacute 4breve Agrave Atilde Amacron Aogonek Adieresis circumflex It has a toolbar a list of the metrics classes a command area a preview panel and a class information panel that lets you change class definitions and define new classes Before you start using class metrics define some metrics classes their names must start with a period You can do that inside the Metrics assistance dialog box but adding classes with the Classes panel is much easier The typical procedure to define class based metrics 1 Select the class in the list 2 Check the checkbox to the left of the class name to indicate that that the class must be processed 3 Inthe control area below the list check the metrics you want to copy f
156. 6 characters although the Unicode Consortium agreed that no more than 1 114 109 codepoints will ever be assigned In the current as of September 2005 version 4 1 of the Unicode Standard a total of 97 786 codepoints have been assigned less than 9 of the possible space The vast majority of the codepoints are Asian CJK Chinese Japanese Korean characters 65 535 codepoints are encoded in the so called Basic Multilingual Plane BMP The codepoints in the BMP are two byte so four hexadecimal digits are used to write the codepoint e g 0160 In addition more characters are encoded in supplementary planes They use 5 or 6 digit codepoints e g 1D56C Visit the Unicode Consortium official Web site for more information http www unicode org The Character and Glyph Model People recognize and process characters by their shapes Thus people normally closely associate a character and its shape Information technology in contrast makes distinctions between the concepts of a character s meaning the character and its shape the glyph In information technology characters are abstract information elements used for data coding and interchange while glyphs are presentation elements used for displaying and printing the data Unfortunately different literature and different standards define the border between characters and glyphs differently For the purpose of font technology a glyph is a single element of the glyph
157. 64 72 Page 1 2 jedn eon eter rly dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The autck brown for tumbs over the lazy doe 285 Printing Glyph Sample To print the glyph sample 1 Select the Print command in the File menu or click on the button in the Standard toolbar and select the Glyph Sample item at the left of the Printing dialog box Glyph sample Print single glyph Print all glyphs in a text string EE Select glyph to print P 4 v P Ba Choose glyph ae a3 O Printing options Nodes C Node coordinates Font Waterfall Glyph metrics A Hints Glyph Sample Fill outline Fit glyph to page vertically using visual ascender and descender enna aa ys Use current Glyph window zoom Glyph Waterfall 2 Atthe right select the single glyph that you want to be printed or type the names of glyphs proceeded by slash You also may use
158. 80 MyFonts com 219 909 N name record 230 suffix 183 table 93 names generate 190 Non English 228 OpenType 228 Special 228 Names mode 49 97 134 136 neighbors 83 454 NeXT Step 145 NID 229 node 76 342 position 76 property panel 374 type 346 nodes deleting 363 inserting 365 moving 356 selection 396 Non nodes editing 360 Note 163 195 O Old Style Numerals 816 open contour 77 OpenType 17 90 101 221 222 253 export options 100 Family Name 200 feature 69 features 294 Glyph Properties 875 importing 837 kerning 110 names 101 228 OpenType Panel 60 69 110 183 294 841 OpenType PS 20 92 108 115 669 OpenType TT 20 92 107 115 300 operation Envelope 457 Interpolation 463 Move Node 462 Rearrange Contours 460 Simplify Path 461 Operation Bitmap Positioning 448 Component Positioning 498 Transform 404 Optical Size 772 Optimize 89 418 427 620 626 options Digital Signature 104 encoding 96 102 export 65 Font Window 70 FontAudit 87 FontLab 63 general 66 generating OpenType amp TrueType 100 generating Type 1 95 Glyph Window 75 import 65 kerning 109 Metrics window 85 opening OpenType amp TrueType 92 opening Type 1 90 trace 111 OS 2 145 table 106 246 OTF 821 OtherBlues 256 Outline Actions 417 Outline layer 75 Output Panel 60 66 849 p Pair Positioning 868 Panels 59 PANOSE 240 Parallel 640 Paste 170 Pa
159. 93 Fer A Aacute o0ci1 1593 view Alabreve 0102 1593 ver A Agrave ooco 1593 ver tilde o0c3 1593 _Eacutel Menm lAmacron 0100 1593 _Eacute ev A unilEA2 1EA2 1593 tatoos eM X luniteas 1EA 1593 Fev 7 A luni wa e a cas 100 vev _Gbreve vev _Aring Aring Aacute Abreve Agrave Atilde Amacron st ve uniLEA 2 unilEA 4 unilE46 unilEAS unilEAA unilEAC Tacutel viel UNiLEAE unilEBO unilEB2 unilEB4 unilEB6 Adieresis Iacute Ter Acircumflex lE Ibreve evy f Kerning i oO 19 glyphs in this kerning class a r lo pp a wo isi mm i Oo Vertical metrics Global mask m RISO OO ODERIGI m Glyph metrics Components Anchors and carets Alignment zones Shape groups Neighbors Background _Eth F C e e e e E E E E E E E E oi G ais KOKOK Use the Window menu or the Panels toolbar to open panels Editing Layers vil Transformation Edit Macro OpenType Dukput Tet Preview Ez Classes HE Fonts HE Font Map Smart Shapes 59 60 Below is the list of all the panels available in FontLab Studio They are described in full detail in the sections that are related to their functions so this is only a short reference Editing Layers Control of all editing layers show snap lock operations E PEN ae ee ee See Do P a E EAE T TS eee ieee nae sa E ere eee aaa AA AEN T ge a Fae ean output text here Seger es ee ae eee
160. An example of a sequence that contains a glyph class is Space endash emdash figuredash space mont This would match any of the 3 sequences space endash space space emdash space or space figuredash space during OpenType layout A feature file glyph class that contains only one single glyph is known as a singleton glyph class A feature file glyph class is also used to represent the set of alternate glyphs in an alternate substitution lookup type rule Ranges A range of glyphs is denoted by a hyphen lt firstGlyph gt lt lastGlyph gt Spaces around the hyphen are not required since hyphens are not permitted in feature file glyph names For example A Z Named glyph classes A glyph class can be named by assigning it to a glyph class name which begins with the character and then referred to later on by the glyph class name For example dash endash emdash figuredash Assignment Space dash space Usage The part of the glyph class name after the is subject to the same name restrictions that apply to a glyph name except that its maximum length is 30 Glyph class assignments can appear anywhere in the feature file A glyph class name may be used in the feature file only after its definition When a glyph class name occurs within square brackets its elements are simply added onto the other elements in the glyph class being defined For example Vowels lc ae io ul Vowels uc AE I
161. Automatically generates hints for the current glyph Autohinting options can be adjusted in the Type page of the Options dialog box Autoreplacing Automatically generates a hint replacement program for the current glyph Refer to the Hinting chapter for more information about hint replacement Type 1 Hinting Activates the Type 1 hinting tool described later in the Hinting chapter TrueType Hinting Activates the TrueType hinting tool described later in the Hinting chapter Same commands are duplicated in the Glyph Window context menu which appears if you right click in an empty area of the editing field 481 Autohinting Options You can customize the autohinting algorithms using the Hinting Settings gt T1 Autohinting page of the Font Info dialog box File gt Font Info Type 1 autohinting Min width Max width Min length Aspect ratio Horizontal 250 All values are relative to UPM 1000 units You also may need to use the following option Remove all existing hints before autohinting on the Options gt Generating Type 1 gt Type 1 autohinting page Width limits Declares the minimum and maximum width of hints that the autohinting algorithm is allowed to create Min length Declares the minimum length of the nearest vertical or nearest horizontal straight segments or curve control vectors that can be a candidate for building a hint Minimal length Declares a critical correlation between
162. Black Extra Black Proportion Old Style Modern Even Width Extended Condensed Very Extended Very Condensed Monospaced Contrast None Very Low Low Medium Low Medium Medium High High Very High Stroke No Variation Gradual Diagonal Gradual Transitional Variation Gradual Vertical Gradual Horizontal Rapid Vertical Rapid Horizontal Instant Vertical Instant Horizontal Arm Style Straight Arms Horizontal Straight Arms Wedge Straight Arms Vertical Straight Arms Single Serif Straight Arms Double Serif Non Straight Arms Horizontal Non Straight Arms Wedge Non Straight Arms Vertical Non Straight Arms Single Serif Non Straight Arms Double Serif Letterform Normal Contact Normal Weighted Normal Boxed Normal Flattened Normal Rounded Normal Off Center Normal Square Oblique Contact Oblique Weighted Oblique Boxed Oblique Flattened Oblique Rounded Oblique Off Center Oblique Square Midline Standard Trimmed Standard Pointed Standard Serifed High Trimmed High Pointed High Serifed Constant Trimmed Constant Pointed Constant Serifed Low Trimmed Low Pointed Low Serifed X height Constant Small Constant Standard Constant Large Ducking Small Ducking Standard Ducking Large A detailed description of the PANOSE categories and values the so called Gray Book may be found at http www w3 org Printing stevahn html 241 242 Other Identification Systems IBH and other identifications 4 gt
163. FFh range We mean those that Windows will see as having codes OOh FFh when the default Windows codepage is selected In most cases the default codepage is the 1252 Latin 1 codepage So even if you export a TrueType font in the Names mode the Unicode indexes for the encoded glyph will be selected from the Windows 1252 codepage We recommend opening a Windows TrueType font switching to the Codepages mode of the Font window and selecting codepage 1252 to better understand what the standard Windows glyphs are Windows Symbol Encoding If you want to have full control over glyph codes and you want to occupy all 256 glyph cells of the first byte range you should create your font using the Windows Symbol codepage The Symbol codepage begins from Unicode index FOOOh and continues to FOFFh All glyphs in this range are mapped to the 0000h 000FFh range So the glyph with code F041h will be seen in Windows as A and so on To make a font using the Symbol codepage you have two options 1 Switch the Font window to the Codepages mode select the Windows Symbol codepage and place all glyphs in the codepage Export the font in TrueType format in Unicode mode 2 Switch the Font window to the Names mode select any encoding vector place glyphs as you want in the yellow area and export the font in Names mode Use Unicode indexes as the base for TrueType encoding should be off In either case select Symbol Microsoft Glyph Set in the Cod
164. FontLab 7 Studio NEXT GENERATION PROFESSIONAL FONT EDITOR POSTSCRIPT TRUETYPE UNICODE OPENTYPE USER S MANUAL FOR WINDOWS Copyright 1992 2006 by Fontlab Ltd All rights reserved Cover illustration Pawet Jonca pejot com No part of this publication may be reproduced stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic mechanical photocopying recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher Any software referred to herein is furnished under license and may only be used or copied in accordance with the terms of such license FontLab FontLab logo ScanFont TypeTool SigMaker AsiaFont Studio FontAudit and VectorPaint are either registered trademarks or trademarks of FontLab Ltd in the United States and or other countries Apple the Apple Logo Mac Mac OS Macintosh and TrueType are trademarks of Apple Computer Inc registered in the United States and other countries Adobe PostScript Photoshop Type Manager Illustrator Macromedia Fontographer Flash and Freehand are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated which may be registered in certain jurisdictions Windows Windows 95 Windows 98 Windows XP and Windows NT are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and or other countries IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation Other brand or product names
165. Glyph index Searches for glyphs with their index attributes given In the combo box to the right of the method select the comparison factor begins with equals to less than more than etc 4 Inthe right top editing field enter the information depending on your selection that will be used to find the glyph 5 The names of all the glyphs that match the criterion will appear in the list Name begins with y A A 004l A E 0ce SF acute O1FC acute O01 Abreve 010z Abreveacute 1E4E Tokal 27 Create unexisting glyph Select the glyph name that you want its preview appears in the preview panel and press OK or enter more information to narrow your search Use the buttons at the bottom of the dialog box for additional features to select all found glyphs in the Font window to mark all found glyphs in the Font window in red These features are very useful for managing big fonts For example open the Find Glyph dialog box change it to Names mode and enter A as the search pattern In a standard Latin font it will list all glyphs that begin with the uppercase A A Aacute Acircumflex Adieresis AE Agrave Aring Atilde If you mark or select them you can easily create a glyph group that you can use in advanced features like class based kerning or OpenType features 181 182 Renaming Glyphs Usually it is not necessary to manually rename glyphs because their names and Unicode codepoints are ass
166. I 414 12 Duplicate the top segment and locate the copy above the bottom right segment a See am oy os Paii ao aed a al is a cal fe TP os l 13 Left click on an empty area of the Glyph window S ii I 14 Activate the Add Corner tool F click somewhere and drag the line to connect the left line of the top left and bottom left segments 415 15 Then click on any other starting or ending node of the contour segments and use the Add Corner tool to connect them it S ah a i i You ll notice it takes more time to read the instructions than to actually perform the procedure 416 Contour related Commands You can find the commands described below in the Contour menu A Flip Horizontal Makes a mirror transformation in the horizontal direction This operation is applicable to a selection or to a whole outline if nothing is selected lt i Flip Vertical Makes a mirror transformation in the vertical direction This operation is applicable to a selection or to a whole outline if nothing is selected cH Merge Contours Combines all overlapping parts of the outline This operation and the two following operations are applied to all contours that have at least one node selected If nothing is selected they will be applied to the whole glyph dh Delete Removes all areas that are covered by more than one Intersection contour tes Set PS Direction Sets the dir
167. IBM Clase IBM Subclass Other Identification Systems PCL ID YP ID Bligh Script a MS ID A Suterratealeltte clio eatees IBM Identification The IBM Identification system uses a different approach from the one used in the PANOSE system This system is based on the font s appearance In the IBM system two numbers that designate the font category and sub category identify each font A font s design is compared to one of the standard and well known designs To set IBM Identification information select a Category that matches your font from the IBM Class list Then select a sub category in the IBM Subclass list A detailed description of the IBM Font Identification system may be found in the TrueType font format specification on the Microsoft Typography Web site at http www microsoft com typography tt tt Atm PCL and Ventura Publisher Identification These identification systems are relatively old ones and are rarely used in modern DTP applications However to keep compatibility with all possible usage of your font we recommend setting these options They are used only with Type 1 fonts and are exported only in the INF file Both systems are based on font appearance so they are close to the IBM identification system And both systems are one level so you just have to select a well known font that is close in appearance to your font To simplify this when the Automatically link all ID values check box is active and y
168. In other words even if Latin A and Cyrillic A are identical they will not go into the same class Only combine glyphs compatible on both sides Activate this option if you want to get smaller classes with much more similar glyphs Usually if this option is on only base glyphs and composite glyphs that reference the base will be combined into a class Generate Classes This command is also available in the File menu of the Classes panel Kerning Exceptions Suppose you have two kerning classes and some kerning is defined between their key glyphs The Side properties are set correctly so all glyphs from both classes are kerned As you can see last pair in the sample above has an obvious conflict the right glyph overlaps the left glyph To fix this situation we can use class kerning exceptions individually kerned pairs that correct class based kerning In the example above we will define a new kerning pair between F and egrave Notice that the bar below the kerning pair has a different color real kerning of the key glyphs is black a virtual kerning pair which is a result of class based kerning is gray and an exception is red Similarly in the kerning table the kerning value for exception is colored red 595 596 Class Kerning Modes To control how class based kerning and exceptions work in the Metrics window choose one of the class kerning modes Click on this button in the Metrics window toolbar
169. Lab Studio 5 files We recommend placing your own macros in the Macro subfolder within the FontLab Studio user data folder and not within the FontLab Studio application folder Note that Python macro programs must have a py extension to be accepted by FontLab Studio Event subfolder Description of the associated menu name Bitmap Context menu when the bitmap background manipulating tool 1s active ae ee E ET eT COE a T laenn A E EEEE Hi Sea E E E A FontsList Popup menu that appears when you click on the button in the Fonts list panel a ee Ee a re ae See oe ee STREET Om eT TERE ee care a ee ee S neen IE E eee anene a eee oe chan Ae 889 890 Macro Tool With FontLab Studio you can define special editing tools that are entirely written in Python By default FontLab Studio provides 3 sample tools Curve Line and Drops To activate a tool 1 Open a glyph for editing in the Glyph window 2 Select the tool in the leftmost list of the Macro toolbar 3 Click onthe button on the toolbar to activate a tool Activate one of the standard editing tools on the Tools toolbar to finish using the macro tool The default macro tools do the following Line tool draws lines Click the left button anywhere and drag the mouse to draw a line If the nodes are visible View Show layers Nodes you can continue defining a new contour by drawing a new line from the end node of the previous line Curve tool does the same b
170. MM font 4 Remove any of the axes of a MM font 5 Convert a MM font to a single master font 6 Edit axis graphs rename and rearrange axes You can also use FontLab Studio s special feature called Assign Master to simplify the combination of several single master fonts into one MM font Multiple Master Outlines in FontLab Studio In FontLab Studio all outlines are multiple master compatible from the very beginning Every node of the outline has a layered structure Node type and other options Node position on layer 1 Node position on layer 2 Node position on layer 3 Node position on layer 4 Thus a Multiple Master font in FontLab Studio is not a combination of several separate masters but a single multilayered font This means that in FontLab Studio it s impossible to make masters incompatible because they are just the different layers of the same font Defining an Axis If you want to convert a single master font to a Multiple Master font you must define a new design axis Select the Tools gt Multiple Master gt Define New Axis command You will see a dialog box Define New Axis Hame the axis Full N ame weight Assign the short name two letters Short Hame wt Select the axis type Asis Type Weight Convert hints to links before addition of the new axis To define an axis you must enter an axis name a short name and select an axis type Select the name
171. O UJ Vowels Vowels lc Vowels uc y Y Here the last statement is equivalent to Vowels aeiouAE OUYy Y No square brackets are needed if a glyph class name is assigned to another single glyph class name For example Figures_lining_tabular FIGSDEFAULT Ranges glyphs and glyph class names can be combined in a glyph class For example zerooldstyle nineoldstyle ampersandoldstyle smallCaps In FontLab Studio you can include define FontLab Studio classes in the Classes panel They will be automatically included as your OpenType classes so it will not be necessary to copy the information twice We will discuss this later 827 828 Including files Including files is accomplished by the directive include lt filename gt In this FontLab Studio implementation an included file must be located in the Features directory A maximum include depth of 5 ensures against infinite include loops files that include each other Specifying features Each feature is specified in a feature block feature lt feature tag gt specifications go here lt feature tag gt For example feature liga ee 5 liga A feature file rule is a statement that specifies glyph substitution or glyph positioning A feature block may contain glyph substitution rules glyph positioning rules or both FontLab Studio automatically separates features into feature records and provides feature templates that simplify
172. On the right part of the page you will see the list of keyboard shortcuts currently defined for that command Current Keps Ctrl C Ctrl Ine The Remove command at the right of the list allows removal of one of the existing shortcuts To define a new keyboard shortcut select a command and position the cursor on the editing field below the Press New Shortcut Key label Press New Shortcut Rey When the caret is in position just press the combination of keys that you want to assign A description of that combination will appear in the editing field and you can click the Assign button to assign that combination to the currently selected command Press the Reset All button to reset all changes back to FontLab Studio defaults There is a Keyboard shortcuts command in the Help menu Use it after you finish customizing the user interface to see or print a list of all the shortcuts Ei Help Keyboard Categor File Keps commend FileClose FileE vit FileE sportB ackgroun FileE xportE FS FileE sporthletrics FileFontlrnfa FileGeneratell FileGenerateF ont FilelmportB ackgrour FilelmportBitmapF ont FilelmportE FS FilelmportMacFontFil Filelmporthdetrics FileN ew FileO pen Ctrl Alt F Ctrl Alt G w Show Accelerator for Default Description Closes current font Quits the application Saves bitmap background into an image file Saves current glyph in EPS Adobe Illu
173. OpenType kerning to the plain pair kerning data IF answer ig res then select conversion option below Completely replace plain pair kering data Total number of 19640 1528 pairs will be added Do not expand class based kerning pairs Convert i Cancel There are two options that you can select in the list Completely replace plain pair kerning data Use this option to remove existing kerning information and replace it with the result of the kern feature interpretation Append converted kerning to the existing kerning table Only new pairs that do not already exist will be added to the existing pair kerning table Notes 1 This operation is equivalent to the OpenType import option Import kerning from the kern feature The difference is that you can do it at any time not just during import of the OpenType font file 2 Class based kerning defined in the kern feature will be converted into class based kerning as FontLab Studio understands it Real kerning pairs will be added only for the key glyphs Please refer to the Editing Metrics chapter and page 581 for more information about class based kerning Feature Development Process When you want to create a feature we recommend you follow this sequence of operations 1 Create a feature in the OpenType panel click on the button in the lower left corner Name the feature Enter the name at the beginning of the feature block
174. Options Export YOLT data 4 If you plan to do additional work in Microsoft VOLT enable Export VOLT data If you opened an existing OpenType font that has stored binary OpenType tables and prefer to use these disable Compile feature definitions Options Tracking B Generating OpenType PS otf Shape groups and neighbors 2 es 5 Metrics window Decompose all composites FontAudit Use subroutines to compress outlines in the CFF table Deanna tpt Autohint unhinted glyphs Opening OpenType amp TrueType v TrueType OpenType TT ttF Use the PostScript FontName as Full Name on Windows Generating Type 1 Type 1 autohinting Generating OpenType amp TrueTyp Digital signature TrueType OpenType TT ttf TrueType Autohinting OpenType TT Encoding OpenType PS otF Kerning Trace Options 4 308 Options Tracking pe Kerning Shape groups and neighbors Metrics window Export kern table H jaione ME i Expand class kerning while building kern table Opening OpenType amp TrueType Generate only pairs with glyphs in Following codepage TrueType OpenType TT ttf Generating Type 1 Type 1 autohinting Limit total number of pairs in the table to 4000 Generating OpenType amp TrueTyp Digital signature TrueType OpenType TT ttf Generate kern Feature if it is not defined TrueType Autohinting OpenType TT Encoding OpenType PS otF Trace Options MacOS
175. Ranges In Unicode the standard character space is divided into planes defined by the first byte of the three byte codes Each plane indexes 0 65 535 is divided into ranges Each range typically covers characters that belong to one alphabet or have common properties like the Cyrillic range or the Hebrew or the Extended Latin Ranges may be of various lengths from a few characters to several thousand characters in the case of Kanji characters In FontLab Studio you can select any Unicode range and view your font as organized by the range All characters with Unicode codepoints in the selected range will be arranged in order in the yellow zone at the top of the Font window In order to simplify working with Unicode ranges in FontLab Studio all the official ranges in the Unicode standard are subdivided into subranges You can work with the whole range or select one of the subranges For example you can select the whole Cyrillic range that includes all currently used and historic Cyrillic characters or you can select just the historic letters or only the Russian alphabet To select a range in the Font Window 1 Switch the Font Window to the Unicode Ranges mode by clicking the Ranges 2 button The encoding selection combo box will show the names of all available Unicode ranges and subranges co Controls and Basic Latin Y CO controls ASCII Ci Controls and Latin 1 Supplement ISO 8859 1 aka Latin Lat
176. Release the button when you are done The selection will be modified 407 408 To rotate a selection 1 Move the mouse cursor onto the rotation handle 2 Press the left mouse button and drag the mouse The transformation rectangle will rotate around its center Hold down the Suirt key to constrain the rotation angle to 15 degree increments You can also use the rotation handle for slant just press the CTRL key to alternate between rotate or slant 3 Release the button to accept the rotation To move the center of rotation just drag the center handle by the mouse to its new position To slant a selection 1 Move the mouse cursor onto the slant handle 2 Press the left mouse button and drag the mouse The transformation rectangle will be slanted Hold down the Suirr key to constrain the slant angle to 15 degree increments You can also use the slant handle for rotation just press the CTRL key to alternate between rotate or slant 3 To slant in vertical direction hold the CTRL key and drag the rotate handle 4 Release the button to accept the slanting Double click in the editing field or press ENTER to accept the completed transformation or press the Esc key to reject it You can use the arrow keys while the Free Transform operation is active to move the selection by one font unit in the direction of the key you clicked SHIFT arrow keys move the selection by 10 font units at each key click CTRL
177. Roman You may consider disabling Export kern table if you are creating OpenType PS fonts This will be more conformant to the OpenType specification but will result in the lack of kerning for accented characters in Mac OS X You can also use Tools gt Kerning Assistance before generating your font to manually expand the kerning table into plain kerning Also make sure that Tools gt Options gt General Options gt Unicode and OpenType gt Add all glyph classes to OpenType is enabled 309 310 OpenType TT Options Tracking Shape groups and neighbors Metrics window C Automatically reorder glyphs FontAudit Opening Type 1 Opening OpenType amp TrueType Ignore Unicode indexes in the font TrueType OpenType TT ttf Use the OpenType names as menu names on Macintosh Generating Type 1 Type 1 autohinting Append OpenType name records to the names exported by default Write stored custom TrueType OpenType tables Digtal signature Export OpenType Layout tables TrueType OpenType TT ttf Compile feature definitions TrueType Autohinting C Contextual substitutions in invalid legacy Format OpenType TT Encoding Use this option only if you know what you are doing OpenType PS otf Kerning Generate GDEF table Trace Options C Export YOLT data 4 If you plan to do additional work in Microsoft VOLT enable Export VOLT data If you opened an existing OpenType fo
178. Studio These can be registered OpenType tables that FontLab cannot interpret e g BASE or JSTF AAT tables e g morx or gvar binary native copies of some tables that the user may want to retain e g the OpenType Layout tables or native TrueType hinting or tables generated by some private tools If the option Store custom TrueType OpenType tables is enabled in Options gt Opening OpenType amp TrueType FontLab Studio will store in the vfb file the tables that it cannot interpret If the option Store binary OpenType layout tables is enabled FontLab Studio will also store the OpenType layout tables GPOS GDEF and GSUB in their binary form although it can interpret these tables at least to a large extent Finally if the option Store TrueType native hinting is enabled FontLab Studio will store the original TrueType instructions The Binary and custom tables page shows all stored OpenType and TrueType tables If stored OpenType Layout tables are present in the vfb file the tag OT is shown in the Tag column If stored TrueType native hinting is present the tag TT is shown For all other tables the actual table tag will be displayed In the Comment field FontLab Studio shows a description of the table if possible known You can use the L J button to remove any stored tables from the vfb file Note that if you generate the font in the TrueType OpenType TT or OpenType PS format the stored tables will only
179. T SemiBolditalic 09 15 05 12 66 03 String The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog Page 1 1 The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog 283 Printing Font Waterfall To print the current font waterfall sample 1 284 Select the Print command in the File menu or click on the button in the Standard toolbar and select the Font Waterfall item at the left of the Printing dialog box Font waterfall 4 text to print The quick brown Fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox Fon AECI List of point sizes to print Font Waterfall 5 36 38 40 42 48 56 64 72 A C Print right to left Glyph Sample Apply kerning a Print point size at the beginning of every line w At the right type the text you want to be printed and edit the list of point sizes if needed Click on the Reset button to restore the default list of sizes Set other printing options Apply kerning If this option is on and the kerning is defined for the font the text will be printed kerned Print point sizes at If this option is on FontLab Studio will print size values the beginning of every line Click OK You will see the standard Windows Print dialog box Printout of the font waterfall with default printing options FONTLAB GLYPH WATERFALL Adobe Systems Incorporated 09 15 05 12 55 21 Font BellIMT SemiBoldltalic String The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog Sizes 5 36 38 40 42 48 56
180. T Step codepages In FontLab Studio a codepage is a filter through which you can look at your font to see how it will work in different environments For example you might include many Unicode characters in your font and see how it would work if it was installed in OS 2 with the Arabic language selected This gives you the opportunity to easily create fonts that will be properly encoded and will always work correctly 145 146 To select a codepage in the Font Window 1 Switch the Font Window to the Codepages mode by clicking the Codepages 55 button The encoding selection combo box will show the names of all available codepages ms Windows 1252 Western ANSI v MMS Windows 1252 Western CONST MS Windows 1250 Central European MS Windows 1251 Cyrillic MS Windows 1253 Greek MS Windows 1254 Turkish MS Windows 1255 Hebrew MS Windows 1256 Arabic MS Windows 1257 Baltic MS Windows 1258 Vietnamese MS Windows 574 Thai OEM MS Windows 932 Japanese Shift J15 based MS Windows 936 Chinese Simplified SBK MS Windows 949 Korean MMS Windows 950 Chinese Traditional BigS base MMS Windows Symbol MS Windows Symbol Arabic Windows Armenian ParaTy pe Windows Cyrillic Asian ParaType Windows Cyrillic Finnish Paral ype Windows Cyrillic French ParaType Windows Cyrilict German ParaType Windows Georgian Paralype Windows Greek Polybonic ParaType Adobe Standard Encoding Adobe Symbol Encoding Adobe
181. There are also two special points that mark the left and right sidebearings of the character You can apply any commands to any of these points Options Panel The main control center of the TrueType hinting tool is the Options panel TrueType Options Current PPM 16 a Current PPM size Link to stem Automatic Alignment of distances None yi 36 vile Found distance Found position aah He Point alignment options Oto OF g p O Center Double Round destination Delta PPM range 16 16 Delta offset D be Pele Poke IB Fa SEERE le EHE 57654721 1274567 Delta instruction settigns Preview of the current glyph Preview zoom buttons The main use of this panel is for selection of the current PPM size Use the drop down combo box to select one of the predefined values or enter your own value in the edit field Current PPM 16 yt In the options preview window you can see a sample of the current character FontLab Studio uses a real Windows TrueType rasterizer to render the character so this preview is exactly what you will see when you export a TrueType font and use it in an application in a black white mode Use the zoom selection buttons to enlarge the sample character Cy CO zH B CO 4 1 yea Zoom buttons All other options that can be set in this panel will be described later 695 696 TrueType Preview Panel In the preview panel you will see a waterfall preview of
182. This dialog box consists of two areas the Area of application and Parameters In the first area you select the pairs for which the algorithm will compute kerning values You can choose between Current pair only available if one of the pairs is selected in the editing area All Pairs in the current string or All Pairs in the following list The second area allows you to generate kerning for all the pairs located in a special list file The list files are stored in a Kerning subdirectory of FontLab s installation directory You can create your own kerning pair files or use one of the files placed there at the time of FontLab s installation If the Respect kerning classes button is checked then the autokerning algorithm will be applied only to key glyphs of the kerning classes and to glyphs that do not belong to any kerning class The Parameters option lets you customise the autokerning algorithm The most used option is How much white space do you want to leave between glyphs This controls how close the glyphs will be moved together while computing kerning in the pair The Allow for positive kerning check box lets the autokerning algorithm produce positive kerning in pairs Positive kerning moves glyphs apart from each other Positive kerning is usually not recommended but there may be occasional circumstances where it is needed If you want to save the existing kerning the combo box lets you control the disposition of the existing
183. To see a description of the error activate the Edit tool position the mouse cursor on the mark and click the left mouse button You will see a FontAudit error message FontAudit Unnecessary inflection Unnecessary inflection point Wie recommend you recontigqure the curve or insert a node at this point Fat Cancer This message has two buttons Fix and Fix All which you can use to try to automatically fix an error Fix button or all errors in the glyph Fix All Sometimes correcting one error causes others and when you press the Fix or Fix All button you will see even more errors so use this feature carefully You can customize the FontAudit algorithms using the FontAudit page of the Options dialog box FontAudit Empty lines and curves vectors on closepaths Flat curves Collinear vectors Inflections on curves Weak extremum points Normal extremum points Incorrect smooth connection Cusp and self intersecting curves Semi horizontal and vertical vectors Contour is not clased Object is too short 353 354 Here is a short description of each test and the error that it detects Empty lines and curves Inflections on curves Weak extremum points Normal extremum points Incorrect smooth connection Cusp and self intersecting curves Semi horizontal and vertical vectors Object is too short Lines or curves that have no length I e two nodes on top of each other
184. Type TT or PS fonts that you generate Please refer to http www microsoft com typography developers dsig default aspx for more information about digital signatures Generate digital signature D516 table Path to the certificate file spc or ery PS Path to the private key File pwk E Request private key password every time Use the Following password PT F Generate the time stamp Generate digital When enabled a DSIG table will be generated that includes an signature digital signature Note that you need to own a valid Authenticode code signing digital certification to be able to digitally sign fonts You should point FontLab Studio to your certificate file and private key file that you will receive from your certification authority It is a good idea to store the private key file in a safe location e g on a floppy disk or USB key although you can use any location Please refer to the link above for more information Request private When selected FontLab Studio will ask you for the password key password for your private key every time you generate a font every time Use the following When selected FontLab Studio will remember the password password for your private key Generate the When selected a time stamp will be generated time stamp Please refer to the link above for more information 104 TrueType Opentype TT ttf These settings only apply to fonts that you generate in the TrueTy
185. Type PS command in the Tools gt Quick Test As menu FontLab Studio will generate the font in the selected font format using the current generation Options temporarily install it in your system and present the following window m Jest Font amp 7 B w ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPORSTU VWXYZabcdefghijklmnopgrstuv wxyZ1234567890 This is a simple text editor allowing you to type with your font change the text size and print the content Type or paste the sample text in the editing field Use the Content popup menu to see the characters of the particular codepage or entire character set of the font i e all glyphs that have a Unicode codepoint assigned m Test Font amp 4 0123456789 lt gt F ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ A _ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz jc 2 Oa 923 ud 7 10 14 N24 ouutiiypyAaAaAgC eC eC eC Dd DdEeEsE EeE amp G EG sGeGeHhHhhiiihlijfjKkxLILILILILINnNnNa nN nOoOSOSCEceRtRrRiSsSsSsS8TtT Fea Va UiUaU 291 292 You can also type in your custom text Note that since this dialog uses the system font rendering you will see the OpenType layout features that are applied by the operating system by default If you use Windows XP SP 2 or higher and enable Control Panel gt Regional and Language Options gt Language gt Supplemental language support gt Install files for complex script you will be even able to test complex script OpenType Layout features if your
186. Use the Check button to automatically validate font names Key Dimensions Each master has its own set of Dimension values Use the master selection combo box at the top of the page to choose the Master for which you want to set dimensions Set dimensions For the master Who wda at WEO Wid iit t 1 iit d T WED Wd wti dl Alignment Zones and Stems Each master has its own set of alignment zones standard stems and other font level hinting information Use the master selection list to choose the master whose alignment setting you want to change Note that when you add new alignment zones they will appear in all masters so always check all the masters to be sure that the alignment information is set properly Panose Identification Enter settings in the Panose fields Weight or Proportion if your font has Weight or Width axes respectively Multiple Master Settings This page appears only if you are editing the Font Info of a MM font Use the sliders below the preview window to choose the default Weight Vector of the font Then press Apply Default Weight ector Multiple Master fonts only ABCabc123 400 wt eon Get position From the Axis panel Primary Instances Press the Get position button to put the values from the Axis panel if it is open Press the Primary Instances button to define more default instances for the font The Primary Instances panel appears Primary Instances 400 wk 600 wi
187. Web browser window This requires an Internet connection 235 License Information License information 4 License NOTIFICATION OF LICENSE AGREEMENT h This typeface is the property of Monotype Typography and its use Gy you i covered Under the terms of a license agreement Tou have obtained this typeface software either directly from Monotype or together with software distributed by one of Monotype s licensees This software is a valuable asset of Monotype Unless you have License UAL http Aaa monotype com html type license html License and License URL records are relatively new and have appeared only in OpenType specification version 1 3 License name 13 License description contains information about how the font can be used License URL name 14 URL where additional license information can be found Use the button to the right of the License URL control i to open the page in a Web browser window This requires an Internet connection 236 Font Identification Version and Identification z kep mdentification settings Panose identification BM and MS indentification Sometimes the operating system or a DTP application needs to know what the font looks like It may be necessary for example to properly substitute for a missing font with the closest look alike FontLab Studio supports all the font identification settings that are used in Type or TrueType fonts Version Informat
188. X notation To produce multilingual previews type your text in SC Unipad convert to uXXXX and paste the result into FontLab Studio A new feature in FontLab Studio 5 is the ability to preview multiline text insert n anywhere within the preview string to enforce line wrap unom Sson 128 TAS Garey Dosan Jos Weary 2 ONG HWS WHA GOS The text in the preview panel can be shown in reversed colors white on black flipped vertically flipped horizontally previewed right to left or in vertical orientation 293 294 OpenType Features panel The OpenType Features panel is available as a second page of the Preview panel and provides visual proofing capabilities for OpenType Layout features included in the font It is a great tool for quick previewing of your OpenType feature definition code especially for Western typographic features You can check whether your features are in a correct order to avoid unwanted effects with interaction of different features customize the preview size optionally display the glyph metrics and present the glyphs in right to left order OpenType Features Preview Anchors Script latn V Language DFLT O cpsp lt official style 1234 kern Result di ordn rnm al ISIN ICI JEEE JKII JEIKI ICI IOK Official style 1234 Currently the OpenType Features panel does not support all lookup types and does not allow you to apply features selectively to single ch
189. Zapf Dingbats IBM 1004 Windows Extended IBM 1006 Urdu 150 IBM 1008 Arabic Windows original IBM 1025 Cyrillic ECDC MS Windows codepages come first MS DOS codepages follow All other codepages are sorted according to their names Since all codepages are divided into groups they are available in submenus of the Encoding menu if the Font window command bar is in bottom location Select the codepage that you want from the list and you will see the Font Window change All the characters that are in the codepage appear in the yellow zone All other characters are in the white area below Select the MS Windows 1252 Western ANSI codepage and you will see how your font will look in the Windows standard Latin 1 codepage All codepages in FontLab Studio are defined in editable text files so you can change any codepage if you think it is wrong please let us know or you can define your own codepage We do not recommend changing any of the codepages supplied with FontLab Studio They are extensively tested and are based on the documents from the companies who supply them Put your custom codepage definitions cpg files into the Shared user data folder Codepage folder typically C Documents and Settings Your Username My Documents FontLab Shared Codepage if you want to make the codepages available to all recent Fontlab Ltd applications or in the Application user data folder Codepage folder typically C Documents
190. a Multiple Master font 767 768 In the example we used only two masters and we changed only one property of the font using interpolation But we can define more masters and get even more choices for changing the design of the font For instance here s what happens when we use four masters now we can vary both the fonts width and weight Narrow Light Wide Light Narrow Black Wide Black The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The text sample typed with different instances of the same Multiple Master font Design Axes and Dynamic Range It is possible to define a number of properties of an MM font using masters These properties are called design axes or simply axes for short You can define as many of these design axes as you want but four axes in a single MM font is the practical limit since there is no program as of this printing that can use more than that The number of masters that is necessary to define a given number of axes can be calculated as 2 where n is the number of axes So a single axis font requires 2 masters a two axis font 4 masters a three axis font 8 masters and finally a four axis font requires 16 masters You can see in this picture how design axes and masters are
191. a single size of the characters of a particular typeface Now since fonts are scalable the term font covers all possible sizes of the same typeface design Encoding When text is printed an important process takes place character to glyph mapping The source text in computer form is a list of codes that represents a list of characters A font see above is a collection of glyphs So there must be some way to relate characters to glyphs so that when the computer s operating system encounters a certain character it knows which glyph to print This mapping or vector is called the encoding Sometimes the encoding information resides within the font itself as part of the header and other times it is in a separate file Font Family It is important to know the difference between a font and a font family A font family is a set of fonts that represents some design idea Times is a font family sometimes called typeface Times Bold Italic is a font A font family may include from one to a few dozen fonts 27 Glyph name The only identification of a glyph other than its visual appearance is its name A Western glyph name consists of Latin characters digits and punctuation It is highly reeommended you name glyphs in accordance with the following rules 1 No spaces 2 No digits at the beginning 3 Only And punctuation marks are allowed in the name Menu When we refer to menu item
192. ables and stores the binary tables in the vfb file can be useful if you want to store the binary tables and make some operations with them e g via Python scripting Copy Features from a Copy the feature definition language from another font Font to the current font Import FontLab Studio Explicitly imports the classes defined in the Classes Classes panel into the lower portion of the OpenType panel this is done implicitly and automatically if Options gt General Options gt Unicode and OpenType gt Add all glyph classes is enabled but sometimes it is practical to import the class definitions explicitly Generate kern Feature Generates the GPOS kerning based on the kerning defined in the Metrics Window and the classes defined in the Classes panel synonymous to Tools gt Kerning Assistance gt Update kern feature Open features Opens an existing fea file containing feature definition language You can use this command to apply a previously created feature definition to different fonts During import FontLab Studio automatically separates features into individual records and places the class definitions in the bottom editing control Save features Saves the current set of feature definitions to a file as a fea feature definition language or vtp VOLT project file Close panel Closes the OpenType panel 843 844 Adding and Removing Features To add a new feature click on the button below the features list Th
193. ables in exported TrueType fonts 267 268 Font Smoothing Control Font smoothing control gasp table e PPM Ranges Apply instructions to the range Apply smoothing to the range From lo To To improve the appearance of TrueType fonts on the screen the latest versions of the Windows operating system use a special technique called font smoothing With this technique edges of the characters are rendered using shades of gray Visually this decreases the dither of the characters edges so that text is easier to read This technique may be combined with gridfitting methods that optimize the character s appearance by adjusting its outline The font smoothing options let you control when to use one or both of these techniques In the list box you see PPM Pixels Per eM font size measured in screen pixels ranges with one or two letters describing the applied technique S means that smoothing will be applied G means that gridfitting will be applied SG means that both techniques will be combined to achieve the best results To set options for a range select the range and change its settings using the controls in the dialog box Use the check boxes to select the rendering technique and the edit controls below the list to change the PPM range To define a new range select one of the existing ranges and press the Split button The range will be split into two ranges and you will be able to set different o
194. above to install Python and then run FontLab Studio again to activate the Macro features When the Macro toolbar appears it looks like this Let s describe the contents of the toolbar from left to right x Eure Python tool selector A Python tool is an editing tool like Edit Meter or Sketch which has all its functions defined in Python I e a FontLab Studio tool written in Python fom Top level s Family generator s Macro program selectors The Left combo box allows you to select one of the categories of programs and the right combo box selects the program within the category Run the program selected in the list described above Stop the program that is running Open the currently selected program in the Edit Macro Panel for editing C PE Y Restart the Python system Use this command to reload all standard libraries and free all memory allocated by the Python system A Assign the currently selected program to a key combination Let s try to run one of the sample programs supplied with FontLab Studio 1 Open the P glyph in a Glyph Window 2 Open the Macro toolbar 3 Select Effects in the folders combo box and Drops in the macro list 4 Clickonthe button to run the program This is what you should see as a result of the transformation Assign to Keyboard Using the Macro toolbar you can assign up to 10 macro programs to the keyboard combinations SHiIFT ALT 0 SHIFT ALT 1 and up to SHIFT
195. acters on your screen You can switch between the top and the bottom location of the command bar by clicking on this button E in the top right corner of the Font Window 125 126 In the bottom position of the Font Window command bar the bar does not have the Font Info button Size Ei IPI il Caption I Names mode IL Default Encoding It does however contain a Size popup menu that allows you to temporarily change the size of the glyph cells in the current Font Window Possible sizes vary from 16x16 up to 128x128 pixels Smaller cells occupy less space but hide details If you select the smallest size 16x16 you will not be able to see the additional marks which are visible in cells at larger sizes You can also use the next two buttons to decrease lat or increase ail the glyph cell size in the current Font Window A sample of the different cell sizes A 16x16 24x24 32x32 48x48 64x64 To permanently change the size of glyph cells in all Font Windows go to Tools gt Options gt Font Window gt Glyph cell gt Each cell should have dimensions of and set the size of the glyph cells As mentioned previously the Caption popup menu allows you to choose the caption text The next combo box allows you to switch between the different modes and is equivalent to the four buttons in the top position Unicode Ranges Codepages Glyph Index The third popup menu is equivalent for the Encoding menu in the top positi
196. acters such as spaces are not permitted A glyph name must start with a letter or the underscore character with the exception of the special glyph name notdef that starts with the period For example twocents a1 and _ are valid glyph names while 2cents and twocents are not Simple glyph names Review the Adobe Glyph List for New Fonts AGLFN http partners adobe com public developer en opentype aglfn13 txt If your glyph represents a character listed in AGLFN use the glyph name listed there Instead of using arbitrary names e g middot use standardized names listed in AGLFN periodcentered Review the Unicode Standard code charts If your glyph represents a default form of a character encoded in the Unicode Standard but not listed in AGLFN a for BMP codepoints codepoints less than FFFF use the name uniXXXx that is lowercase uni followed by a four digit Unicode codepoint written using uppercase hexadecimal digits Note that uni must be lowercase and XXXX must use uppercase letters for hexadecimal digits so uni01EB is a valid glyph name but uni01eb or Uni01Eb are not b for smp codepoints use the name uXXXXX or uXXXXXX that is lowercase u followed by 5 or 6 uppercase hexadecimal digits representing the codepoint Glyph names with suffix If your glyph represents an alternate form of a character that is encoded
197. al delta tool and follow the same instructions as above for middle deltas Some recommendations 1 Delta hinting is a very time consuming operation because you have to check the rendering results at many PPMs So always try first to get the best possible results from normal linear hinting Use the waterfall preview in the Preview panel to see where delta hinting is necessary Switch off font grayscaling in the Display Properties panel to see a real rendering preview Display Properties are accessible through Control Panel Try to set as few delta instructions as possible They increase font size and complexity It s better to set one delta instruction with a larger range than two less comprehensive delta instructions 729 730 Removing Instructions You can remove any instruction using two methods 1 2 Select the instruction in the Program panel and press the Del button Position the cursor on the hotpoint of the instruction hold the CTRL key and click the right mouse button AlignTop AlignBottom Align MiddleDelta and FinalDelta instructions have hotpoints on the point to which they are applied SingleLink and DoubleLink instructions have hotpoints on the mark in the middle of the line that connects the two points The Interpolate instruction has a hotpoint near the point that is interpolated Standard Stems There are two sets of standard stems in FontLab Studio Type 1 standard stems and Tr
198. al substitutions in invalid legacy format Use this option only if you know what you are doing Generate GDEF table Export VOLT data Write stored custom TrueType OpentType tables Enable this if you have previously opened an OpenType font with OpenType Layout tables that are not supported by FontLab Studio e g BASE with AAT tables such as morx or with VOLT private tables These tables will be retained in the new font FontLab Studio will not touch or modify these Note that if you rearranged the glyphs in your font or performed some changes to other parts of the font the custom tables may become unusable Export OpenType Layout Tables If this option is enabled OpenType Layout tables will be written into the font If disabled no OpenType Layout tables will be written 877 878 Compile feature definitions When enabled FontLab Studio will compile the feature definition language specified in the OpenType panel into OpenType binary tables and these binary tables will be written into the font If the font includes any previously existing OpenType binary tables e g if you opened an existing font or used the Compile and Store Tables in Binary Form command from the OpenType panel FontLab Studio will present a dialog box asking you to choose whether the existing binary tables or the compiled feature definitions should be written into the font When disabled and the font contains previously existing OpenType binary tables
199. all the selected points Duplicate Adda copy of the selection When you use the Paste or Duplicate command the selection is added with a shift from the original position You may control the amount of this shift on the Glyph Window gt Dimensions page of the Options dialog box Tools gt Options 493 494 Breaking and Joining the Sketch Outline You may break the sketch outline at any point with the Knife or Edit tool To break the outline with the Knife tool select the tool i and click on the node where you want to make a break To break the outline with the Edit tool select the tool hold the AtT key and click the point where you want to make a break To join two contours drag with the Edit tool and position the starting or ending point of the first contour over the ending or starting point of the second contour Hold the Arr key down while moving the point to prevent the contours from joining Converting Sketch to Outline Click the 4 Replace outline button to convert the Sketch into a normal outline FontLab Studio will try to optimise the result using the minimum number of curves while maintaining high precision With the A Add to outline command you can add the contents of the Sketch outline to the normal glyph outline To see the converted result simply change to edit mode AtT 1 If you think that the Sketch converter produced too many curves use the Optimize command in the Contour menu to fix it
200. ameters Visual TrueType Hints TrueType Hinting Tool Toolbar Layers Options Panel TrueType Preview Panel Program Panel Alignment Instructions Alignment Zones Editing TrueType Alignment Zones AlignTop and AlignBottom Instructions Hinting Alignment Zones Align Instruction Links Standard Stems Single Links Double Links Interpolation Delta Instructions Middle Delta Instructions Final Delta Instructions Removing Instructions Standard Stems General Options Context Menu Hinting Sidebearings Hinting Composite Glyphs 670 673 676 677 678 679 679 680 685 686 688 689 690 692 694 695 696 698 701 701 704 705 706 709 710 711 716 720 722 723 728 730 731 735 736 742 743 Automatic TrueType Hinting Working With Bitmaps Importing Bitmaps Editing Bitmaps Highlight Differences Exporting Bitmaps Hinting Strategies Middle Delta or Final Delta Single Link or Double Link Hinting White Space Hinting Serifs Hinting Diagonals Hinting Symmetrical Characters Interpolate or Not Hinting Multiple Master Fonts Hinting for ClearType MULTIPLE MASTER FONTS Multiple Master Fonts Theory Design Axes and Dynamic Range Standard Axes Design Coordinates and Weight Vectors Extrapolation Anisotropic Interpolation The Axis Graph Multiple Master Fonts in Studio Creation of MM Fonts in FontLab Studio Defining an Axis Selecting a Master Using an Axis Panel Previewing the Interme
201. an make a Multiple Master font by raising it from a single master font by adding an axis When you have a one axis MM font you can add another axis and so on BES There is an automatic way in Studio to take two fonts and make a MM font from them using one as the first master and another as the second master This approach has pros and cons On one hand this process is fast and convenient On the other hand you sometimes can get an improperly made MM font There is a chance that one of the font s characters has not been converted according to MM rules We have however included several special features in FontLab Studio that can help you make MM fonts from different fonts Using the Blend Feature to Build MM Fonts If you have two single master fonts and want to build a Multiple Master font you can use the Tools gt Blend Fonts operation Open the fonts and select the Blend Fonts command You will see the Blend Fonts dialog box Blend Fonts Select the First Font Corpid Light ABCabc Select the second Font Corpid Bold ABCabc Blend fonts Build the Multiple Master Font Name of the axis Do not interpolate compatible outlines _ Remember source and destination fonts Co Select the first and second fonts in the combo boxes in the top area of the dialog box and choose the Build the Multiple Master font option Choose the name of the Multiple Master font axis in the Name of the axis
202. an use the automation tools provided by Fontlab Studio Please note that if you have the Kern feature already defined all changes that you make in kerning or in classes or in class kerning properties will have no effect until you re generate the kern feature There are three ways to update the kern feature 1 Use the Generate Kern feature command from the Metrics window context menu in Kerning mode 2 Usethe same command located in the file menu of the OpenType panel 3 Use the Kerning Assistance dialog box that is described below 599 600 Kerning Assistance FontLab has a special dialog box that can simplify the creation of class based kerning Before you start using it define some kerning classes which have their name preceded by an underscore and one of the glyphs in the class is selected as a key glyph To open the Kerning Assistance dialog box use the Tools gt Kerning Assistance command OpenType Kerning Assistance fa MO eo ist Classes 2nd Classes A I M Ee AE B ss B D ee TT RR uu 575 May uuU Eyy yN Ezz ESS _al a eats M ct c a4 Fal oe AZ AZ AZ AZ There is no kerning defined For this pair 2 A 4 acute Acircumflex Adieresis Aqrave ring Atilde breve Amacron A Aogonek ier en The dialog box has a toolbar at the top two lists of kerning c
203. and Parameters In the first area you select the glyph s to which the automatic algorithm will be applied The possible choices are Current character This option is the default if any glyph is selected in the only editing area All glyphs in the This option generates metrics for all glyphs in the current current string string in the editing area Whole font This forces FontLab to generate metrics for all glyphs in the font and is not generally recommended This operation is not undoable FontLab prompts you and asks that you save the current metrics information in a special file from which it may be easily restored if you are not satisfied with the results that the autometrics algorithm produced You can choose the parameters for the algorithm in the Parameters area of the Autometrics dialog box All the parameters are displayed We recommend that you experiment with various parameters using the autometrics application 565 566 Quick Save and Quick Open You can use these commands to temporarily save the current state of the in the FontLab directory press the i button on the toolbar To open a previously saved file press the t button The Warning dialog box appears prompting you to save the current modified state of metrics into the same temporary file Editing Kerning To edit kerning data switch the Metrics Window to Kerning mode by pushing the A button on the Metrics Tools toolbar or select the Kerning command
204. and V A 571 572 Generating Context If no pair is selected in the editing field and you click on a pair in the Metrics table Fontlab Studio will automatically generate sample text that highlights the selected pair and allows you to see how the kerning in this pair works in a real life situation HOHAenon HAnAennn OOOAeo000 XHXAeCXOX The selected pair appears in the middle of each string with some optically unique glyphs on the left and on the right Selection of these glyphs depends on the case of the first and second glyphs of the pair uppercase glyphs will get uppercase neighbors You can customize the context by editing the metrics txt file located in the Fontlab Studio user files folder Deleting Pairs Select a pair in the Metrics table and click on the DELETE key on the keyboard The pair will be removed Of course you can use the Edit gt Undo command to get your pair back Using the Kerning Dialog You may add or delete kerning pairs linked to a selected glyph and enter precise kerning values using the Kerning Information dialog box To open this dialog box press the button on the Metrics window toolbar and select the l Edit Kerning command from the menu or select the Edit Kerning command in the context menu of the main editing area This command is also available in the Tools menu on the bottom panel You will see the following dialog box Kerning Information ist glyph 2nd glyph Eernin L Csma
205. and at the end by replacing the default xxxx Fill the feature body with lookups Descriptions of all the types of lookups that FontLab Studio can handle follows this section Click the 2 button to compile the feature definition text Check the Output panel for warnings and errors If there is an error it will be highlighted in the feature definition text Fix any errors When there are no errors check the feature in the OpenType Features Preview panel Open the panel select the script and language and enter the test text At this point you know everything you need to create new features except the actual lookups that define a feature In the following sections we will discuss the different types of substitution and positioning lookups Please note that you may combine substitution and positioning lookups in the same feature 853 Substitution Lookups Substitution lookups deal with the replacement of the source glyph s with some other glyph s The simplest example of a substitution lookup is the replacement of lowercase characters by small caps versions Lookups may be context dependent or context independent Context independent lookups are applied every time the source sequence of glyphs is present like when you want to replace the f and T sequence with the fl ligature In other cases you may need to apply a substitution only when a source sequence of glyphs is surrounded by some other glyphs For instanc
206. and the selection into the right pane 1 button 5 Click the Find Next button to find the next appearance of the source outline in one of the glyphs The first such glyph located will appear in the Glyph Window and the outline that is found will be selected 6 Click Replace to replace the old outline with the new one or click Replace amp Find to replace and find the next location of the outline 7 Check Local search onle to limit the search area to the current glyph only If this option is unchecked FontLab Studio will look for the outline in all glyphs of the font Use the buttons at the bottom of the dialog box for additional features to select all glyphs with the found outline in the Font window 4 to mark all glyphs with the found outline in the Font window in red Using these buttons doesn t replace contours but only finds glyphs 411 412 Building an Outline from Blocks Now you know how to select parts of an outline and copy it so let s do a few experiments to show how to use this knowledge Suppose that we have an T character and we want to create an H character 1 Open the T in the Glyph Window double click the T cell in the Font Window use the Glyphs Bar in the Glyph Window toolbar or just browse the font with the arrow buttons Cut the character in the middle Activate the Knife tool press the left mouse button at the left of the character hold the Arrt key on the keyboard and d
207. angle positioned in a theoretical rectangular cell The most extreme nodes of the glyph determine the bounding box Each glyph usually also has sidebearings extra space to the left of bounding box left sidebearing LSB and to the right right sidebearing RSB The sum of the sidebearings and the bounding box width define the advance width often just called width The intersection of the baseline and the left sidebearing is called the zero point Horizontal x node coordinates to the right of the LSB line are positive and coordinates left of the LSB line are negative Similarly vertical y node coordinates above the baseline are positive and those below the baseline are negative When an application is laying a line it positions the next glyph s LSB line right at the RSB line of the previous glyph Ascender i lt Caps height pra e aTa l eo E l x height I I BE E l 1 l Bounding BN E l a Baseline cS a po EL 4 ia LSB RSB E oiis l _ ___ _ Advance width gt Descender Glyphs may have negative sidebearings e g the rightmost edge of the bounding box may be positioned to the right of the RSB line 527 528 Kerning Kerning information is used to adjust the space between specific pairs of characters As you can see in the following picture some characters may be well spaced with just the bearings rectangle but o
208. anguages it is often necessary to specify the vertical alignment of characters in the text In this case information about the vertical glyph metrics is stored in the font file p Usually all Chinese Japanese or Korean glyphs written in vertical layout have the same vertical advance width called the vertical advance vector so only the position of the glyph within the rectangular glyph cell needs to be specified However it is possible to adjust the vertical advanced vector of individual glyphs To define a vertical glyph advance vector in FontLab Studio open the glyph in the Glyph Window hold the Suirr key and move the base line You will be able to set the top vertical glyph sidebearing marked with a black green symbol and the bottom vertical glyph sidebearing marked with a yellow black symbol Note that this information is only used by applications that support vertical text layout and only if the vertical glyph metric information is specified for all glyphs Do not confuse vertical glyph metrics with vertical font metrics i e ascender or descender lines that are used in text that is set horizontally Metrics Files Information about the advance width of a glyph is usually located in font files Kerning information may also be included in the file In OpenType and FontLab font formats both metrics and kerning data are located in a single font file In Type 1 PostScript fonts the metrics and kerning data are
209. appear Of course if you want to have more control over the serif s width you can define a special stem width and attach the serif s single links to this width For total control over serifs behavior you can also set horizontal commands that will control the length of the serifs Serif length single link 757 758 Hinting Diagonals Hinting diagonal stems is the most complicated job in hinting There are no special diagonal commands so you have to set both horizontal and vertical commands to control the width of a diagonal stem We know two ways to hint diagonal stems 1 Define special standard stem widths Set vertical and horizontal commands attached to these widths and control the rounding of stem widths using the stems dialog box 2 Set the positions of one side of the stem using the usual commands align and link and set the position of the other side by single links that are not rounded and not aligned Adjust the width of the stem using middle delta instructions If a diagonal stem is intersected by another vertical horizontal or diagonal stem then we recommend using the interpolation instruction to set the position of the intersection points In most cases good hinting of diagonal stems is not possible without final delta hinting Hinting Symmetrical Characters There are two types of symmetrical characters round characters like O and pike characters like V Round c
210. aracters or words It also does not support special shaping rules for complex scripts To preview OpenType Layout features for complex scripts use the Quick Test feature discussed earlier Metrics Window The vastly enhanced Metrics Window Window gt New Metrics Window in FontLab Studio 5 offers attractive visual proofing capabilities With improved multilingual support direct multiline text editing in the text mode fully customizable colors and a screen space saving layout with optional controls it offers an excellent tool for letter spacing kerning and visual proofing Hinting Tools The Type 1 Hinting and TrueType Hinting tools Tools gt Hints amp Guides provide accurate bitmap previews of your Type 1 OpenType and TrueType fonts as they will appear on screen The tools call the font rasterizers present in the system to produce the previews so the accuracy is guaranteed The hinting preview panels allow you to toggle between different screen sizes zoom in individual glyphs and select various rendering modes Type 1 Preview TrueType Preview y Black White Grayscale ClearType The quick brown Fox jumps over Black White The quick brown Fox jump jumps ov over iv Grayscale The quick brown fox jumps over The quick brown fox jumps over reac saaaaAaAAAAAAA AAA ee ananas AAAAAAAAAA 7 amp 9 1011 1i i4 15 16 17 158 13 20 21 22 23 SS Fire gt o ii i2 13 14 is 16 17 13 13 20 21 22 23 24
211. ard you can enter values into the editing fields that are even beyond the scroll bar range Click OK and FontLab Studio will generate a single master font and open it in a new Font Window If the option LH Use instance name as style name ig on the name of the selected primary instance will be used in the single master font names Style Mame 180 wk 464 wed ka Build Style Mame PS Font Mame Myriad 160wt464uyd Full Mame Myriad 180 wk 464 wd Menu Mame Myriad FOND Mame Myriad 180 wt 464 we gt Tip You can define custom primary instance names in Font Info gt Multiple Master settings and this way determine in advance the style names of the generated single master instances This can save you repeated renaming steps when working on a large font family 811 812 Expanding the Master Use Tools gt Multiple Master gt Expand Master to copy the contents of one of the masters to all other masters If this command is selected when the Glyph window is active it is applied to the currently active master If it is used when the Font window is active you will see a dialog box that lets you select the master for copying Expand Master Select a master that you want to copy to all other masters wid ABCabc123 This operation may be useful if applied when the Mask layer is in editing mode you may need to copy one of the Mask masters to all the other masters to simulate the single master Mask layer Hinting
212. are specially designed to help you manage many open fonts simultaneously To open many fonts you can use the standard File gt Open command then select many font files using CTRL and Suirt click in the File Open dialog box You can also select font files in Windows Explorer and drag them to the FontLab Studio window all of them will be opened When you open 15 fonts the FontLab Studio window might look like this W FontLab 4 File Edit view Glyph Tools Window Help DSO r8 voeo S Ae AA WE Font ITC Officina Sans Bold Cyrillic C PSFONTS OSN65_C PFB Belg i Font ITC Officina Sans Bold Italic Cyrillic C PSFONTS OSN66_C p73 BAR gt oe lt a ett aS paR efo a 2 E E a e aiRis riuly iwi xy iz a ay 22 2 3 Pr EA _ a BOOUGU CE EOOOE ee peserccor sears _2_ _t__ _z_ _4_ _2_ 1 411 1_ _2_ 2 2_ _ Use T mouse button to select one or more glyphs Chala ae CO 7 Ji i s oi 3 li Fy E a Eil f d i Aa ES o Endi d m lt gt r 4 i which is not the best way to work Add to this picture a few open Glyph and Metrics windows and you will see why workspace management is necessary 197 Windows List The easiest way to manage open windows is to use the Window menu It contains some very useful commands Cascade Organizes open windows in a cascade like in the picture above Tile horizontally Organizes windows l
213. are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders THIS PUBLICATION AND THE INFORMATION HEREIN IS FURNISHED AS IS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE AND SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED AS A COMMITMENT BY FONTLAB LTD FONTLAB LTD ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY FOR ANY ERRORS OR INACCURACIES MAKES NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND EXPRESS IMPLIED OR STATUTORY WITH RESPECT TO THIS PUBLICATION AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY FITNESS FOR PARTICULAR PURPOSES AND NONINFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS User manual release 5 2 5 2006 Contents CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Major new features of FontLab Studio 5 Other key features of FontLab Studio About this Manual System Requirements FONTLAB STUDIO USER INTERFACE Basic Terms Getting Started Customizing FontLab Studio s User Interface Customizing Toolbars Customizing Menus Customizing Individual Items Converting a Menu to a Toolbar Customization of the Keyboard Links to External Programs Faster Method to Customize Commands FontLab Studio Windows Font Window Glyph Window Metrics Window Metrics Panel Panels FontLab Studio Options General Options Font Window Glyph Window Metrics Window FontAudit Opening Type 1 Opening OpenType amp TrueType Generating Type 1 17 20 21 23 Generating OpenType amp TrueType Trace Options EDITING FONTS Opening Fonts Most Recently Used Fonts Opening Fonts with Drag D
214. are used to preview positions of various structures in the glyph space You may switch the rulers on and off with the View gt Rulers command or using the context menu that appears if you right click one of the rulers In the bottom right corner of the Glyph Window you will find a little button F Click it and you will see the Glyphs Bar a small subset of the Font Window that lets you quickly browse the font or select characters for editing The following describes the functionality of the Glyphs Bar The Glyphs Bar To open the Glyphs Bar you click on the Glyphs Bar expand button press the Tas key or press the B key when the Glyph Window is active Once the Glyphs Bar is open it has focus and is slightly highlighted Glyphs bar may be located on the bottom or on the top of the Glyph window Click on this icon to switch its location To customize the Glyphs Bar s appearance right click it and select one of the options in the popup menu Show caption To show or not show the cell s caption Name Unicode Choice of information to show in the caption Options are the Index Width same as the choices in the Font Window Decimal Hex Octal ANSI Show Marks To show or not show additional glyph information in every cell Same as Show additional information in the characters cells Font Window Option Add Note To add a note to a glyph s cell To select a glyph for editing double click the glyph cell Or if t
215. arrow keys move the selection by 100 font units at each key click Find and Replace Outline Operation In FontLab Studio you can perform a unique outline find replace operation that allows you to replace an identical part of an outline that occurs in many glyphs with an alternative form It is also very useful in analysing an outline for correctness Here is a typical situation where you could use the Edit gt Find Outline command Original glyph Modification It is relatively easy to make the change above in a single glyph but what if you want to do the same thing in all glyphs of the same font that have serifs 1 Select the element that you want to find 2 Copy the selection to the Clipboard with the Edit gt Copy command 3 Modify the original shape as needed and select the new version of the serif 409 410 4 Using the Edit gt Find Outline command open the Find Outline dialog box Find Outline Find what Replace with O Find ext Replace Replace amp Find Close Local search only The left panel shows the outline that FontLab Studio will look for and the right pane shows the outline it will use as the replacement The two buttons to the right of each pane mean ff Place the Clipboard contents into the pane f Place the current selection into the pane In our sample you need to place the Clipboard contents original outline into the left pane click on the Fal button
216. ary MMM Multiple Master Metrics file is used to store the metrics data Or you can save a set of text AFM files for each master and linked MM file Select the format that you want to use in the Format combo box of the Save File dialog box that appears when you press the Save Metrics button in the Metrics window toolbar When you are opening or saving single master metrics files they will be applied to or generated from the currently active master 801 802 Editing Axis Settings When you are editing a Multiple Master font you can change the axis names at any time Select the Tools gt Multiple Master gt Modify Axis Names command and you will see a dialog box Modify Axis Names Choose the axis to modify Weight ou are modifying axis Weight Axis parameters Short Name wt Avis Type Weight Select the axis that you want to change in the list box located in the top area of the dialog box and use the editing fields to change the axis name type or short name Press the Recalc button after you change the axis name to let FontLab Studio automatically calculate the rest of the data Removing an Axis At some point you may want to remove one of the design axes of a Multiple Master font When you remove an axis the number of masters will be decreased by half You can lose half of the information also so be careful with this operation The remainin
217. ase the first value to position the shape group on the sides of the current glyph Increase the second value to position the shape group above and below the current glyph Use glyph metrics When activated the shapes within a shape group will be positioned next to each other using their advance widths Center glyphs When disabled all shapes in the shape group are aligned by horizontally their left sidebearing When enabled all shapes in the shape group are centered Double click to edit When enabled you can quickly switch between editing of neighbor or shape each glyph ina shape group by double clicking on the group glyph shapes Metrics Window These settings control the behavior of the Metrics window Automatic line Feed _ Highlight all key glyphs in kerning and metric classes Highlight all kerning pairs Apply text template when item is selected in the table Keep existing exceptions when editing class kerning Background Foreground Dependant pairs Font to use in the preview combo box ee Move Focus to sample string when Metrics window is opened Sort items in the kerning metrics table By encoding 85 86 Automatic line When disabled all glyphs in the Metrics Window are displayed feed as a long line of text unless a line break is inserted explicitly by the user n When enabled the Metrics Window has an automatic line feed so glyphs are moved to the next line to fit within the current size of the Metrics Win
218. aspects of the font are complete Open all fonts that belong to your family in FontLab Studio Font Info Open Window gt Panels gt Fonts and look at the family naming Unless you are creating Mac Type 1 fonts each brief family listed in the Fonts panel should contain no more than 4 styles If you plan to create OpenType fonts PS or TT use the Group fonts by button to switch from the Group By Family view to the Group By OT Family view In this view all fonts should be grouped under one family Open File gt Font Info and walk through all fonts of your family using the Apply and Change buttons On the Names and Copyright page make sure that all text boxes and combo boxes are filled in and that the Font is bold and Font is italic checkboxes are checked accordingly Use the Validate Names button for each font to check against potentially wrong names If you are making an OpenType font check the OpenType specific names page as well Check the pages Copyright information Embedding Designer information and License information All information should be filled in there although for Type 1 fonts actually only a subset of the entries will be included in the generated fonts In Version and Identification put a reasonable version number into the top fields and click on the green Auto button Increase your minor version number if you revised your font On the Basic identification settings click on the green Auto button and on the Now b
219. at this stage 4 The sequence of glyphs accompanied by the positioning information is passed to the rasterizer which does the imaging of the features on the destination device screen or printer Features and Lookups Every feature consists of one or more lookups A Lookup is an elementary procedure performed on a glyph sequence or positioning data For instance replace the sequence of f and T with the fl ligature glyph is a lookup A combination of similar lookups forms a feature The sequence of lookups is important They are applied in the order they are defined The sequence of features is also important but the application or operating system may make changes in the feature preference By default all features and lookups are defined for the default language of the Latin script 819 820 Scripts and Languages The second great OpenType feature is support for multiple scripts and languages With an OpenType font you can define different behaviors of the font when it is used to type text in different languages For example some ligatures that are necessary in English are not applicable to Turkish Other features like support for initial medial and final forms of the characters are applicable only to Arabic script and so on OpenType allows us to define script and language dependence at the lookup level so the same feature may work differently when different languages are supported OpenType Font Formats
220. ation such as Acrobat or Google the application can attempt to rebuild the Unicode codepoints basing on glyph names included in the embedded Type font For Latin or Cyrillic scripts the recreated text will likely be a very close match of the original for Thai or Hindi the text recreated that way will probably be only a crude approximation with letters arranged in incorrect sequence and some information missing But yet some is often better than nothing Users of the Unicode Standard familiar with the character glyph model know that the relationship between glyphs and characters is not a simple one to one mapping A glyph in a font can represent the default form of a character Such glyph needs to have the Unicode codepoint of the represented character assigned For example the glyph with the glyph index 4 representing the character U 0024 DOLLAR SIGN has the Unicode codepoint 0024 assigned in the Unicode field of the Properties panel The glyph s name is dollar A glyph in a font can also represent a variant form of a character For example a font can include a glyph that represents the default form of the character A U 0061 LATIN SMALL LETTER A as well as glyphs that depict stylistic variants of that character a small cap variant a swash variant etc The glyph that represents the default form should have the name a and the Unicode codepoint 0061 assigned in the Properties panel The variant glyphs should different nam
221. ations only with the selected windows All other windows will be automatically minimized Use the Minimize button to minimize selected windows 198 Fonts Panel The Windows dialog box is very powerful but it works only on windows without paying any attention to the contents of the windows fonts To organize your open fonts use the Fonts panel Select the Fonts command in the Window gt Panels menu When you click on this command you will see the panel iE Cronos Pro Subhead F Cronos Pro Subhead CronosPro Subh otf F Cronos Pro Subhead Italic CromosPro SubhIk otf F Cronos Pro Bold Subhead CronosPro BoldSubh otF F Cronos Pro Bold Subhead Italic CronosPro BoldSubhie otf Cronos Pro F Cronos Pro CronosPro Regular otF F Cronos Pro Italic CronosPro Ikalic otf F Cronos Pro Bold CronosPro Bold otF F Cronos Pro Bold Italic CronosPro BoldIt otF cronos Pro Caption F Cronos Pro Caption CronosPro Capt otF F Cronos Pro Caption Italic CromosPro Captik otf F Cronos Pro Bold Caption CronosPro BoldCapt otf F Cronos Pro Bold Caption Italic CromosPro BoldCaptik otf Cronos Pro Display F Cronos Pro Display CronosPro Disp otF F Cronos Pro Display Italic CronosPro Displt otf F Cronos Pro Bold Display CranosPro BoldDisp otf F Cronos Pro Bold Display Italic CronosPro BoldDispIe otf Total Fonts 32 Grouped by Family Mame The Fonts panel contains a small toolbar in t
222. ative is to create bitmap versions of the glyphs for most important sizes so TrueType rasterizer will use them instead of rendering outline glyphs and instructions program Bitmaps can be defined for any combinations of glyphs and PPMs A font may have only one bitmap for one glyph and one PPM or lots of bitmaps for different glyphs at different PPMs there are no limits FontLab Studio supports import export and editing of so called embedded bitmaps 745 746 Importing Bitmaps Import happens automatically if this option is active in the Tools gt Options gt Opening OpenType amp TrueType gt TrueType OpenType TT ttf dialog box Import embedded bitmaps When a font has embedded bitmaps PPMs for which bitmaps are present are colored red in the TrueType tool Preview panel EBEBEB 3 10 1i 12 15 14 You can import embedded bitmaps from a different TrueType font To do SO 1 Click on the amp button on the toolbar to enter the bitmap mode of the TrueType hinting tool 2 Right click anywhere in the Glyph window and select the Import bitmaps command in the context menu 3 Select a TrueType font with embedded bitmaps in the standard File Open dialog box Editing Bitmaps To get access to embedded bitmaps activate Bitmap mode by clicking on this button on the TrueType hinting toolbar You ll see the Glyph window and preview panel change In Bitmap mode the Glyph window previews the bitmap with pixel
223. atures where available Basic Identification and Names Basic set of font names e Famil Hame FreeFontFra Font is bold Width Medium normal z L Font is bo Font Hame FreeFontPro Full Hame FreeFontPro Menu Name FreeFontPra S FOND Name FreeFontFro gt Build Names Check at MyFonts com Family Name name 1 this mark is the ID of the name in the TrueType and OpenType specification http microsoft com typography otspec name htm The name of the typeface to which the font belongs All fonts that are from the same typeface must have the same Family Name field The Family Name is used as the root of the Font Name so we recommend that you fill in this field first Weight Weight of the font You may enter a custom value in this field or select one of the predefined weight names in the box Values in this list are sorted by increased weight value Choose Normal or leave this field empty if you do not care about the font s weight Weight Value Numeric weight value of the font This number defines the font weight and is used by the operating systems to organize fonts to font families FontLab Studio will fill it automatically when you select some Weight in the combo box but if you want you can customize it Width The average width of the font s characters Enter a custom value or select one of the predefined width values from the drop down list Leave this field empty or select Normal width if you do
224. autohinting Generate triple hints Direct links to center of the glyph where possible Interpolate positions of cusp points Generate delta instructions if possible Add link bo the right sidebearing point Interpolate positions of double links Single link attachment precision 7 is default values Please refer to the Autohinting Options section of the Hinting chapter for detailed description of these options 106 OpenType TT Encoding These settings control some advanced re encoding features for fonts that you generate in the TrueType OpenType TT ttf format These settings do not apply to OpenType PS fonts Use Following codepage For First 256 glyphs Do nok reencode first 256 characters Export only first 256 glyphs of the selected codepage Use Following codepage to build criapf1 0 table Mac 05 Roman deFault we Put MS Char Set value into FsSelection Field Use following l FontLab can optionally reencode the first 256 glyphs of the codepage for first font letting you create a single codepage font for some 256 glyphs codepages This is very similar to using the Glyph gt Glyph Names gt Reencode glyphs command before export The list located below this label contains several choices MS Windows 1252 Latin 1 MS Windows 1250 Eastern European MS Windows 1251 Cyrillic MS Windows 932 Japanese MS Windows 936 Chinese PAC MS Windows 949 Korear The first option Do not reen
225. axes to choose dynamic ranges for As you know the dynamic range is the distance between the lowest and highest design coordinates so all you have to do is to choose the proper low and high edge values The best way to choose these values is to compare your font with a font that already has these values assigned properly We recommend you use one of Adobe s fonts for this comparison Another recommendation is to choose edge values so that the design coordinate of the Normal style normal weight and normal width of the font will be 500 600 units 809 810 Generating a Single Master Font You can create a regular single master font from an instance of a Multiple Master font using FontLab Studio Use the Tools gt Multiple Master gt Generate Instance command to open the Generate Instance dialog box Generate Instance Choose design position to generate instance ABCabc123 Known instances Custom position selected Use instance name as style name Weight Width Select one of the masters or primary instances in the Known instances list The preview and the values of the selected design will appear Use the controls to select the intermediate or extrapolated design The Edit controls have a white background when the selection is within the dynamic range and a yellow background when extrapolation is used The white background under the scroll bars visually represents the font s dynamic range Using the keybo
226. b Studio will keep the stored TrueType data until you change the glyph s outline or hints If you open a TrueType font to rearrange glyphs or to add some new glyphs we highly recommend storing the original TrueType hinting data Import embedded If this option is on FontLab will Studio read all embedded bitmaps bitmaps defined for the source TrueType font You can edit them using the TrueType hinting tool and optionally include them in the generated TrueType font Embedded bitmaps may help to improve font readability at low point sizes and in some cases can be used instead of TrueType hinting Autohint font To prepare an imported TrueType font for Type 1 editing and export you may ask FontLab to automatically make Type 1 hints for all the glyphs FontLab will use the current Type 1 hinting settings and will make hints for TrueType or Type 1 outlines depending on the conversion setting Convert TrueType curves into PostScript curves Generating Type 1 These settings control some technical parameters of fonts that you generate in the Type 1 or Multiple Master format Make PFM File Make OFM and INF Files Encoding options Export Unicode codepage if codepage mode is active Ww Export only encoded glyphs Font Window musk be in Mames mode Automatically sort glyphs F Open Type 1 Export Terminal Use Windscent and WinDescent as Font vertical size Autohint unhinted glyphs Export FSType Font embedding parameter Make PFM f
227. be Garamond Regular Italic Semibold Semibold Italic Bald Bald Italic You need to include the Preferred Family Name and Preferred Style Name on this page only if they are different from the Family and Style names you defined on the Basic Names page Mac Name Macintosh compatible full name name 16 If you want the name of the font to appear differently than the Full Name defined on the Basic Names page you can insert the Compatible Full Name Z Note You don t need to fill in the Preferred Family name and Preferred Style Name fields if they are the same as the Family Name and Style Name on the main naming page of Font Info Enter names there only if the names are different 221 222 How to Make a Font Family Fonts on Windows may only include only 4 styles in a family These styles are Regular Bold Italic and Bold Italic If you have more than four styles in your Type 1 or TrueType typeface for Windows you must create several families You may put all condensed styles into a Condensed or Narrow sub family like Arial Narrow Arial Narrow Bold Arial Narrow Italic all black styles into a Black sub family Arial Black Arial Black Italic and all normal styles in the Normal sub family Arial Arial Italic Arial Bold and Arial Bold Italic Mac Type fonts and OpenType fonts TT or PS on Mac OS and within OpenType savvy applications can contain an arbitrary number of styles within one family T
228. be used as component glyphs will appear Of course a glyph cannot be a component for itself A composite glyph can be used as a component glyph It is automatically converted to source components Another difference is that you can set the position by entering its x horizontal and y vertical coordinates The component position is the distance between the composite zero point and the component s zero point To add a component you select the glyph you want to use as a component in this dialog box and press the OK button Another way to add a component is to drag it from the Font Window and drop it in the Glyph Window while the CTRL key is pressed Decomposing To decompose a composite glyph select the Decompose command from the Glyph menu or from the Glyph Window default popup menu The outlines of all components will be scaled and shifted according to their settings and added to the composite glyph If the component glyphs had hints then these hints will also be added and a hint replacement program will be automatically generated The link to the original component will be lost To decompose an individual component in a composite glyph right click the component and select Decompose in the context popup menu 497 498 Component Positioning To activate the component positioning operation activate the Edit tool position the mouse cursor on the component s outline and click the left mouse button Alternately if the cu
229. be written if appropriate options are set Printing and Proofing Fonts FontLab Studio 5 has several new tools for visual proofing and printing of your fonts Several new printing modes allow you to print font content in different ways with various options You can print all or selected glyphs with all character information sample strings detailed glyph printouts as well as a kerning table A new Quick Test feature that proofs the font using the system renderer has also been added At the end of this section a summary of additional methods of visual proofing is presented Printing To see the printing modes available choose File gt Print You will see the following dialog box Font sample Font Table A text to p A he quick brown fox Text size 48 w Word wrap Print right to left Font Waterfall Fill outlines Al Apply kerning C Print kerning values C Print metrics data Glyph Sample Print underline enh aah Glyph Waterfall On the left side of the dialog box you can choose one of the available printing modes Font Table Glyph List Font Sample Font Waterfall Glyph Sample Glyph Waterfall and Kerning Table 278 Printing Font Table To print the font table of the current font 1 Select the Print command in the File menu or click on the button in the Standard toolbar You will see a dialog box that asks you to select one of the printing modes Font table Cells in
230. begin drawing without holding down the CTRL key the new contour will be inserted into the existing one If the finishing point of your drawing is on an existing contour also and the starting and finishing points are on the same contour then the new drawing will replace the part of the existing contour that lies between the starting and finishing points How to draw a single curve Hold the Suirr key down when you release the mouse button after drawing a new line Your drawing will be approximated by a single curve This is a good way to draw a new contour step by step 387 388 Brush Tool The Brush tool works like the usual bitmap brush that you find in any bitmap editing program You begin a brush stroke by pressing the left mouse button Draw the stroke by dragging the mouse and finish drawing it by releasing the mouse button To change the color of the brush use the color selection buttons on the Paint toolbar for the white color Other brush options are accessible in the VectorPaint options menu a Ci Round Brush Flat Brush 20 Units 40 Units 20 Units i20 units 274 Options You can paint with round or calligraphic brushes of different widths Calligraphic style brush 120 unit wide line You can also specify a brush stroke shape Press the button and select a shape in the popup menu Smooth Right Smooth Lert Point Right Point Left Simple Curved Simple Flat Sha
231. belongs to the contour segment beginning from the new hint replacement mark To modify this hint set you can add or remove hints from it To add a hint to the hint set 1 Position the mouse cursor on the hint that you want to add The cursor should be between two hint lines 2 Press the right mouse button The selected hint will be highlighted and you will see the popup menu with three commands Cancel closes the menu Add this horizontal hint and Add this vertical hint Only one of the two latter commands is available depending on which hint you want to add If the popup menu does not appear it usually means that you tried to add a hint that will overlap one of the hints that is in the current hint set If the popup menu appears but includes a different set of commands it means that you missed and selected the wrong hint or no hint at all Wrong hints are hints that overlap any of the hints that are already active in the current segment To remove a hint from the hint set 1 Locate the mouse cursor somewhere between the lines of the hint that you want to remove Currently active hints are shown in green 2 Press the right mouse button and select the Remove this horizontal or vertical hint command from the popup menu 677 678 Editing Hints With the Type 1 hinting tool you can also add edit and delete Type 1 hints and links To add a new hint hold the Crri key and drag it from the vertical or horizontal
232. below Properties Opens the Node properties panel 372 Contour commands Reverse contour Reverses the contour direction Delete contour Removes the contour Make Parallel Opens the Parallel Path dialog described later Path 373 374 Node Properties Crri click the node or Right click and choose the Properties command in the menu Properties You will see the Node properties panel alr it Selected i eJ gt In this property panel you can control the position of the node the alignment type the selection status of the node and the position of the control points of the curves The figures in the first line are the index of the segment the node index and the contour s number To change the position of a node 1 Select the origin point you want to use and set the coordinates of the node By default the origin is the glyph s origin point With the radio buttons you can select the previous F or next node as the origin point 2 Modify the coordinates of the node in the edit boxes You can use the spin buttons to increase or decrease the coordinates The new coordinates will be applied to the node when you press the ENTER key on the keyboard or move the focus from one edit control to another or when you close the property panel by clicking on a free space in the edit field To change the selection state of a node modify the state in the Selected check box To change the connection mode for
233. bol Encoding is the name of the encoding vector It starts at the first non space character after Pick a name on your own and type it there e g A Glyph Definition Encoding use plain English letters digits or simple punctuation such as but avoid too many special characters in the encoding name Do not use ampersand amp 4 Change the name of the group in the second line of the file GROUP My Custom Encodings The group name will become the submenu title in the Encoding popup menu Note that there is no space after the character We recommend using your foundry name or your personal name in the encoding group name 5 Edit the contents of the encoding table e g FONTLAB STUDIO ENCODING 1001 A Glyph Definition Encoding GROUP My Custom Encodings A smcp A titl A swsh A subs 155 156 If the encoding table will be used as source of Type 1 encoding each glyphname should be followed by a space followed by a decimal character code e g FONTLAB STUDIO ENCODING 1001 A Glyph Definition Encoding GROUP My Custom Encodings A65 B 66 C67 D 68 Save this encoding file with a different file name but be sure to use the enc file extension Put the enc file in the Shared user data folder Encoding folder typically C Documents and Settings Your Username My Documents FontLab Shared Encoding if you want to make the encoding available to all recent Fontlab Ltd applications or in the App
234. brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog Changes in the weight the defined dynamic range may be very different in different fonts for example from normal to bold or from light to black or from bold to heavy depending on the designer s intentions Width This design axis allows you to change the width of the font The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog This is very useful in making text fit in a given space on the page If the Condensed style is too narrow and the Normal style is too wide with a MM font you can select an intermediate width style and the text will fit perfectly 771 772 Optical Size This is an axis for high end typography In the pre computer age typographers used metal fonts that were aligned in strings manually or with the help of complex mechanical machines In those times fonts were not scalable and there was a separate physical type font for each point size of a typeface And fonts that were designed for different point sizes of the same typeface had slightly different designs for improved legibility Designs of the same character for 6 and 72 pt point size When scalable fonts appeared this typography feature wasn t compatible with the technology so it all but disappeared We had scalable fonts that could be shrunk or enlarged to any point size but the
235. built in autotracing e Unicode 4 1 support SMP codepoints auto generate over 2 500 accented characters from built in definitions new Unicode glyph template images from Monotype Imaging Improved OpenType support with better VOLT integration roundtrip editing of complex script fonts font merging glyph suffix renaming Better font proofing with five new printing modes and the Quick Test feature that tests fonts with system rendering Open and save enhancements open installed fonts preview fonts before opening generate multiple fonts in one step opens Mac fonts on Windows Mac Type 1 TrueType GX AAT and Ikarus files Redesigned preferences save open and exchange preference profiles and UI workspaces Better autohinting with Flex Type 1 hints Improved Python scripting Python 2 4 support 19 20 Other key features of FontLab Studio e Outline editor with more than 20 tools and 200 level undo redo e Open edit and generate OpenType PS TrueType OpenType TT and PostScript Type 1 formats with up to 6 400 characters e Open edit and generate Multiple Master fonts e Import and export of individual glyphs in EPS format e Class based Multiple Master compatible metric and kerning editing with autospacing and autokerning e OpenType feature editing and testing e Import edit and generate OpenType Layout features e Import and export font metrics in PFM and AFM format e Professional level manual and automatic Type 1 and
236. ccording to a different encoding vector Or you can assign Unicode codepoints from one codepage to the currently selected different codepage if the Font window is in Codepages mode In this operation FontLab Studio takes encoded glyphs glyphs that are in the yellow zone of the Font window s glyph chart one by one and assigns names or Unicode codepoints from the encoding vector or codepage that you select To reencode glyphs select the Names or Codepages mode in the Font window Select the Names mode to assign new names and the Codepages mode to assign new Unicode codepoints Then select the Reencode Glyphs command from the Glyph gt Glyph Names menu Depending on the selected mode you will see one of the following dialog boxes Reencode Font Current codepage M5 Windows 1252 Latin 1 Select destination codepage MS Windows 1252 Latin 1 MS Windows 1250 E astern European MS Windows 1257 Cyrillic MS Windows 1253 Greek MS Windows 1254 Turkish MS Windows 1255 Hebrew MS Windows 1256 Arabic MS Windows 1257 Baltic Glyph names will be automatically recalculated during this operation Move glyphs to the new codepage Copy glyphs Re generate all Unicode indexes Codepage version of the Reencode Font dialog box 184 Reencode Font Current encoding Default Encoding Select destination encoding Imported Adobe Cyrillic Marc Adobe Standard Encoding Adobe Symbol Encoding Cochin 144 Default Encoding H
237. ce inside a character especially with a narrow character that has more than one vertical stem Take the character H as an example With normal fonts we usually use two double links to set the widths of vertical stems Because at all PPM sizes we will have enough space between stems we don t really care about white space But look what happens if we try to use the same technique with a narrow font At many PPMs the vertical stems are snapped together and the character becomes completely unreadable 755 756 We can however use only one double link then link the two stems together with a single link with a rounded distance and set the width of the right stem with a single link connected to the stem STITT The rounded distance of the single links cannot be less than one pixel so we will always have some white space between the stems To complete the hinting of this character we have to add a rounded single link to the right sidebearing point to make sure that the white space between our character and the next character does not disappear Hinting Serifs We recommend hinting serifs in the vertical direction by a single link command Serif single link _ gt If the serifs are thin then it s not necessary to attach their width to the standard stem width A single link with rounded distance will be enough Rounded single links cannot appear less than one pixel in length so the serif will never dis
238. ced Glyph Naming and Encoding section of the Editing Fonts chapter A contiguous set of ligature rules does not need to be ordered in any particular way by the font editor the implementation software does the appropriate sorting So sub f f by f_f sub f i by fi sub f f i by f_f_i sub o f f i by o_f_f_i will do the same thing as sub o f f i by o_f_f_i sub f f i by f_f_i sub f f by f_f sub f i by fi Alternate Substitution Alternate substitution replaces a glyph with one of the glyphs in a pre defined list of alternatives The application that uses the font is expected to decide which glyph to choose A good example of this lookup is to provide several versions of some glyph like the ampersand Another application is the selection of several different forms of ornaments An alternate substitution rule is specified as substitute lt glyph gt from lt glyphclass gt For example substitute ampersand from ampersand 1 ampersand 2 KEF or ornament variations substitute asterisk from orn 1 orn 2 orn 3 orn 4 859 860 Context Dependent Substitutions A context dependent rule can be any of the rules described above with one important difference it defines a context that must include a target sequence of glyphs or glyph classes In the simple form of say ligature substitution we simply write sub abc by D In context dependent substitution we can declare that abc which is a
239. ch the items in the Metrics kerning metrics Table are displayed table FontAudit If you turn the FontAudit layer on in View gt Show Layers this built in glyph checker will on the fly detect potential errors in your glyph geometry and highlight the problems with red arrows These options control which potential problems FontAudit should check against Empty lines and curves Vectors on closepaths Flat curves Collinear vectors Inflections on curves Weak extremum points Mormal extremum points Incorrect smooth connection Cusp and self intersecting curves Semi horizontal and vertical vectors Contour is nat closed Object is too short 87 88 Empty lines and curves Vectors on closepaths Inflections on curves Weak extremum points Normal extremum points Incorrect smooth connection Cusp and self intersecting curves Semi horizontal and vertical vectors Contour is not closed Object is too short Lines or curves that have no length I e two nodes on top of each other Unnecessary vectors that should be removed In Type 1 fonts this error can cause problems with rasterization Curves that can be replaced with a straight vector without loss of quality l e a curve that is really a straight line Two sequential vectors are collinear therefore the first vector can be removed Straight lines with extra nodes in the middle Detects curves that have inflections It is b
240. ck to the Outline layer simply by double clicking contours of the mask and outline The editing field background color will change accordingly showing you whether you are in the mask editing mode or not Mask Operations All operations related to the Mask layer appear in the Tools gt Mask menu Paste Mask to Outline Adds the contents of the mask layer to the outline The added part will be selected so you can start to work with it immediately Clear Mask Clears the mask layer removing all its contents Swap Outline with Mask Exchanges the Outline layer and the Mask layer 441 442 Assigning a Mask With this command you can take glyphs from one font and put them into the Mask layer of another font The glyphs of the fonts are linked using their names so the glyph with the name zero in the assigned font will be placed into the Mask layer of the glyph with the name zero in the font where the mask is being made When you select the Assign Font Mask command from the Tools gt Mask menu you will see the dialog box Assign Mask Choose Font that you want to use as mask of the current Font ArialMT ArialMT BellMT Myria dhIM Tr You have selected Font MyriadhM Ik ABCabc123 Assign all masters weight lt Width lt Create new glyphs if they do not exist in the Font Assign mask only to selected glyphs There is a list of all open fonts in the top of the dialog box Selec
241. code indexes later How FontLab Makes Unicode Indexes FontLab Studio uses a file STANDARD NAM that is a mapping file that contains a list of PostScript names and corresponding Unicode indexes When you import a Type 1 font and the option Generate Unicode indexes for all characters is on FontLab takes the name of every imported character and looks for it in the names database If it locates the name there it takes the associated Unicode index and adds it to the character s list of indexes Note 1 The Names database has more than 4000 records and includes almost all known names for all European Cyrillic Arabic and Hebrew languages and for most symbol and dingbats fonts Note 2 The names database is a text file that can be edited You can add new records to this file at any time Be very careful when you edit this file because incorrect records may make exported fonts unusable in some environments Note 3 It is possible to link more than one Unicode index to a name If FontLab Studio finds several indexes linked to the name it will assign all the indexes to the character Refer to the Encoding Modes section for a description of the multi Unicode indexing method For glyph names preceded with in the mapping file FontLab Studio will generate Unicode indexes based on these glyph names but will not generate glyph names for the Unicode indexes if the user chooses Glyph gt Glyph Names gt Generate Names In that operation only gly
242. code the first 256 characters means that reencoding is off All other options in the list let you select a remapping table to perform reencoding Export only first This option is enabled only if you choose one of the remapping 256 glyphs codepages in the list above When this option is on FontLab will export only glyphs whose codes are in the 0 255 range 107 108 Use following This is a hack used in older operating systems Windows codepage to build 95 98 to improve handling of single codepage non Latin cmap table fonts It is not required and not recommended but if you find that you need to use this hack to get your font to work in an old OS just switch on this option and re export the font Put MS Char Set Encoding information is stored in TrueType and OpenType value into fonts in a cmap table Every Windows TrueType font fsSelection field contains at least two of these tables One is the Unicode table and it assigns Unicode information to Glyphs The other is a single byte table that is used by older versions of the Mac OS and by some non Unicode compatible Windows programs Use the control to select the codepage that will be used to build this table There are two special options Mac OS Roman which is the codepage used on the Mac and the default choice or Current codepage in the Font Window which means that FontLab will use the encoding yellow zone currently selected in the Font window OpenType PS
243. coding options Automatically sort glyphs Open Type 1 Export Terminal Reset to default Use this page to customize font export options for the current font This page copies Options Type 1 export settings so you may refer there for the detailed description Switch on the Use default export options parameter to use default export options that are not font specific 263 TrueType Export Options TrueType export options a Use default export options Export hinted TrueType fort Keep existing TrueType instructions Export visual TrueType hints 4utohint unhinted glyphs Export embedded bitmaps Do not reorder glyphs Copy HOM data from base to composite glyph Use Unicode indexes as a base for TrueType encoding Use following codepage for first 256 glyphs Do not reencode first 256 characters wt Put MS Char Set value into fsSelection field Use following codepage to Build cmap 1 0 table Mac 0S Roman default vy _Autohintina Options Use this page to customize font export options for the current font This page copies Options TrueType export settings so you may refer there for the detailed description Switch on the Use default export options parameter to use default export options that are not font specific 264 TrueType Mapping Settings Mapping settings cmap table e Automatically add null CR and space characters If the Automatically Add option is on then FontLab Studio w
244. collection stored within a digital font file while a character is a text encoding codepoint used in text processing Glyphs are used to visualize characters Each font has a different glyph for the same character for example all the glyphs AAA A AAA Aareused to visually represent the same character A Unicode codepoint 0041 In short characters are codes glyphs are images Even within the same font there is no 1 1 relation between characters and glyphs The same glyph can be used to represent two characters the Latin letter A Unicode codepoint 0041 and the Cyrillic letter A Unicode codepoint 0410 0041 0410 A A On the other hand multiple glyphs can be used to represent the same character an OpenType font can include alternate glyphs 4 alti A alt2 swash A swash2 A swash3 A swashd A swashS swash A A AAAA AA A 131 132 Characters and Glyphs in FontLab Studio When a text editor displays text on screen using a font a process of character to glyph mapping must occur The application sends a request to the font rasterizer for a rendering of a character code The font rasterizer looks up the character code in the character mapping table that is included in the font The mapping table maps character codes to glyph indexes of individual glyphs Then the rasterizer located the glyph using its glyph index in the glyph collection of the font Finally the rasterizer pro
245. compare sidebearings and shapes of all glyphs of the group And more you can quickly open any of the glyphs in the group simply by double clicking its outline The view of the grouped glyphs are fully customizable on the Glyph Window gt Shape groups and neighbors page of the Options dialog box For example to place the grouped glyphs vertically use the following setting Shift glyphs in the shape group o x So of UPMI To change the opacity of the grouped glyphs use this control Shape group opacity So When the Glyph Window is active and you open the Preview panel you can see the preview of the current glyph group Select the Glyph Group command in the Preview Options menu anak WaterFall Glyph Group t Show Metrics in Vertical Orientation PTL Right to Left The group for the current glyph C in our sample will appear Double clicking any of the group members will open it in the current Glyph window for editing 453 454 Neighbors To see glyphs belonging to one neighbors group in the Glyph window select the Neighbors command from the View gt Show Layers menu Neighbors of the current glyph defined in the neighbors txt file will appear Every glyph may have only two neighbors defined Neighbors allow you to look at your current glyph in a context If kerning is defined for neighbor glyphs they are shown with kerning You may switch this feature off on the Glyph Window gt Shape groups and
246. corner node between two curve segments into a curve node and a corner node between a curve segment and a straight segment into a tangent node see the section Connections above A smooth connection between two straight segments does not exist it is always a sharp connection also it usually constitutes a collinear vector and should be simplified into just one segment To visually emphasize the connection type smooth or sharp of all nodes you can enable the Connections layer View gt Show Layers gt Connections If enabled additional connection symbols appear next to each node A small x next to the node indicates a sharp connection a small o next to the node indicates a smooth connection In older FontLab versions the node symbols indicated only the type of the incoming segment in contour direction order A square node symbol indicated that the incoming segment was straight a round node symbol that it was a curve segment The connection type was always indicated by the additional x or o symbol next to the node To restore this behavior in FontLab Studio disable the option Node shape shows point and connection type in Tools gt Options gt Glyph window gt Appearance 347 348 Outline Appearance You can view an outline in contoured or filled mode These modes are equivalent for all editing operations but the filled mode is a little bit slower However in the filled mode you always s
247. corresponding lowercase letter substitute A Z a smcp z smcp by a z Example 3 This calls a ligature substitution lookup The rule below means in sequences et c or e init t c substitute the first two glyphs by the ampersand substitute e e init t c by ampersand 861 862 Specifying Exceptions to the Context Rule Exceptions to a chaining contextual substitution rule are expressed by inserting a statement of the following form anywhere before the chaining contextual rule and in the same lookup as it ignore substitute lt marked glyph sequence gt lt marked glyph sequence gt The keywords ignore substitute are followed by a comma separated list of lt marked glyph sequence gt s At most one sub run of glyphs or glyph classes may be marked in each lt marked glyph sequence gt by a single quote following each glyph or glyph class This marked sub run when present is taken to correspond to the input sequence of that rule This generally means that it should correspond to the place where substitution would have occurred had the sequence not been an exception see examples below This is necessary for the OpenType layout engine to correctly handle skipping this sequence When no glyphs are marked then only the first glyph or glyph class is taken to be marked The ignore substitute statement works by creating subtables in the GSUB that tell the OT layout engine simply to match the specified sequenc
248. ct that converts Fontographer fog files into FontLab Studio compatible vfb files retaining not only outline information but also mask layers guidelines background bitmaps etc Creating a New Font If you want to create a new font from scratch you select the New command from the File menu FontLab Studio will create an empty font that will not have any characters and will open an empty Font Window You can use an existing vfb file as a new font template for all new fonts that are created You can do this in Tools gt Options gt Font Window gt Templates Use Following template Font to initialize new Fonts Enable the option and select the vfb file to use as the new font template by pressing the button Whenever you create a new font the selected new font template will open Remember that after the new font template opens you should choose File gt Save As and save the file under a different name When you have created a new font it is a good idea to first go to File gt Font Info gt Names and Copyright fill in the Family Name and the Style Name even if they are temporary Then press Build Names you can fill in the remaining Font Info entries later Then click on OK choose File gt Save As and save the new font in the vfb format under a new filename in a folder of your choice Now you can start to create your glyphs in the Font Window design them in the Glyph Window letterspace them in the Metrics Window
249. ct the Generate Names command in the Glyph gt Glyph Names menu FontLab Studio will use the name Unicode database to automatically find names for glyphs whose Unicode codepoints are in the database Note that if more than one name is linked to the Unicode codepoint FontLab Studio will use the one that is first in the database If some of the glyphs don t have any Unicode codepoints FontLab Studio will try to keep their names unchanged Use the following option in the dialog box to control this feature Try to keep existing glyph names You may generate names for selected glyphs if you use the following option Sool only to selected glyphs Removing Unicode Information If you want to reset the Unicode information in your font select the Clear Unicode command from the Glyph gt Glyph Names menu All Unicode information will be removed from all glyphs in the font This operation cannot be applied to selection You may selectively remove Unicode codepoints from glyphs selected in the Font window 1 2 Select the glyphs Right click the selection and choose the Remove Unicode command from the More submenu of the context menu width Copy Ctrl Delete Delete Mark Sort glyphs j aiii Select 45 Default Edit in new window Remove Unicode aye Edit metrics E Add Note Properties Alk Enter Select encoding Macro j Transform CErl T Transform Range Ctrl Sh T FontLab Studio will remove the Unicode codepoi
250. cted instance as when master WtO Wd0 is active and both sliders are in the leftmost positions the filled preview will appear in black because it precisely corresponds to the active master 785 786 To preview the active master in black press the Align button in the Axis panel Switch on the Auto Align check box to make alignment of the intermediate preview to the active master automatic so that when you select another master as active the preview will automatically follow it and you will see a filled preview of the master that you are working on The button allows you to quickly preview primary instances defined for the font on the Multiple Master Settings page of the Font Info dialog box This button is disabled if no instances were defined Extrapolation The Axis panel allows you to select not only design coordinates that are within the axis dynamic range but to go beyond that point thus extrapolating the master designs If one of the values is out of defined dynamic range the editing control background turns yellow Weight a u ama Anisotropic Interpolation Click on the button in the Axis panel to open the anisotropic interpolation dialog box x Y Axis Interpolation Select the Als pesme eS o a n 3 io i Cancel Select the axis in the list at the top and use the graph to define the relationship between X and Y interpolation 787 788 The X axis on the graph represent
251. cter and should be in the 0 65535 O FFFFh range The special Unicode codepoint OxFFFF is used to define codes that are not mapped to any character Using the Font Window The glyph chart in the Font window is a visual representation of all the glyphs in the font To modify the font you have to learn how to use the glyph chart navigate select glyphs and select commands 159 Navigating One of the glyphs in the Font window is the current glyph It is specially highlighted You can see the current glyph name and its Unicode codepoint in the bottom command bar Glyph A 0041 Selected 1 1030 To view different parts of the font in the Font window you can either use the vertical scroll bar or the auto scroll mode if you place the mouse anywhere in the chart press the mouse button and move the mouse cursor above the top or bottom of the chart it will scroll up or down accordingly selecting the glyphs You can also use the Space key to scroll the Font window Press the space key press the mouse button and drag the mouse to scroll the window vertically If you have a wheel on your mouse you can use it to scroll the Font window vertically Alternatively you can use the keyboard keys to navigate in the font chart Arrow keys Moves the current glyph highlight one cell right left up ene or down according to the Key USO cnsnnsintinninan Ctri Right arrow Moves 2 cells right Ctrl Left arrow Moves 2 cells left Home Moves
252. ctions for many glyphs at once if you use the Transform dialog box Open the Transform dialog box with the Tools gt Actions command and select the Convert to Instructions command in the Hints and Guidelines section 741 742 Hinting Sidebearings With FontLab Studio s TrueType hinting tool you can set instructions that will control the horizontal position of a character s sidebearings This gives you precise control over a character s metrics at small PPM sizes In the editing field of the Glyph window you can see yellow marks that designate sidebearing points There are left and right sidebearing points The left mark controls the position of the left sidebearing and the right mark controls the right sidebearing 3 Sidebearing points are always aligned in the horizontal direction You may apply any command to the right sidebearing point but the left point can be used only as a source of links or interpolate commands By moving the right sidebearing point you can control the amount of white space at the right side of the character Usually the position of the right sidebearing point is controlled by a rounded single link command or by a final delta instruction Because the length of the single link with rounded distance cannot be less than one pixel you can set this command and be sure that left or right whitespace will never disappear Both sidebearing points may be used as sources of any command just like any other
253. currently does not support e GSUB lookup type 2 Multiple substitution e g a b gt c d e GPOS lookup types 3 Cursive attachment positioning 4 Mark to Base attachment positioning 5 Mark to Ligature attachment positioning 6 Mark to Mark attachment positioning 7 Contextual positioning 8 Chaining contextual positioning 835 836 We plan to support these OpenType specification elements in future but currently if you need to build OpenType fonts that support any of these specification elements you need to create your OpenType Layout features using Microsoft VOLT which is a free application available from http www microsoft com typography VOLT mspx In such case you can still use FontLab Studio to design the glyphs to create the subset of OpenType Layout features that does not use the unsupported specification elements and to generate the OpenType font Then just use VOLT to add the missing bits A detailed list of OpenType lookup types not supported by FontLab Studio can be found at http partners adobe com public developer opentype afdko topic_feature_fil e_syntax html Importing OpenType Fonts There is nothing special about importing OpenType fonts use the File gt Open command to open files with ttf extension OpenType TT fonts or otf extension OpenType PS fonts To read OpenType features make sure that this option is active in the Tools gt Options gt Opening OpenType amp TrueType page
254. cuts 42 Knife 331 370 language 91 820 830 system 829 L Latvian 129 License 236 LID 229 ligature creating 511 substitution 857 Line Gap 247 Links 475 709 editing 479 Lithuanian 129 Lock 52 lookup 834 lookupflag 832 Lookups 819 LowestRecPPem 270 M Mac OS 17 223 246 301 Mac OS X 100 300 Macintosh 93 118 129 138 139 Macro 122 Tool 890 Toolbar 886 893 Magic Wand 331 397 492 Make Master 625 mapping 29 69 102 128 file 91 folder 189 marking glyphs 178 mask 333 439 assigning 442 editing 440 Mask layer 75 123 Mask to Master 794 master assigning 793 master font 765 designing 790 selecting 783 Masters Panel 60 measure 437 measurement line 77 medi 871 menu 28 customization 37 Merge Contours 417 Merging Fonts 202 Meter 52 Meter mode 436 Meter Panel 53 75 Meter tool 75 metrics 467 automatic generation 564 editing 468 553 files 531 importing 610 manual editing 555 opening files 610 printing 613 property panel 471 567 saving files 612 tools 55 Metrics mode 57 553 Metrics Panel 58 Metrics window 54 86 295 532 customization 85 Microsoft 92 129 266 Identification 243 Middle Delta 723 751 middledot 103 Mirror 621 Mirror Metrics 621 MM 769 Monotype Imaging 73 122 Mouse 31 Move Node 456 462 moving nodes 356 selection 407 MS DOS 145 Multiple Master 20 68 77 90 475 765 metrics 801 printing 2
255. d 215 wk 300 wd 215 wt 600 wd 215 wt 700 wd 400 wt 300 wd 400 wt 700 wd 565 wt 300 wd 565 wt 600 vd 565 wk 700 wd 700 wt 300 wd 700 wt 600 wd 700 wt 700 wd 830 wt 300 wd 4 805 Here is the list of the panel s buttons and their meaning I Allows you to rename the instance selected in the list The name of an instance is used as style name for a font generated with the Generate Instance command Adds new instance to the list according to the design selected in the Font Info dialog box of x Removes all primary instances defined for the font This command will require confirmation Closes the panel Press the Apply button in the Font Info dialog box to set the current intermediate design as the font s default vector 806 Editing the Axis Graph You can edit an axis graph for every axis defined in a MM font As we said before the axis graph is used to set the dynamic range of the axis so it is always necessary to adjust it To edit an axis graph select the Tools gt Multiple Master gt Edit Axis Graph command The Axis Graph dialog box appears Axis Graph Choose the axis to modify Weight 400 500 Current position 256 Te lc 807 808 To edit a graph 1 Select an axis whose graph you want to edit in the axis list located at the top area of the dialog box Position the mouse cur
256. d on page 511 is used 847 848 gt Tip If you import a feature definition file from an existing large OpenType font into your font and use this operation FontLab Studio will automatically generate all the glyphs that are needed to support that feature definition file This way you can easily match another font s character set If you hold down the CTRL key when you are clicking the button to compile the features FontLab Studio will compile the features and decompile the resulting binary tables as if you had imported them from an OpenType font file Compiling the Classes There are two set of classes text based class definitions made in the feature definition language and located in the bottom field of the OpenType panel and FontLab Studio glyph classes that are represented in the Classes panel for more information about the Classes panel please refer to page 583 It is natural to provide a link between these classes Use the following option in the Tools gt Options gt General Options gt Unicode and OpenType dialog box Unicode and OpenType Add all glyph dasses to OpenType feature definition code Do not add metrics classes to automatically include all FontLab Studio classes into the compiled feature definition code Please note that FontLab Studio will import all OpenType classes when an OpenType font is imported and will place them in the OpenType panel and FontLab Studio Classes panel so when you use this
257. d or yellow Additional colors may appear if the user used the Mark command to color mark the glyph cells A grey cell background means an empty glyph This means that the glyph does not exist in the font and that the glyph cell is displaying a glyph placeholder The placeholder usually consists of a glyph template image FontLab Studio 5 ships with a very extensive set of pre installed default glyph template images These are based on the Andale Mono WTG font courtesy of Monotype Imaging http www monotypeimaging com and cover the entire Unicode 3 2 character set Note that the default glyph template images are low resolution monospaced and in a sanserif style They should not be used as direct source of information about the typographically correct shape of glyphs but only as an orientation You can select another set of glyph template images in Tools gt Options gt Font Window gt Templates page refer to the FontLab Studio Options section for details A white cell background means that a glyph exists in the font If the glyph cell background is white and there is no image in it we speak of a blank glyph A blank glyph means that the glyph exists in the font but does not contain any outlines or components If the white cell includes a pale grey image it means that the glyph there is a bitmap background in the glyph but no outline or components If the cell includes a black image it means that the glyph exis
258. de Adieresis Aring 7 glyphs in this kerning class Accept Repeat the procedure to define a class for T like glyphs Important After making any changes to a class definition click the ENTER key on the keyboard or the Accept button on the Classes panel Key Glyph Kerning classes must include a declaration of the key glyph that is used as a kerning master for other glyphs in the class To define a key glyph add a single quote after its name in the class definition text A A A Agrayve acute circumflex A A A Atilde Adiereasis Aring A 4 Agrave dacute Acircumflex Atilde Adieresis Aring After you accept the changes made in the class definition string the key glyph will get a yellow background in the preview panel 589 590 Rearranging Classes and Glyphs You can easily rearrange classes in the class list by dragging them to a new place Also you can copy glyphs from one class to another using the drag drop method 1 2 3 Select the glyphs in the source class Drag them to the class list Drag over the classes list until the destination class is selected Move the mouse cursor to the glyph palette and release the button you will see that the glyphs are added to the destination class Editing Class Based Kerning To define kerning for a class you need to define the kerning for the key glyph of the class using the standard tools of the Metrics panel in kerning mode When you enter
259. defines the metrics or kerning for the key glyph and then automatically or semi automatically the changes are propagated to the remaining glyphs in the class A metrics or kerning class may not contain more than one key glyph All non key glyphs are called dependent glyphs or child glyphs The class definition appears in the bottom part of the panel and you can edit it to add or remove glyphs Defining the Class Click on the 7 button to define a new class From the flyout menu select New Kerning Class New Metrics Class or New OpenType Class Choose New Kerning Class You will see a default class name appear in the list of classes and in the class definition panel _kernt You can manually enter glyph names that you want to add to the class after a colon glyph _kern1 A Acaron or you can drag drop glyphs from the Font Window to append their names to the class gt Tip Use the Edit gt Find command to quickly find all glyphs which have names begin with A Find Glyph AcircumFlex Adieresis grave Total amp v Create unexisting glyph Click on the Select button to select all the glyphs found 587 588 It s time to rename the class Use the class definition panel and change _kern1 to _A Click on the Accept button Your Classes panel should now look something like this A A Al Agrave Aacube Acircurmbles A KOK Atilde Adieresis Aring A 4 Agrave acute Acircumflex Atil
260. depending on the currently selected Round distance option Round distance Rounding distances is the default option for this command because it usually gives better control of the position of the destination point There is a special kind of single link called the aligned single link It can be described as a combination of a single link and the Align command on the linked point You can t set a normal Align command at the end of the link but you can use an aligned link in this case To make a link aligned switch on the Round destination option on the Options panel _ Round destination Aligned single links use the current Align mode 711 712 To set a single link 1 Select the single link tool 2 Position the cursor on the base point Don t forget that the position of the base point must be set by an instruction 3 Press the left mouse button and drag the mouse to the point that you want to link A circle will highlight it Release the button Hold the Suirr key down if you do not want to connect the single link to a standard stem width If you hold the Suirt key the stem settings in the Options panel will not work If the base point of the link is not aligned by some other command FontLab Studio will automatically set an Align command on it Hold down the CTRL key if you want to prevent this In the Glyph Window the single link command appears as a directed line with a mark in the middle The mark is yellow i
261. described above With the glyphs member you may perform several operations like adding a new glyph g Glyph fl font glyphs append g This example will append a new glyph to the font To remove all the glyphs in the font use this method fl font glyphs clean Other members of the Font class represent Font Header data and you can get a list of them using the following operation print Font __doc__ Two methods of the Font class relate to FontLab Studio internal format Open filename opens font from VFB format Save filename saves font in VFB format These operations are not connected to the FontLab Studio UI so you may use them with fonts created inside a Python program and not connected to the FontLab Studio system 899 900 Glyph The Glyph class represents the glyph as a data structure in FontLab Studio The most important members are listed in the following table parent Glyph s parent object the Font index Index of the glyph in the font it is 1 if the glyph is not connected to the font nodes List of nodes Each element of the list is an object of the Node type customdata A string type data that may be attached to the glyph This data is stored to the FontLab Studio font file VFB so you can use it to define glyph properties that are not supported by FontLab Studio note Note defined for this glyph string type mark Color code for the glyph mark or zero if glyph is not marked anchors List of ancho
262. dialog box les Save jn O WINDOWS em CCS java ia Cursors jLastGood B Debug C Last ood Tmp io Driver Cache Media O ehome Microsoft NET B Fonts 3 Minidurnp Help C msagent ene C msapps in oy msdownld tmp _yInstaller mui L File name utrg nview 2 PCHEALTH Photo Fonts gt Prefetch Profiles C RegisteredPackage Registration repair Resources security save d Save as lype FortLab vib x Fant name Choose the destination folder enter the file name and click Save to save your font in FontLab format vfb See the Generating Fonts chapter to know how to save fonts in other formats Autosave If you want to protect yourself from system or program crashes you can use the Autosave function that will periodically save the current font To activate and customize this feature open the Tools gt Options dialog box and select the General Options gt Open amp Save page You will see the Autosave controls Autosave fonts every 10 minutes Use the check box to activate Autosave and enter the time interval in minutes at which you want to save the font Font will be saved into the Autosave folder within the Application user data folder typically My Documents FontLab Studio5 and will be named using the following structure flsX save vfb where fls are the first 3 letters of Font Name and the X is some unique value If Autosave was ac
263. diate Design Designing Masters Match Masters Operation Rearranging Masters Multiple Master Metrics Editing Axis Settings Removing an Axis Multiple Master and Font Info Editing the Axis Graph Generating a Single Master Font Expanding the Master Hinting Multiple Master Fonts Generating a Multiple Master Type 1 Font OPENTYPE FONTS Font Features Features and Lookups 744 745 746 747 749 750 751 751 753 755 757 758 760 762 763 765 766 769 14 Scripts and Languages OpenType Font Formats What Format to Prefer OpenType Tables Feature Definition Language Language Syntax OpenType and FontLab Studio Importing OpenType Fonts OpenType Panels OpenType Panel Adding and Removing Features Reordering Features Entering the Glyph and Class Names Renaming Glyphs and Classes Compiling the Feature Definitions The Output Panel OpenType Features Sample Panel Converting the Kerning Feature Development Process Substitution Lookups Single Substitution Ligature Substitution Alternate Substitution Context Dependent Substitutions Positioning Lookups Glyph Geometry Value Record Single Positioning Pair Positioning Known Features OpenType Glyph Properties Caret Positioning Generating OpenType Fonts FontLab Studio and VOLT MACRO PROGRAMMING The Python Programming Language Installing Python Macro Toolbar Assign to Keyboard Integrating into Menus 820 821 822 822 823 824 835 837
264. diate on curve points do not exist explicitly but are implied by the rasterizer Off curve points TrueType curves end with points that look exactly like straight segment points Off curve points of the TrueType curves have a plus in black white mode or light blue in color mode appearance Connections The type of connection between segments is very important if you want to keep the contour smooth at appropriate nodes There are two types of connections sharp and smooth At a sharp connection the two connected segments curve and curve or straight segment and curve are absolutely free in their angle relative to each other at the connecting node At a smooth connection the direction of the straight segment and the control vector of a curve or the control vectors of two sequential curves are kept collinear lie on the same straight line I e the angle between the two segments at the node is fixed at 180 degrees a Smooth connection ee 7 7 ls 1 Sharp connection It is very important to maintain the smoothness of the glyph s contours at the appropriate places Small corners sharp connections that are invisible when glyphs are small become visible and ugly when you print large text Furthermore rasterizing programs that convert outline glyphs into bitmap images on paper do not like outlines where sharp connections are present in places where the outline should be smooth Z Note A quick wa
265. dio is the same as the one used in ScanFont and BitFonter applications Pixel Tracing To trace bitmap with the simple pixel based algorithm use the Trace Pixels command in the Tools gt Background menu FontLab Studio will trace bitmap pixels using straight segments only not curves You can achieve the similar result using the FontFlasher utility for creating pixel fonts Note that the pixels do not overlap each other and some pairs of nodes may have the same coordinates You may want to further edit the result manually In this algorithm the outline depends completely on the size of pixels in the bitmap If the bitmap is quite smooth you will get too many nodes on the outline 451 452 Shape Groups and Neighbors In FontLab Studio you can define special groups of glyphs that we call shape groups and neighbors The shape groups and neighbors are useful in the process of working with glyphs that have common design For example glyphs C O G Q are quite similar and may be designed at the same time as a group Shape Groups To see glyphs belonging to one shape group in the Glyph window select the Shape Group command from the View gt Show Layers menu Yo connections LErl oh t_ kn Ca wig Mode Positions iti Shape aoup Esi Neighbors o Font udit Ctrl Sh F If the current glyph belongs to a group other glyphs from that group will appear grey in the background You can now visually
266. dio needs to choose a scaling factor to fit the font unit space in the Glyph Window This is done by always fitting the Visual ascender is to the top of the Glyph Window and fitting the Visual descender to the bottom of the window If you think that the 100 zoom level shows you a too small portion of your glyph because for example your font has extremely long ascenders and descenders you can increase these values This is only a visual setting and does not modify and metric information in the font Duplicate offset This setting controls the distance in font units by which outlines are duplicated Copy Paste offset This setting controls the distance in font units by which outlines are moved when the user does copy paste Grid step This setting controls the grid step in font units You can show hide the grid and enable snapping to grid from the View menu Snap to distance If any of the editing layers has the snap to property turned on moving a node will cause it to snap to the objects on that particular layer if the distance between the node and the object is not larger than the distance in pixels specified here Tip Enabling snap to grid and increasing the snap to distance may be helpful when designing pixel fonts Shift arrow keys This setting defines the distance in font units by which increment objects are moved when SHIFT ARROW keys are used Colors Grid Guidelines Horizontal metrics Global guidelines
267. dit tool you will see the sample string automatically updated to show the new shapes of the virtual composites The panel contains two buttons to the right of the anchors list 4 _ Click this button to get to the Generate Glyphs dialog box and create new composite glyphs RT When this button is pressed the anchors panel previews text in right to left mode which is useful if you are working with Arabic or Hebrew glyphs Right clicking on the virtual composite allows you to create a glyph after a command is selected in the popup menu 509 The dialog box appears allowing you to name the new glyph Generate Glyph Enter the name For the generated glyph Replace the glyph if it already exists in the Font Name the new glyph click OK and the composite glyph will be added to the font and opened in the current Glyph window 510 Creating Composites and Ligatures Another way to create real composite glyphs from the base and accent glyphs is to use the Generate Glyphs command from the Glyph menu Generate Glyphs Glyph names separated by space or comma C caron 4 dieresis Decompose ligatures Ligatures are right to left Create glyphs even if they already exist Mark new glyphs Replace existing glyphs cancel In the dialog box enter the composite name using the simple syntax base glyph name or composition recipe result glyph nam
268. diting of the document The font may be embedded and the document that is allowed contains the font may be viewed printed and edited Additional options Allow subsetting and Bitmap embedding only are available 233 234 Copyright Note We decided to allow modification of the embedding setting only because we are sure that the users of FontLab Studio are professionals who respect others rights to intellectual property We assume that you will change the embedding setting only in your own fonts You are not allowed to change this setting in fonts that were created by somebody else Even if according to the font license you can modify the font for your own use you must not increase the embedding rights for a font So if embedding is not allowed leave it as it is Designer Information Information about font designer e Designer Somebody at FontLab Designer UAL http Awm fontlab com Vendor UAL http Awe fontlab com O This page stores information about the font s designer Do not modify this data if you open an existing font to modify for personal use Designer name 9 Name of font designer Designer URL name 12 A new entry implemented only in TrueType format It is the WWW link to the designer of the font Vendor URL name 11 This TrueType only entry shows the WWW link to the site of the font vendor Use the buttons to the right of the Designer URL and Vendor URL controls to open pages in a
269. dow Highlight all key When enabled all glyphs that are defined as key glyphs in the glyphs Classes panel are highlighted Highlight all When enabled all glyph combinations that have kerning pairs kerning pairs defined will be highlighted in the Metrics Window using a short horizontal line below the glyphs When disabled the line will not be shown Apply text When the user clicks on a kerning pair on the Metrics Table template FontLab Studio automatically displays a text template that presents the kerning pair in context of other glyphs if this option is enabled When disabled FontLab Studio will not display the additional text Keep existing If the Class kerning setting is active in Metrics Window and exceptions this option is disabled modifying a pair of dependent glyphs that had an exception defined will remove that exception If enabled the exceptions will be kept Background Changes the background color of the Metrics Window Foreground Changes the color of the glyphs displayed in the Metrics Window Dependant pairs Changes the color of the glyphs displayed in the Metrics Window that are dependant glyphs in classes Font to use in the Customize the font to use in the preview combo box preview combo box Move focus to Disable it to preventing the text cursor jump the sample string sample string when Metrics window is opened when Metrics window is opened Sort items in the Controls the sorting order by whi
270. dths press the P Auto stems sation How FontLab Studio Calculates Standard Stems FontLab Studio can calculate standard stem widths only if some characters in the font have Type 1 hints so it converts links to hints first in memory using the most important glyphs in the font 1 It builds a table of all hints that are used in the font sorts this table by frequency of usage and selects the most frequently used hints 2 All selected hints are then compared with these most frequently occurring stem widths and hints with widths that are close together are combined into a single record 3 The list is then sorted again The most frequently used elements are then selected and used as standard stems Additional Control Data Some additional data may be set to control the hinting process BlueScale Controls PPM when overshoot suppression is switched off BlueShift Gives more precise control over overshoot description and flex hints see below BlueFuzz Expands alignment zones in both directions You can set all these values on the Additional Hinting Parameters page of the Font Info dialog box Type 1 hinting global hinting parameters Set values For the master FE threshold 0 5 Blue Scale is equal to 00479582 Blueshift 7 BlueFuzz 1 Automatically generate Flex hints in T1 and OT FS Fonts BlueScale is the PPM size at which overshoot suppression is switched off If PPM is less than BlueScale then oversho
271. duces the image of the glyph at a specified size and sends it back to the application Find glyph in font O I I e associated with Produce each code image of Store text the glyph as codes 0068006F006D0065 As discussed earlier captions of glyph cells in FontLab Studio may display various kinds of information The following ones represent important properties of glyphs that are all involved one way or the other in the character to glyph mapping process The glyph index represents the physical location of the glyph in the font s collection of glyphs The glyph with the index 0 is physically the first glyph in the font Some applications such as Adobe InDesign display the physical order of glyphs in a Glyph Palette so it is wise to keep control of the glyph order The glyphname is a short text identifier for the glyph For example the glyphname for the character a is a and for the character is adieresis It is a good idea to assign meaningful glyph names to all glyphs in your font regardless of the font format They are mandatory in Type 1 Multiple Master and OpenType PS fonts Theoretically they can be omitted in TrueType or OpenType TT fonts it is a good idea to use them everywhere In most situations FontLab Studio automatically assigns glyph names to glyphs when you create a new glyph so you don t need to worry about them too much However many user interface elements of FontLab Studio use glyph names as the p
272. e 24 bit integer Using the Copy T1 UID button you can copy the Type 1 Unique ID value into this field Typeface family This is a family code assigned by HP Boise Division Refer to code HP manuals for more information TypeFamily vendor This is another vendor code assigned by the HP Boise Division code Choose one of values in the list PCLT Metrics and Font Description PCLT metrics and font description 4 gt Width Normal w Posture Upright w Structure Solid normal black w Strokeweight 0 Book text regular etc l ka SenStyle Sans Serif Square v Sans Serf Monoline Serif Contrasting WidthTyoe 0 Normal Pitch 569 x Height 1062 CapHeight 1466 Recalc Width The appearance width Select one of the options in the list Posture The slant of the glyphs Could be upright italic oblique or reversed italic Structure The structure of the glyph s interior Select one of the options in the list StrokeWeight Weight of the font This value is related to the Weight parameter on the basic names page SerifStyle Style of the glyph s serifs This is related to the PANOSE settings Use the Recalc button to calculate values automatically using information from other pages WidthType PCL appearance width value Select one of the options in the list Pitch The width of the space in font units xHeight The height of the optical line describing the height of the lowercase x in font units T
273. e A composition recipe includes one or more base glyph names separated by commands There are two commands used _ underscore appends following glyph to the right The _ command is used for creating ligature glyphs like fl ffl or others For example f_l fl f_i fi c_t ct 511 512 plus appends following glyph as component of the composite glyph For example C caron Ccaron A dieresis Adieresis You may enter more than one name separated by a space or colon In the composition recipe the command may be followed by one or two alignment commands align component to the uppercase position donot move component vertically lt align component to the left of the base glyph gt align component to the right of the base glyph center component horizontally For example A gt dot Adot Add the number after alignment commands to additionally shift the component For example A 200cedilla Acedilla Use instead of to decompose created composite glyph For example A ring Aringdecomposed Click on the button to view full description of the commands syntax used in the dialog box Check the Decompose ligatures option below the names field to paste all the components outlines and make a decomposed glyph mon OO Check the Ligatures are right to left option below the names field to reverse the order of components in ligatures If this option is on you will
274. e height of the O will be 9 pixels One pixel difference at this height means 8 Much more than the Original 2 To avoid such an excessive difference between the rasterized heights of the two types of characters overshoots are suppressed and the size of O is forced equal to the height of H at small PPM This is done by declaring alignment zones that define the bottom and top positions of the zone in our example the height of H and O and the alignment direction bottom or top Top alignment zone Bottom alignment zone At small PPMs all points that have vertical positions inside the zone will be aligned to the primary line i e moved in the direction of the alignment zone 659 Editing Alignment Zones To set or edit alignment zones open the Font Info dialog box and select the Hinting settings item in the list at the left Type 1 and TrueType hinting alignment zones Set alignment For the Set local alignment zones Set Family alignment zones Primary zones Secondary zones 200 194 261 266 e GG JE There are two list boxes where alignment zones may be set the Primary zones list and the Secondary zones list Primary Zones Secondary Zones ku Je Jie In Type 1 terminology primary zones are called BlueValues and secondary zones OtherBlues BlueValues include one bottom alignment zone the so called baseline zone and up to 6 top alignment zones The baseline zone is
275. e contours so that all contours have the contour direction prescribed by the font format To reverse all contours in the glyph i e change the direction of every contour in the glyph to the opposite use the Reverse All Paths command in the Contour gt Paths menu Use the Curves to PostScript and Curves to TrueType commands in the Contour gt Convert menu to convert glyph s outline to 3 4 order curves or 2nd order curves respectively These commands only convert curves but do not change their direction so you may need to use the Set PS Direction and Set TT Direction commands later Note You can select multiple glyphs or all glyphs in the Font Window and apply the commands to many glyphs at a time You can also use Actions or Action Sets to apply the commands in batch mode Outline Optimization With the Optimize command FontLab Studio tries to automatically adjust the outline to remove unnecessary elements and correct others To perform optimization use the Optimize command in the Contour menu Optimization does three things 1 Removes unnecessary curve and line segments 2 Aligns vertical and horizontal lines that are not precisely directed 3 Corrects the connection types of lines and curves You can control the optimize features with the Font Audit section of the Options dialog box Optimizer Outline simplification level Process normally Ww Auto aligament level Process normally Ww Outline Controls cu
276. e new feature named xxxx will appear in the list and the generic feature definition text will be posted to the feature editor feature xxxx sub by XXXX When you change the xxxx name to something real the name in the list will be updated automatically Do not forget to make the ending name the same as the beginning name or the feature definition will not compile To remove the feature select it in the list and click on the T button Reordering Features The order of features is sometimes important For example if you have the ligature feature and the small caps feature they must be applied in a pre defined order the small caps feature should come first and only after that may ligatures be applied To reorder the features simply drag drop feature names in the list i dpng frac Hist Entering the Glyph and Class Names All features contain glyph names You can enter them on the keyboard but it s faster to use the drag drop method 1 Select the glyph in the Font window or in the Classes panel whose name you want to enter 2 Press the left mouse button and drag the cursor to the feature definition field The position where the name will be inserted is highlighted with the editing caret 3 Select the destination position and release the mouse button to insert the glyph name If more than one glyph was selected for drag drop operation all the glyph names will be inserted separated by spaces and surr
277. e the Type 1 font will be generated with custom encoding if Tools gt Options gt Generating Type 1 gt Encoding options is set to any value except Always write Standard Encoding These encodings can be used as the source of encoding for single codepage non Western Type fonts e g Mac Cyrillic or Windows Greek If you re creating a non Western Type font make sure to select the appropriate encoding here and also set the matching character set in File gt Font Info gt Encoding and Unicode gt Microsoft Character Set and Mac script and FOND ID Only a combination of the correct encoding in the Font Window and the correct character set setting in Font Info will give you a working non Western Type 1 font Example encodings in this group MS Windows 1251 Encoding for a Windows Cyrillic Type 1 font Cyrillic Adobe Symbol Encoding for fonts that include mathematical and symbol characters defined by Adobe Imported Encoding If Tools gt Options gt Opening Type 1 gt Find matching encoding table if possible is enabled when FontLab Studio opens a custom encoded Type 1 font it will try to match the font s encoding to known custom encodings If the encoding cannot be matched Imported is shown The Imported encoding will also appear if the user opens a vfb file that uses an encoding not present on this user s machine The user can choose Glyph gt Glyph Names gt Save Encoding to save the imported encod
278. e Optimizes the outline Align to Guides Move all nodes on to guidelines hints or grid if they are sufficiently close to them This command will snap nodes only to the guiding layers that are currently visible Most of these commands can be applied to many glyphs at a time if you select a number of glyphs in the Font Window Commands marked with the sign in the Contour menu are tools and were not included in the table above 418 Creating Contours FontLab Studio has two commands that can help you automatically create contours These commands are Expand Path and Make Parallel Path Both commands will take one or more existing contours and create new ones using some options Expand Path This command will use contours as a trajectory for parallel contours or for the paintbrush Path is expanded with parallel contour Path is expanded with the shaped brush To use this operation first select the contours to which you want it to apply All contours that have at least one node selected will be processed If nothing is selected the whole glyph contour will be taken 419 420 Select the Contour gt Paths gt Expand Path command in the menu You will see a dialog box that lets you select options Expand Stroke Simple stroke Stroke width 40 height E vi Uniform _ Brush tracing 40 amp Soe First choose between Simple Stroke and Brush Tracing In the first case you may just set the Wid
279. e Preview panel now OpenType Features Preview Anchors 2 OD Fl Namburgevon High quality rendering provided by the FreeType library is used to show glyphs in the preview panel so the visual resolution is higher than the pixel resolution of your screen and is close to what you can get on some printers In preview mode the preview panel shows the glyph string in the top area of the window hamburngevons Ww You can type any text in this area or you can drag drop glyphs selected in the Font Window or in the Classes panel To preview a glyph that cannot be easily encoded by a single keyboard character enter the slash character and then the name of the glyph Jexclamdown asterisk breverrind Kye i To enter Unicode characters type the Unicode index in hexadecimal form exactly 4 characters after the backslash ODE E SODE FOOF OS ODF 1500F 4 To enter line break type n You will get two lines of text in the preview To choose one of the predefined sample strings open the list with the button to the right of the sample string LMNOPORSTUVWHY2 4 _ abedet WKLMNOPGRS TUW PORSTU ABCOEFGH IELMAOPO abedefghiykim hopqrstuyviw sys 123456 590 You can scroll the sample string in the Preview panel just left drag to scroll the window or right click to reset to the initial position 377 378 Preview Modes The height of the sample string is determined automatically and depends on
280. e Unicode mapping tables Unicode mode This works when Ignore Unicode indexes in the font is disabled and Names mode when the option is enabled The Unicode mode is preferred and recommended In Unicode mode FontLab uses the Unicode indexes that you assigned to the glyphs while moving glyphs in the Unicode mode of the Font window or by entering Unicode indexes in the Rename Glyph dialog box In the Names mode FontLab will encode all glyphs in the encoding currently selected in the Font window yellow glyphs and put them in the first 256 range of the TrueType Unicode table FontLab will put all other glyphs into the unencoded zone of the Unicode table starting from the code E000h The Unicode TrueType exporting mode is usually used to export fonts that were imported from TrueType font files and already have Unicode information The Names mode is useful when you convert a Type font to the TrueType format and do not want to worry about assigning Unicode indexes The general rule is simple if you work with the Font window in Names mode use the Names TrueType exporting mode If you work in Unicode mode use the Unicode exporting mode Actually FontLab will show a warning message if you try to export a font in Unicode mode while you are in the Names mode of the Font window and vice versa What is the First 256 Glyphs Range When we talk about the first 256 glyphs we do not mean those with Unicode indexes in the 0000h OO
281. e and Text Start Group Most commands in FontLab Studio have pre designed images but you can easily create your own images for any toolbar button or menu command To do so select the Button Appearance command in the button s context menu Button Appearance You will see a dialog box where you can choose the appearance method and if it includes an image choose the picture that appears on the button or at the left of the menu item Button Appearance Image only O Use Default Image Text only Select User defined Image O Image and text zu 1 Description Button text mi sek Choose a User defined image click New to create a new image or Edit to edit one of the User images If you decide to change the picture use the included image editor to change it Edit Button Image Picture Colors HEEE EEE HEH Bae Previews Use one of the Tools to edit the enlarged image and choose a color in the Colors area Click the OK button when you are ready 39 40 Converting a Menu to a Toolbar In FontLab Studio some menus can be converted to toolbars If you open a popup menu and can see a tiny caption in the top area of it you can drag it to any place on screen and it becomes a toolbar View View Show Layers d Show Layers HE Grid Ctrl Sh G Snap to Layers P Ra Snap to Layers gt T Guidelines Ctrl Sh L E Toolbars gt HE Hints Ctrl Sh H Toolbars gt Show Layers
282. e code 138 in the Windows Western codepage is used to represent the Scaron that does not have its own codepoint at all in MacOS Roman On the Macintosh it is only available in the MacOS Central European codepage under the code 225 The Unicode Standard Fortunately one predominant character encoding standard has gained popularity in the past years the Unicode Standard or short Unicode It assigns unique character codes codepoints to practically all characters used by humanity a has the character code 00E4 in hexadecimal notation which corresponds to 228 in decimal notation but for Unicode codepoints usually the hexadecimal notation is used and uses the codepoint 0160 352 in decimal 129 130 q 97 6x0061 gf gt 1103 0x044F 7 al gt 225 0x00E1 N gt 1488 0x05D0 a 261 0x0105 gt 9787 0x2638 7 q 3 945 0x03B1 s gt 32244 0x7DF4 Unicode is a character coding system designed to support the interchange processing and display of the written texts of the diverse languages of the modern world In addition it supports classical and historical texts of many written languages Modern operating systems such as Mac OS X or Windows 2000 XP use the Unicode Standard as the default way to store text Similarly modern font formats such as OpenType and TrueType use Unicode to store character information Unicode can use up to four bytes to encode a character it is theoretically possible to encode 4 294 967 29
283. e columns znd VWalue 15 73 23 3 54 2 27 4 4 12 12 12 5 12 E 3 4 _L Mi er FRPP eee eee ee TTF hoo re ae Od The first two columns contain the names of the first and second glyphs of the pair The third column contains the kerning value If the kerning value is on a light blue background it means that it is negative Positive kerning is on a light yellow background If the digits are red colored it means that this pair is a class kerning exception see below for more information about class kerning and exceptions You can easily change the kerning for a pair click the number in the right column and enter the new value Click ENTER to accept or Esc to cancel 570 Filtering Pairs in the Table The number of kerning pairs in a big font can be huge and navigating a kerning table with a thousand rows may be difficult Use the filter control below the table to limit the number of pairs that are put into the table All pairs One glyph is selected Both glyphs are selected One glyph is in encoding Both glyphs are in encoding If you select All pairs it will list all available pairs The other options will show only the pairs that follow the selected rule For example to show all pairs that have A on the left or right side choose One glyph is selected and select A in the Font window If you select Both glyphs are selected and select A and V you will see only two lines A V
284. e command in the Glyph window the related command is selected in the Program panel s list When you select a command in the Program list the command is visually highlighted in the Glyph window zc Use the command link to check the logic of the hinting program and to customize command parameters in complex situations Alignment Instructions Alignment instructions are used to align points to the grid There are two types of alignment instructions those linked with alignment zones and those not linked with zones Alignment Zones Alignment zones define important vertical positions that are common to many font characters A good example of an alignment zone is a baseline and the bottom position of the O character 4 Bottom alignment zone At low PPM sizes you must set the bottom point of the characters O and similar characters to the baseline to suppress the bottom overshoot In this case we have a so called bottom alignment zone Another example of an alignment zone is the top line of the H character and the O character y ON Top alignment zone Alignment zones are previewed in the Glyph Window with a gray color 701 Editing TrueType Alignment Zones TrueType alignment zones are different from the Type zones that we discussed in the previous section To add new TrueType zones or edit existing zones do the followin
285. e constructed using these discrete cells Each cell in an output image has integer coordinates and is called a pixel picture cell On a computer monitor these are individual fluorescent dots On a printer they are dots of toner or ink To measure scaled outlines in a resolution independent way it is convenient to define a quantity called Pixels Per eM PPM sometimes written ppem This is the number of pixels that can fit into the font s height From the Glyph Window chapter you know that font height is a basic font measurement unit equal to the Units Per eM UPM In TrueType OpenType TT fonts UPM is usually equal to 1000 or 2048 and in Type 1 MM and OpenType PS fonts to 1000 Outline character Rasterized character So to scale a font to render at a specific point size on a device with a specific resolution we take the resolution and point size to calculate the PPM value Then we scale all the outline characters by multiplying by the PPM UPM coefficient In PostScript printing one typographic point 1 pt is equal to 1 72 inch 652 The original Macintosh computer had the screen DPI resolution of 72 DPI dots per inch so 1 pt was represented by exactly one pixel This is a practical fact so font scaling works with this assumption This means that PPM sizes correspond to point sizes at 72 DPI to represent 12 pt type ona 72 DPI screen the font is rasterized at 12 PPM Microsoft Windows works at the default resolution of
286. e destination point 721 722 Delta Instructions Now you know all about the visual hinting commands that can be applied to an outline at all PPMs In addition to these commands the TrueType hinting language lets you set special commands that will work only at specific PPM sizes These commands are called delta instructions There are two delta instructions for each hinting direction middle delta instructions and final delta instructions Final delta instructions are necessary when you want to slightly change the instruction set usually to add or remove some pixels Middle Delta Instructions A middle delta instruction can move outline points like any other instruction It can move any outline point in 1 8 pixel increments from one pixel left or bottom to one pixel right or top 8 8 4 8 O 4 8 88 8 8 4 8 O 4 8 8 8 Movement space of delta instruction Middle delta instructions are interpreted like other commands in the hinting program They are automatically inserted between normal instructions that move points and so can be used to modify the normal interpretation of the hinting program ae Middle delta instruction In the example above the vertical stem is moved one pixel to the left when the middle delta instruction is applied A middle delta instruction may be applied to a touched or untouched point and th
287. e font editor manually enumerated all the sequences substitute one slash two by onehalf substitute one onum slash two by onehalf substitute one fraction two by onehalf substitute one onum fraction two by onehalf substitute one slash two onum by onehalf substitute one onum slash two onum by onehalf substitute one fraction two onum by onehalf substitute one onum fraction two onum by onehalf 857 858 Note Variant glyphs should be named just like their default counterparts but with a suffix appended after a period The suffix can typically be the feature tag for the layout feature the variant glyph will be most likely accessed with So a small cap a can be named a smcp and an old style digit 2 can be named two onum Non standard names should be avoided For an extensive discussion about devising custom glyph names in OpenType fonts refer to the Advanced Glyph Naming and Encoding section of the Editing Fonts chapter Almost all fonts contain at least two ligatures fl and fi which can be easily encoded as substitute f l by fl substitute f i by fi Some fonts add longer ligatures substitute f f i by f_f_i ffi fh 4 Note ligature glyphs should be named using the underscore rule e g f_f_odieresis for an ffo ligature Only the fi and fl ligatures should be named without the underscores For an extensive discussion about devising custom glyph names in OpenType fonts refer to the Advan
288. e glyph its code in various forms or some other character information Tip You can change the font size used to display the caption in Tools gt Options gt Font Window gt Glyph Cell The Font Window command bar has two alternate forms it can be placed either at the top or at the bottom of the Font Window Size Ei IPI il Caption 7 Names mode Il Default Encoding You can switch between the top and the bottom location of the command bar by clicking on this button H in the top right corner of the Font Window The left combo box located on the Font Window command bar if in top position or the Caption popup menu in the bottom position lets you select one of the caption modes m a Name Name Depending on the selection a different text string will appear in the caption Name The glyphname the so called PostScript name of the glyph Octal The local character code in octal form 121 122 ANSI The ANSI character that corresponds to the local character code Macro A custom entry that can be shown using a special Python macro defined in the init py file inside of the Macros System folder By default the entry option shows the number of components in composite characters but the user can write his own macro to display other information here The glyph cells may have different colors By default the background of the glyph cell may be grey or white and the caption may be white re
289. e layout tables Interpret OpenType layout tables means that the binary OpenType tables will be retained in your vfb file and they will be also decompiled into human readable feature definition language When you re generate your OpenType font later FontLab Studio will ask you which information it should use to write the OpenType layout tables OpenType Panels FontLab Studio provides two panels that deal with OpenType features the OpenType panel and the OpenType Features page of the Preview panel OpenType Panel In FontLab Studio you can see OpenType features in the special OpenType panel To open the panel use the Window gt OpenType panel command Below is the illustration of the panel that appears if you open the Palatino Linotype font pala ttf OpenType 4 el l d 1 hhh hhh a Toog earen Mo M M M mo py l aai Hhhh Tororo 1h A h h he Se SS h Shh hth her f f ar f i Tf zi fT E Tt f poe al At the top of the panel you find a toolbar at the left a list of the features with two buttons below and a split field at the right The top part of the field contains the feature definition text for the feature selected in the list and the bottom part contains the global definition data which usually is a definition of the glyph classes unless they are defined in the Classes panel 841 You can use the separator bar between top and bottom panels to adjust their relativ
290. e link commands that connect round points like on the left and right sides of the O FontLab Studio may optionally add middle delta commands that correct the rasterization of the curve 737 738 Autohinting Options You can customize the conversion process with the Autohinting Options command Use this command to open the dialog box TrueType Autohinting 4ubohinting options Generate triple hints Direct links to center of the glyph where possible Automatically interpolate positions of the cusp points Try to automatically generate delta instructions Add link to the right sidebearing point Interpolate positions of the double links Single link attachement precision 7 is default value 7 Generate triple hints If this option is active FontLab Studio will try to generate TrueType instructions that simulate Type triple hints for characters like m where the distance between stems must be kept the same at all PPMs Direct links to center of the glyph where possible FontLab Studio can try to hint starting from the left sidebearing and going to the right or starting from both sidebearings and going to the center of the glyph Use this option to customize the hinting direction Automatically interpolate the position of cusp points A Cusp is a point where the contour sharply changes direction a If this option is on FontLab Studio will generate an Interpolate command that will link the cusp p
291. e point becomes touched afterwards It s a good idea to use middle delta instructions to correct the rounding direction on some PPMs like on the character e at small PPM sizes Another good application of middle delta instructions is the correction of diagonal hints A middle delta instruction touches the point to which it is applied so any other point between two delta instructions will be interpolated in the final interpolation routine 723 724 The middle delta instruction has 4 arguments point to move PPM PPM the PPM range in which this instruction works and the shift distance in eighths of pixels In the Program panel this instruction looks like MDeltaV 18 lt 6 gt 12 14 where 18 is the point index 6 is the distance to move in this case move up by 34 of a pixel A minus sign in front of the number would indicate a move down 12 is PPMo and 14 is PPM This means that point 18 will be moved up 3 of a pixel when PPM is 12 13 or 14 To set a middle delta instruction 1 2 Select the Middle Delta tool In the Options panel select the shift distance direction and PPM range Delta PPM range Delta PPM range Delta offset 3 COCCO MEE n r r mea Shift distance SBFPFEBEGEBgdS3F1 Lirsedbers By default the PPM range is equal to the current PPM Move the cursor to the point at which you want to set the delta instruction and click the left button Faster Methods to Set Delta Instruc
292. e the long OpenType Mac family naming should be devised on the OpenType specific names page Long family naming FreeFontPro es al OpentType specific font names Cond Bold Cond Family Name Free FontPro Style Name Cond Bold Mac Name FreeFontPro Cond Bold Below is an example of how family names should be devised using FontLab Studio s Font Info dialog 1 Start by giving an identical Family Name here FreeFont Pro to all styles in your family Basic set of font names gt Family Name LabFont Pro I Weight v Font is italic Width FO Font is bold More Styles gt 2 Select a Weight and a Width that best matches the true design of each style For light fonts avoid the Thin UltraLight and ExtraLight settings and choose Light instead Family Name LabFont Pro Weight Bold v 700 Font is italic Tere Font is bold More Styles gt Style Name onenemperma Build Style Name Condensec N PS Font Name semi condensed Medium normal Semi expanded Expanded Menu Name FXtra expanded Full Name 3 If your style is italic or oblique check the Font is italic mark but leave Font is bold unchecked at this stage MW Font is lalen Font is bold 4 Click on the Build Style Name button to automatically build a style name Condensed Bald 225 5 Abbreviate excessively long style name
293. e the codepage table to find which characters were used in this text We may have two different texts with the same code 192 decimal but in one case it may mean the Russian A and in the other case it may mean A Agrave Codepages are used not only to identify characters but also to simplify text sorting conversion of lowercase to uppercase characters spell checking and in many other applications where it is necessary to know which characters are used in the text Because the Unicode character identification standard covers most languages it is usually used as the destination information in the codepage tables Here is an example of fragments from two different codepages that map the same codes to different Unicode codepoints MS Windows 1252 Western MS Windows 1251 Cyrillic OxCO OxCl OxC2 0xC3 OxC4 OxC5 OxC6 OxC7 OxC8 OxC9 OxCA OxCB OxCC Many different codepages have been defined for many languages and 0x00CO 0Ox00C 1 0x00C2 0x00C3 0x00C4 0Ox00C5 0x00C6 0x00C7 0x00C8 0x00C9 Ox00CA 0x00CB 0x00CC 0OxCO OxCl OxC2 OxC3 OxC4 OxC5 0OxC6 OxC7 OxC8 OxC9 OxCA OxCB OxCC 0x0410 0x0411 0x0412 0x0413 0x0414 0x0415 0x0416 0x0417 0x0418 0x0419 0x041A 0x041B 0x041C different operating systems FontLab Studio 4 6 includes descriptions for 300 codepages all the known Windows OS 2 MS DOS Mac OS codepages plus a few others like the Polytonal Greek Russian KOI 8 and NeX
294. e value The Randomize option applies some random changes to the effect to make an even more interesting result Expand Width Angle o Roundness api Join fF Body The Expand effect will use contours as a trajectory for the paintbrush It is almost the same as the Contour gt Paths gt Expand Path command Specify brush size and shape Width is the width of the brush ellipse at its widest part Angle is the degree of the brush ellipse slant and Roundness is the relation in percent of the narrow and wide widths of the brush ellipse Below is a sample of the path expand with different brushes The next line of options specifies the way the expanding algorithm will process the contour corners and the ends of an open contour Flat contour ends vs round ends The last option Body lets you specify the shape of the brush stroke 639 640 Parallel Position Left Right Both Remove the original Generate closed contour Offset o e v Uniform The Parallel effect creates a contour that is parallel to the existing contour It is the same as the Make Parallel Path command in the Contour gt Paths menu Refer to the Make Parallel Path section for more information about its algorithm and options Add nodes Segment length Randomize Convert curve segments to straight lines The Add Nodes effect creates more nodes on the contour It puts a node every x units where x is the segment length val
295. e vertical sizes Buttons on the toolbar mean ie Open the menu The contents of the menu are described below ith Find the glyph or class When the cursor in the feature editing panel is on the glyph name you can click on this button to quickly find the glyph in the Font or Glyph windows CTRL Right click on the glyph name does the same If the cursor is on the class name FontLab Studio will try to find the class in the bottom editing field or in the Classes panel t Rename the glyph Position the cursor on the glyph name and click this button to open the glyph rename dialog box described in one of the following sections jet Open the OpenType Features Sample panel When you click on the a button you will see a popup menu a Reset Features tar pen Features Interpret Stored Binary Layout Tables Compile and Store Tables in Binary Form Copy Features from a Font Import FontLab Classes Generate kern Feature GE gave Features Close Panel 842 Commands in the menu mean Reset features Removes all feature definition information and allows you to start making a new set of features Interpret Stored Binary Converts the stored binary OpenType Layout tables Layout Tables into feature definition language can be useful if FontLab Studio did not interpret the features when opening the font Compile and Store Tables Compiles the feature definition language into binary in Binary Form OpenType Layout t
296. e with the FontLab metrics assistance feature My PN e a nea rene oT Sacre ITE file so you can apply it to different fonts a goor ee oo T E E tO Niner eet re Pe ee Se KERERE oo ee Editing Metrics Class Properties in Classes Panel You can define left right and width properties of the metrics class without opening the Metrics Assistance dialog box If you look at the metrics class in the Classes panel you will see that it has some controls to the right of the name MH Gsmall L fae Wl ye Rl HOH L FY fae These check boxes mean the same as the L R and W controls in Metrics assistance Use them to declare the properties of the metrics class You will have to open the Metrics assistance dialog box to apply metrics class relations and adjust metrics accordingly 609 Opening Metrics Files FontLab allows you to import metrics and or kerning information into the current font Using this feature you can create metric and kerning information once and use it in several similar fonts To import a metrics file into FontLab click the button on the toolbar You will see the standard Windows Open File dialog box Select the metrics file that you want to import in PFM or AFM format and press the OK button The Import Metrics dialog box appears Import Metrics File Import results Import of metrics File C Program Files Cormon Files Adobe Fonts CR PFM was successful Ib contains metrics For 224 glyphs 216 of which exis
297. e you may want to replace an uppercase character with a lowercase when it is followed by another lowercase character The OpenType specification declares the following types of basic substitutions Single Replaces a single glyph with another single glyph a gt A Alternate Replaces a single glyph with one of the glyphs in a list A gt A version1 or A version2 All these substitutions may be context independent or context dependent FontLab Studio supports all of the substitutions except the multiple substitutions 854 Single Substitution This is the simplest substitution it replaces a single glyph with another glyph or a class of glyphs with another class The Class form of the substitution requires that the number of glyphs in the source and destination classes be the same A single substitution rule is specified in one of the following formats substitute lt glyph gt by lt glyph gt format A substitute lt glyphclass gt by lt glyph gt format B substitute lt glyphclass gt by lt glyphclass gt format C You can use the codeword sub instead of the longer substitute Format B specifies that all glyphs in the target glyph class will be replaced by the same replacement glyph Format C specifies that any of the glyphs in the target glyph class must be replaced by its corresponding glyph in the order of glyphs in the glyph classes in the replacement glyph class If the replacement is a single
298. eType fonts have UPM Units Per eM the size 1000 UPM of the grid on which all glyph coordinates are defined equal to 2048 Type 1 fonts have UPM equal to 1000 You can change the UPM value at any time using the FontLab commands but if you turn this option on UPM will be converted during the font import Decompose When enabled all composite glyphs will be automatically composites decomposed Refer to the previous section for more information about automatic decomposition Note When FontLab opens TrueType OpenType TT fonts with rotated or slanted components it will always decompose them Store custom Some TrueType fonts have additional tables that are not a part TrueType of the TrueType or OpenType specification or that FontLab OpenType tables Studio cannot interpret If you want to read these tables and have them written in an unchanged form into the generated font enable this option To view the stored custom tables go to Font Info gt Binary and custom tables This feature is very useful if you are working with additional tools like Microsoft VOLT or VIT programs If the Store custom TrueType OpenType tables option is active FontLab will not change or destroy tables that these tools include in TrueType fonts Please refer to the OpenType Fonts chapter for more discussion on this Reading Name Records Read only non English name records Read only non English name rec ords Do not read OpenType name records
299. ea HDBIO When the measurement line is active and visible the glyph sidebearings are measured not from the extreme points of the character i e from the bounding box but from the point of intersection of the measurement line and the contour Right sidebearing along the measurement line SEN Standard right sidebearing The measurement line is very useful when you are setting metrics in a serif font usually the designer would like to ignore serifs when calculating sidebearings and the measurement line gives you a natural way to do that 563 564 Automatic Metrics Generation FontLab can automatically define glyph metrics using a special algorithm This algorithm usually produces good results but we recommend manual editing for the best results To automatically generate glyph metrics click on the button on the Metrics Window toolbar select the Auto command in the Tools local menu of the Metrics Window or select the Auto Metrics command in the popup menu The Automatic Metrics Generation dialog box appears Automatic Metrics Generation You wank to generate metrics For All characters in current string How tight spacing should be Custom Custom metrics 1 gt 30 ad 30 When do you want to keep existing metrics Mever How much must the shape of glyphs inflate to generate metrics Medium w This dialog box includes two areas Area of application
300. ea to begin with definition of Type 1 alignment zones convert them it will happen automatically in most to TrueType zones and then adjust them using special tools available in TrueType hinting mode Standard Stem Widths Typically many characters in a font use the same few standard stem widths As examples let s take the H B and F characters shown below All of them have the same width for the straight vertical stems and the same width for the horizontal stems The most widely used stem widths are stored in the font header in order to force the rasterizer to render these stems at the same width This information is used to control at what character size the rounded stem width goes from one to two pixels and from two to three pixels A step from one to two pixels means a 100 width increase and a step from 2 to 3 pixels a 50 increase This means that near this value rounding errors will be maximal and control over stem widths will be necessary If one stem has a width of 74 units and another a stem width of 76 units and the UPM is 1000 units then at a PPM of 20 pixels the first stem will be rounded to 1 pixel and the second stem to 2 pixels Scaled back to the original coordinates this difference will be 50 units That is clearly too much for an original difference of only 2 units Standard widths work with stem hints When the width of a hint is close to one of the standard widths the rounded width of the hint and the real stem
301. eave these glyphs unencoded not assign any codepoints For some applications e g Microsoft Word 2003 for Windows assigning PUA codepoints may be the only way to display such glyphs in your font so it is practical to assign PUA codepoints On the other hand Pua codepoints are completely custom so there is no way that exchangeability of documents can be guaranteed Also the text that is set using PUA codepoints is garbled spelling hyphenation search amp replace won t work So this is only a short sighted interim measure Some font developers e g Adobe assign PUA codepoints to glyphs that do not have proper Unicode codepoints while others Microsoft Bitstream Linotype Tiro Typeworks leave the glyphs unencoded Custom Encoding Tables Encoding tables are a useful mechanism to filter and view your glyphs in different arrangements You can put a large number of glyphs into one font assign a unique name to each character and supply several encoding tables allowing you to select different sets of characters in the font when you use different encodings For example in symbol fonts the Greek characters take places that are usually occupied by Latin characters With the encoding tables you can include both sets of characters Just assign the correct names like alpha for the A character and A for the A character and later you can choose the symbol encoding to work with the Greek version of your font or choose R
302. ecommend converting hints to links because in a MM font it is much easier to edit links than hints Links are Multiple Master compatible by default because they connect multilayered nodes while hints connect points that have different coordinates on different masters When you define an axis the number of masters will be increased twofold Therefore a single axis font will have two masters a two axis font will have four masters etc The contents of all existing masters will be duplicated as seen in the picture Weight 0 Weight 1 AXN BBB WeightO Weight WelghtO Weight 1 Width 0 Width 0 Width 1 Width 1 782 Selecting a Master When you define an axis or open a Multiple Master font you will have more than one master Open a Glyph window with any character and you will see several masters appear in the editing field and the master selection combo box enabled wo vl Different masters of the Multiple Master font appear as outlines of different colors One master appears in black and it is the only editable master called the active master All editing tools actions and operations are applied to this master All masters are identified by their names The master name is the position of the master on the design axis WIDTH Wd gt Wto Wado wto Wd1 B L Z Wt1 Wd0 Wt1 Wd 783 784 You can select the active master using the following methods 1 Double click the master outline that you want
303. ecord 3 The list is then sorted again 4 The most frequently used elements are then selected and used as standard stems 259 260 Global Hinting Parameters Type 1 hinting global hinting parameters 4 Set values for the master FE threshold 0 5 Blue Scale as itis is equal to 0 039625 BlueShift BlueFuzz 1 Some additional data may be set to control the hinting process FB threshold ForceBold threshold this parameter is used only in Multiple Master font and controls when the Force Bold parameter is ON in an intermediate design BlueFuzz Expands alignment zones in both directions You can set all these values in the right part of the Alignment page of the Font Info dialog box BlueScale is the PPM size at which overshoot suppression is switched off If PPM is less than BlueScale then overshoot suppression is applied If it is equal to or exceeds BlueScale overshoot suppression works only if the distance from the aligned point to the base line of the alignment zone is less than the BlueShift value and the scaled distance is less then half of a pixel The BlueScale value is stored in Type 1 fonts in a very strange format but in the Alignment page you can set it using one of three different ways directly in the form that the Type 1 specification describes i e it looks like a floating point number as a PPM size or as a point size on a device with 300 DPI resolution Use the BlueScale combo bo
304. ect two outline nodes and hints will be generated automatically for each master when you export your font Refer to the Multiple Master Fonts chapter for more information about links 475 Editing Hints Editing hints is very similar to editing guidelines You can add new hints through the ruler bar of the Glyph Window drag them with the mouse and delete them by using the menu command or by clicking on both mouse buttons In contrast to guides hints consist of two lines that can be moved together or separately Hints cannot be slanted To add a new hint 1 Position the mouse cursor on the horizontal ruler bar for a horizontal hint or on the vertical bar for a vertical hint 2 Press and hold the CTRL key Press the left mouse button The bar will appear pressed and a new hint will appear Release the CTRL key 3 Holding the left mouse button drag the hint to the desired place and release the button To move a hint 1 Move the mouse cursor onto one of the hint s lines 2 Press the left mouse button and drag the hint to its new place Both hint lines will move together To move a hint s lines separately hold down the Suirr key while dragging one of the hint s lines Using this procedure you can change the width of the hint While you are dragging the hint and the mouse cursor is within the snap to distance the hint line will stick to the node Nodes must be visible The hint will snap to all nodes
305. ection of all curves to PostScript curves black on the left i Set TT Direction Sets the direction of all curves to TrueType curves black on the right Reverse All Paths Reverses the direction of all contours of the glyph ee Expand Path Converts contours to strokes Make Parallel Creates a contour that is parallel to the existing contour Path See the next section for more information about this and previous features th Set Startpoints Opens the dialog allowing you to set the preferred position of the startpoints t Curves to Converts all Type 1 3 order curves to TrueType 2 4 TrueType order curves Ti Curves to Converts all TrueType 2 4 order curves to Type 1 3 PostScript order curves Pes Selection to Creates a new glyph from the selection and converts the Component selection into a component Current glyph becomes a composite glyph gt Correct Analyses an outline and fixes the types of connections Connections between outline segments lines and curves 4 Join Broken Automatically joins all broken contours in a glyph This Contours command may not work if the nodes that should be connected are not close enough to each other 417 Close Open Closes all open contours in a glyph creating a straight Contours segment between first and last nodes Nodes at Automatically inserts nodes at the extreme points of extremes curves We highly recommend that all curves have nodes at their extreme points Optimiz
306. ections we will describe all the editing layers and their modification and control 335 336 Easier Way to Control Editing Layers The Editing Layers panel may be opened in the simple mode Editing Layers Metrics Guides Hints Mask Auto select layer which is described in the previous section In simple mode you have a list of five layers and you can control their lock and show status To activate the layer just select it in the list When you do it this layer becomes unlocked and all other layers are locked If activated layer was hidden it will appear until it is deactivated Use check boxes to the left of the layer names to control layer appearance For example to edit the glyph metrics just select the Metrics in the list Glyph and font metrics layers will appear in the glyph window and will be available to edit while all other layers outline hints guides and mask will be locked To edit the Mask layer just select Mask in the list The outline layer will be shown as a mask and will be locked hints will disappear and the mask layer will be set to front and open for editing Use the Auto select layer option to let FontLab Studio to automatically switch to the layer that you begin to edit in the Glyph window If this option is off and some layer is active all other layers are locked so to edit them you need to activate the layer in the Editing Layers panel If option is on all layers are
307. ed anchor names are displayed in the Glyph Window When disabled they are only visible in the Properties panel Show nodes on When enabled nodes on the mask layer will be shown even if mask layer the user is in the Outline layer Show arrow on Activate this option to see small arrows on every closepath closepath line Show measurement Shows hides the measurement line the red horizontal line line that can be used for calculating sidebearings 77 78 Outline drawing options Smooth outline Allows one to select between non anti aliased and anti aliased rendering of the outline Mask and inactive If enabled the Mask layer and inactive masters in a MM font masters are smooth are also anti aliased too Show contour An outline consists of several contours and each contour is direction directional The direction of the contour is marked with a small arrow pos ae af Leave echo while When editing contours the original contours shape position is editing shown gray Fill open contours When this option is off the open contour appears unfilled in fill outline preview mode emmm me hy Advanced options Move selected When enabled the user can individually move nodes even if nodes individually several nodes are selected When disabled all selected nodes move the same way All BCPs are fixed When using non node editing and you drag any location on a curve its control vectors may change direction You can right clic
308. ed on the tab control The dialog box consists of a toolbar on the top a stem list a row of controls to adjust stem parameters and the Advanced button that gives access to some font level hinting options that we will discuss later Buttons on the toolbar mean Hih Include vertical stems in the list stems measured along the X axis ar Import stems from another font Columns in the list mean Name Name of the stem This is editable if you click the F2 button on the keyboard You can also use the control below the list to change the stem name The stem name appears when the stem is used in hinting program We do not recommend using long stem names 6 8 characters is enough in most cases Width Width of the stem Use the control below the column to change the value PPM2 PPM6 PPMs at which the stem is scaled to 2 6 pixels Click on the column header to sort the list by the column values A yellow background in the list highlights vertical stems It is easy to add a new stem just click on the or the F button and a new stem will appear with the lt unnamed gt name and a width of 100 To remove a stem select it in the list and click on the button Click on the button to append Type 1 stems to the list FontLab Studio will append only those stems that are not already in the list With the button you can append stems from another font Click it and select the source font from the
309. ee how the glyph will look in the resulting font Switch between modes with the 4 button on the Show layers toolbar or with the View gt Show Layers gt Fill Outline command Outline mode Fill Outline mode Smoothed Contour By default a contour is rendered with black color and sometimes this may result in jaggies KO Optionally you can smooth the contour appearance on screen which will result in a much smoother outline appearance a ie E To smooth contours use the Glyph Window page of the Options dialog box Tools gt Options E Outline drawing Smooth outline Mask and inactive masters are smooth too You can use the Apply button in the bottom right of the Options dialog box to check the result of the changes you make in the Glyph Window options 4 Note If your computer is slow and a contour is complex smoothing the outlines may degrade the performance of the editing tools Turn it off in this case High quality Preview No matter which mode is active you can quickly view a high quality preview of the outline by pressing the key on the keyboard the key under Esc Until you release the key you will see a high quality preview of the outline Note that you can use the and keys to browse characters without releasing the key 4 Note On the U S English keyboard layout the key is located between the Tas and the Esc keys On other keyboard layouts you may need to use a diff
310. elatively slow operation Select glyphid Changes the glyph s selection state glyphid may be Select glyphid value string glyph name Uni Unicode index or integer glyph index Unselect Deselects all glyphs in the current font fast operation Message message question Shows the alert message dialog box all the OKstring Cancelstring parameters but the first can be omitted BeginProgress title counts Opens the Progress dialog box with counts number of ticks EndProgress Closes the Progress dialog box TickProgress tick Updates the Progress bar returns False if Cancel button was pressed This is a relatively slow operation Random hivalue Returns a random value very fast operation Random lovalue hivalue ForSelected function_name calls function_name for each selected glyph in the current font Function has the following format function Font font Glyph glyph glyphindex We will provide some examples using the functions described above when we discuss Font and Glyph classes 897 898 Font The Font class contains all the data that is related to the font in FontLab Studio internal data structures The Font class by itself has no interaction with the user interface elements You need to use other classes such as the fl object of the FontLab Studio class to interact with the font The most important members of the Font class are classes Python list with the strings containing FontLab Studio cla
311. elected in the Font Window when the Font Window is active then the backgrounds of all selected glyphs will be saved using filenames that have the last two letters replaced by the sequential number of the glyph starting from 0 You can change the color which is used to render the bitmap background in the Glyph window on the Colors page of the Tools gt Options dialog box described in the FontLab Studio Options section 447 Background Positioning This operation lets you set the size and position of the background layer Different sizes and positions of the bitmap background layer To set size and position of the background layer 1 Activate the Bitmap Positioning operation Select the Move and Scale command from the Tools gt Background menu or press the EJ button on the Background toolbar or simply double click on the bitmap background while the Edit tool is active 2 You will see a control box surrounding the bitmap 3 Drag the handles in the corner of the control box to scale the background Hold the Suirt key to keep the proportions 4 Position the mouse inside the control box and press the left mouse button and drag the mouse to position the background 5 Use the arrow keys on the keyboard or SHirr arrow keys to move the background 6 Press the right mouse button to open a popup menu with the following commands Fit to glyph Aligns the Bitmap background so it will fit the glyph out
312. elveticaLinotype Bold 145 Macintosh Roman VE A ae E Unicode indexes will be automatically recalculated during this operation Automatically generate names for conflicting glyphs O Exchange names of the conflicting glyphs Re generate all glyph names Encoding version of the Reencode Font dialog box Select the codepage or encoding table to which you want to reencode the glyphs and set the options necessary to control the reencoding process Codepages mode Move glyphs to the new codepage Re generate all Names Encoding mode Automatically generate names for conflicting glyphs Exchange names of the conflicting glyphs Re generate all Unicode codepoints Removes currently assigned Unicode codepoints and assigns new ones Visually this means that glyphs are moved to their new places Add new Unicode codepoints Visually this means that glyphs having more than one Unicode codepoint assigned are copied to their new places All glyphs will get their names based on Unicode If a glyph with the same name as one of the reencoding glyphs needs to be changed a new name will automatically be generated If a glyph with the name that needs to be assigned already exists it will get the name of the reencoded glyph so visually the glyphs will be exchanged All glyphs will get Unicode codepoints based on new names 185 186 Some Examples Situation 1 You want to make a TrueType font that will have a non w
313. em If any glyphs are present in the yellow zone in the Encoding mode but are missing from the yellow zone of the corresponding Codepage your Unicode codepoints may be incorrect Choose Glyph gt Glyph Names gt Generate Unicode to fix this problem Any glyph cells with white background and red captions indicate that either the glyphname or the Unicode codepoint is incorrect Fix them manually or automatically using the commands mentioned above It is recommended that all fonts in your family have the same character set In Font Info on the Encoding and Unicode page press on the green Auto button If you re making non Western single codepage Type 1 fonts or a Symbol encoded TrueType font select the appropriate character sets from Microsoft Character Set and Mac script and FOND ID combo boxes On the Unicode ranges page click on the green Auto button Glyphs Select all glyphs in the Font Window Edit gt Select All Choose Contour gt Correct Connections If youre making an OpenType PS or Type 1 font choose Contour gt Convert gt Curves to PostScript if it is enabled Choose Contour gt Paths gt Set PS Direction If you re making an OpenType TT choose Contour gt Convert gt Curves to TrueType if it is enabled Choose Contour gt Paths gt Set TT Direction 4 Note you can automate most of the above operations through Tools gt Action Set Open the first glyph of your font in a Glyph Window
314. end of the encoding Warning You have dropped glyphs at the places used by the glyphs with names listed below z7 i z braceleft bar Keep replaced symbols under new names Leave Keep replaced symbols under new names checked to save the glyphs I e put the new glyphs in the cells and move the existing glyphs to cells at the end of the encoding or clear it to replace them I e delete the existing glyphs 165 166 Note that even if source selection is not continuous the destination selection will be continuous If you are working in the Codepages or Names mode when you move glyphs they get new names but keep their old Unicode codepoints You must assign proper codepoints later If you are working in the Index mode moving glyphs is used to manually rearrange their physical sequence in the font When you move glyphs they will not replace the glyphs at the destination location but instead the moved glyphs will be inserted in front of the existing glyphs The names and Unicode codepoints of the moved glyphs are retained in this case To rearrange the physical sequence automatically use Glyph gt Sort Glyphs Saving the Font Most of the font modification operations are not undoable so we recommend you save your work regularly To save a font that you have opened from an existing font file in FontLab Studio format or imported from other format use the File gt Save command or
315. ent while holding down the Axr key To convert a curve to a 1 4 part of an ellipse the curve s control vectors will be treated as an ellipse axis press the Att key and click on the curve You can also convert curves and straight segments with the popup menu Right click the end node of the segment and select the Convert PS TT command in the popup menu With this command a line segment is converted to a Bezier curve a Bezier curve to a TrueType curve and a TrueType curve to one or more Bezier curves The last way to convert segments is to use the selection menu 1 SuiFt click any point on the curve or line segment 2 Right click the highlighted red segment A popup menu appears 3 Choose one of the commands in the Convert submenu To curves to convert to a Bezier curve or To lines to convert to straight line segments 369 370 Breaking and Joining Contours To break the contour with the edit tool hold down CTRL and Aut and left click the node where you want to break the contour To break the contour with the Knife tool just click on the node When a contour is broken its first and last nodes are highlighted by diagonal crosses You can use the Knife tool to cut out part of the contour lt _ Pee 1 Activate the Knife tool 9 2 Press the mouse button and drag the cursor to define the cutting line 3 Release the button Note that you can only cut part of a s
316. enu Cancel Delete Conmmand Delta Value d Remove For Current PPM Use the Delete command to remove a middle delta instruction so it will be removed for all PPMs for which it is defined Use the Remove for current PPM command to remove a middle delta instruction only for the currently selected PPM For example if the delta instruction is defined for the PPM range 12 18 and the current PPM is 14 after you use Remove for current PPM you will get two delta instructions 12 13 and 15 18 The Delta value submenu lets you choose the delta instruction shift distance Another way to customize delta instructions is to use the options area in the Program panel Point Goose EEnng 7654321 Lztdasers You can change the point number shift distance and the PPM range 727 728 Final Delta Instructions Final delta instructions are applied after the final interpolation of all untouched points They are used as a last resort to shift points to remove or add pixels at PPM sizes where it is still necessary after application of zones stems and all other hints Delta 1 Delta 2 Hinted character at 12 PPM Same character with two delta without delta instructions instructions The sequence of interpretation is the only difference between middle and final delta instructions They work exactly the same way To set final delta instructions select the fin
317. enu or click on the button in the Standard toolbar and select the Glyph Waterfall item at the left of the Printing dialog box 4 Glyph waterfall Select glyph to print 4 v 1 Font Waterfall A List of point sizes to print Glyph Sample 5 36 38 40 42 48 56 64 72 Glyph Waterfall 2 At the right select the single glyph that you want to be printed Use the Choose Glyph button to open the Find Glyphs dialog box and find a particular glyph for print 3 Edit the list of point sizes if needed Click on the Reset button to restore the default list of point sizes 4 Click OK You will see the standard Windows Print dialog box Printout of the glyph waterfall FONTLAB GLYPH WATERFALL Adobe Systems Incorporated Font BellMT SemiBoldltalic Hona Glyph A Sizes 5 36 38 40 42 48 56 64 72 Page 1 1 aasad AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA 288 Printing Kerning Table To print the kerning table 1 Select the Print command in the File menu or click on the button in the Standard toolbar click on the button in the left pane of the dialog box and select the Kerning Table item at the left of the Printing dialog box a Kerning table Pairs Filter All pairs v Sort pairs by First glyph v Font Waterfall Print glyph shapes A Print right to left Glyph Sample Print class information Print class content Glyph Waterfall AV Kerning Table 2 At the right ch
318. epages page of the Font Info dialog box Without this the font will not be exported as Symbol and you will not have access to the glyphs at all The Problem of Glyph 183 middledot The glyph cell with decimal code 183 has different behaviors in Windows 95 and Windows NT In Windows 95 it is mapped to the Unicode index 22C5h but in Windows NT it is mapped to OOB7h So when FontLab exports your font in the Names mode it automatically assigns both Unicode indexes to this glyph to make the font compatible with both operating systems Use the OpenType When enabled recommended the family name and style names as menu name for the Macintosh platform will be taken from the names on OpenType specific font names page rather than the Basic Macintosh set of font names page With this setting Mac OS applications may group all font styles into one large font family When disabled the naming defined on the Basic set of font names page will be used as naming records for both Macintosh and Windows Write stored When enabled stored custom TrueType OpenType tables will custom be written into the generated font To view the stored custom TrueType OpenTy tables go to Font Info gt Binary and custom tables pe tables Export OpenType Please refer to the OpenType Fonts chapter for a discussion layout tables of these settings 103 Digital Signature This section controls settings for digital signatures that can be included in the Open
319. equence of glyphs with a single glyph which Ligatures is preferred for typographic purposes This feature covers the ligatures that the designer manufacturer judges should be used in normal conditions feature liga sub f f i by f_f_i sub f i by fi sub T h by T_h sub f f j by f_f_j sub f f l by f_f_l sub f f by f_f sub f j by f_j sub f l by fl 3 liga case Case Sensitive Shifts various punctuation marks up to a position that Forms works better with all capital sequences or sets of lining figures also changes oldstyle figures to lining figures dlig Discretionary Replaces a sequence of glyphs with a single glyph which Ligatures is preferred for typographic purposes This feature covers those ligatures that may be used for special effect at the user s preference feature dlig sub c t by c_t sub s t by s_t sub longs h by longs_h sub longs i by longs_i sub longs l by longs_l sub longs t by logs_t sub longs longs by longs_longs dlig ee steerer frac Fractions Replaces figures separated by a slash with common diagonal fractions afrc Alternative Replaces figures separated by a slash with an alternative Fractions form dnom Denominators Replaces selected figures that follow a slash with denominator figures 873 c2sc Small Capitals This feature replaces capital characters with small From Capitals capitals Caps 123 caps 123 onum Oldstyle Figures This feature changes selected figures from the de
320. er you make changes double click to accept them you can also press the RETURN or ENTER key on the keyboard or press the Esc key to reject the changes When the operation is completed the tool that was selected before will be activated again As with all permanent tools you can use the zoom selection tool quick zoom keys and all the other viewing options of the Glyph Window while you are working with the operations tool Here is a list of all available operations i44 Free Transform Scales rotates or skews the selected portion of the outline or the whole glyph described on page 407 a ee ie a S A E oa u eee E re erie Sh ee ere retain Frage ar eerie eee COTLOUTS meena ttt ttt te E eee E A Sa a gt E o ooo EEE TE a sat ROR we eran a saa memes eee i ie E wees t Position Background Sets the size and position of the bitmap background Tools gt Background gt layer described on page 448 Move and Scale Below you will find a detailed description of the outline operations that have not already been described The Free Transform operation was described on page 407 the Position Background operation was described on page 448 Envelope This operation transforms your glyph as if it were on a rubber plate and you began to stretch it Original glyph Glyph after envelope transformation Envelope is the most freeform transformation available in FontLab Studio Be careful with it because it can produce very unusual results T
321. erent key e g on the German keyboard Outline Preview Options You can choose other options in the View gt Show Layers menu for previewing the contour layer Fai Nodes To show nodes or not ta Positions To show the coordinates of each node You will see the positions of nodes only when the nodes are visible All other contour presentation modes may be combined in any way A few more notes about outline appearance Selected parts of an outline appear red in color Selected nodes are marked as red rectangles and they are visible even if non selected nodes are hidden 349 350 Many options related to outline appearance can be customized on the Appearance and Outline Drawing sections of the Glyph Window page of the Options dialog box Tools gt Options described in the FontLab Studio Options section Here is a list of some available options and a description of the features they control Small nodes Nodes may be small or large m T er E a Node shape shows Activate this option to show node type Otherwise only the point and type of the segment and a connection type will be visible this connection type is how it was in FontLab 4 x Show node position One node may be selected as the current node It will be highlighted and its position will appear on screen 446 211 To deselect the node click anywhere in the empty space of the editing field or click the Esc key Node position is on Po
322. erscore to make the compound suffix You may eliminate duplicate suffix elements For example for a ligature of the glyphs c and t use c_t as glyph 66 99 name For a ligature of the glyphs f f and i use f_f_i as glyph name 66 99 For a ligature of longs and i use longs_i as glyph name For a ligature of the glyphs F smcp F smcp and I smcp use F_F_I smcp as glyph name For a ligature of the glyphs R salt and s sups use R_s salt_sups as glyph name For the African E character use the glyph name E_dotbelowcomb_acutecomb If each element of a compound glyph name represents a Bmp character you can use an alternative way of building the base name which can potentially produce a shorter glyph name The glyph name starts with uni and must be followed by unseparated groups of four uppercase hexadecimal digits representing the gmp codepoint of each element So instead of E_dotbelowcomb_acutecomb you can use the name uni004503230301 Remember that a glyph name should be no longer than 31 characters so you may need to abbreviate the name if needed Symbol glyph names If a glyph does not represent a Unicode character but rather is an ornament a non textual symbol etc you can use a glyph name of your liking but adhering to the limitations outlined earlier If you assign PUA codepoints to these glyphs you
323. es and not to perform any substitutions on them As a result of the match remaining rules i e subtables in the lookup will be skipped Example 1 Ignoring specific sequences The ignore substitute rule below specifies that the substitution in the substitute rule should not occur for the sequences f a d fed or a d d Note that the marked glyphs in the exception sequences indicate where a substitution would have occurred this is necessary for the OpenType layout engine to correctly handle skipping this sequence ignore substitute f a e d ad d substitute a e n d by d alt Example 2 Matching a beginning of word boundary ignore substitute LETTER f 7 substitute f i by f_i init The example above shows how a ligature may be substituted at a word boundary LETTER must be defined to include all glyphs considered to be part of a word The substitute statement will get applied only if the sequence doesn t match LETTER f i i e only at the beginning of a word Example 3 Matching a whole word boundary ignore substitute LETTER a n d a n d LETTER substitute a n d by a_n_d In this example the a_n_d ligature will apply only if the sequence a n d is neither preceded nor succeeded by a LETTER Example 4 This shows a specification for the contextual swashes feature feature cswh Glyph classes used in this feature BEGINNINGS A N P Z Th m BEGINNINGS_SWASH A swsh N swsh P
324. es constructed according to guidelines outlined below An appropriate OpenType Layout feature t should allow the font user to produce the particular variant on the screen the use of an application and operating system that supports OpenType Layout features is a prerequisite To allow the user access to the variant glyphs in applications that support Unicode but do not support OpenType Layout features each of the glyphs may have a PUA Private Use Area Unicode codepoint assigned but they may also remain unencoded A glyph in a font can represent the default form of more than one character Here several cases need to be differentiated Adobe Systems OpenType Advanced Typography http store adobe com type opentype adv 149 150 First several characters can have identical appearance so the same glyph could serve as the default representation of each of those characters In such case the Unicode codepoints of all the represented characters are entered in the Unicode field of the Properties panel separated by spaces For example the glyph with the glyph index 66 with the shape of the letter a could represent two characters U 0061 LATIN SMALL LETTER A and U 0430 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER A In this case the Unicode field in the Properties panel would have the entry 0061 0430 The glyph name is a Generally however assigning multiple Unicode codepoints to one glyph is not recommended in particular when creating OpenType PS fo
325. escender height Bitmap height For the Create Bitmap command Fit EPS files to When enabled pasted and imported EPS AI outlines will be Ascender automatically scaled to fit between the Ascender and Descender height Descender lines of the font When disabled pasted and imported EPS AI outlines will be pasted without scaling with the assumption that 1 pt in the EPS AI drawing corresponds to 1 font unit in FontLab Studio Bitmap height for Allows you to set the bitmap size in pixels that will be created the Create Bitmap when the user chooses Tools gt Background gt Create Higher command values will give you a more high fidelity bitmap rendition of your glyph but will result in larger vfb files Tip Tweaking this value can be useful if you want to create pixel fonts Set the value to a lower one choose Tools gt Background gt Create then Tools gt Mask gt Swap Outline with Mask and finally Tools gt Background gt Trace Pixels Please refer to the Importing and Exporting Glyphs section of the Glyph Window chapter for more information about using the first option Multiple Master Enable Multiple Master extrapolation With this option enabled you can use the preview or generate MM instances beyond the original boundaries set by the masters If you re working with a Multiple Master font choose Tools gt Multiple Master gt Generate Instance and enter 200 as the instance position in the Weight axis to
326. et Destination Repeat Last Link Cancel Link Choose Set Destination command to open following dialog box Set Link Destination Relative Offset i240 S Ele g yA 14 0415 4 247 2 8 Absolute Position E73 W fy soe g Here you can specify properties of the link with all possible precision Original Position command will reset link to zero so node will retain its position You can select several points using the usual point selection procedure If you add a reference point after selection all selected points will move to the position of the same reference point Use this technique to collapse parts of the outline Press the OK button to finish your work with the Interpolation operation or press the Cancel button to reject all changes Metrics The Metric data of a glyph includes information about the horizontal and vertical width Glyphs have an origin point a baseline sidebearings and left and right margins 1 Character width gt a Right margin Baseline Left sidebearing Right sidebearing Zero or origin point The baseline is used to align characters in a series The left and right margins are used to define the positions of sequential characters in a series when the horizontal writing mode is selected In the vertical writing mode the left and right margins are used to horizontally align characters and the top margin is used to vertically align characters In FontLab S
327. eters Suppose that current font was last saved into file named c fonts sample vfb Special arguments are p Full file name of the current font c fonts sample vfb f Name of the file with extension sample vfb n File name only sample X File name extension vfb d Path where file was saved c fonts a Path to FontLab Studio installation usually it is program files FontLab Studio5 Now you know everything about the customization of menus toolbars and the keyboard so you can click the Close button at the bottom of the Customize dialog box to exit the customization mode Z Important note in the following manual we will describe all commands buttons and keyboard shortcuts as they come with FontLab Studio without any customizations If you changed the interface but want to follow the manual reset all changes with the Reset buttons on the Toolbars Keyboard and Menu pages of the Customize dialog box Faster Method to Customize Commands You can customize toolbars and menus without opening the Customize dialog box by pressing and holding the ALT key on the keyboard and dragging buttons between toolbars or toolbars and menu 45 46 FontLab Studio Windows There are only three types of Windows in FontLab Studio Font Window Represents one of the opened fonts Metrics Window Used to edit glyph metrics and kerning In this chapter we will provide only very basic information about the main windows
328. etrics and kerning classes Fontlab Studio analyzes the shape of the glyphs Those glyphs that have similar shapes on the left or right side are combined into a kerning class If both sides are similar then a metrics class can be generated 593 594 The first group of controls defines the area that is used to analyze glyph shape The preview to the right shows this area It could be from baseline to Caps height or from descender to ascender or any combination If the Adjust for smallcaps and lowercase option is active then it will automatically lower the top line of the area if lowercase or small caps glyphs are analyzed The controls in the bottom allow you to choose what kind of classes you want to generate These could be metrics or kerning classes or both If you want to generate kerning classes you will get a few more options Compress flat kerning to class kerning after classes are generated If this option is on then Fontlab Studio will not only generate kerning classes but also convert plain pair kerning into class based kerning This is the fastest way to convert plain TrueType or Type kerning to modern OpenType based kerning Do not mix characters from different scripts in the class If this option is active which is recommended then Fontlab Studio will check the Unicode index or some other properties if Unicode is not defined yet to check that glyphs that belong to different scripts will not go into the same class
329. etter to replace such curves with a combination of two curves There are invisible extreme points on curves This error can cause problems with rasterization of the glyph Curve with an invisible extreme point A vector and curve or two curves are connected very close to a smooth connection but not precisely I e what looks like it should be a smooth connection is labeled as a sharp connection Cusp curve _ Self intersecting curve The direction of the vector is close to vertical or horizontal but is not parallel to one of the axes i e not exactly horizontal or vertical Contour appears to be closed visually but is defined as open Use the Fix button on the error reporting dialog box to automatically correct this situation Curve or line is short enough to be deleted Optimize These settings allow you to fine tune the parameters of the Optimize command Contour gt Optimize or as part of Tools gt Actions Outline simplification level Process normally w Auto alignment level Process normally ka Outline The degree to which Optimize will attempt to simplify the simplification outline by removing nodes that are potentially redundant level Auto alignment The degree to which Optimize will attempt to align nodes for level segments that are not exactly horizontal or vertical 89 90 Opening Type 1 These settings control what happens when you open a Type 1 font or a Multiple Master font in FontLab Studio
330. etting easier but developing them is more complex Apart from just drawing letters a type designer needs to know about encoding hinting layout features and various parameters that need to be set inside of a font FontLab Studio 5 is the next generation a digital font editor from Fontlab Ltd that allows the designer to create professional level fonts from start to end 18 FontLab Studio 5 is a versatile font editor for all sorts of users The majority of the large font foundries and many smaller font houses use FontLab for designing new typefaces creating the final font products or both Linguists historians publishers librarians scholars educators software companies graphic designers and even Greek Orthodox monasteries use FontLab to create new typefaces and to extend convert re encode and otherwise modify existing fonts If FontLab Studio is too much for you Fontlab Ltd has simpler and more affordable products such as the basic font editor TypeTool the beloved classic DTP font editor Fontographer or the universal font converter TransType Major new features of FontLab Studio 5 Better glyph design true tangent points in context glyph design with Neighbors and Shape groups color customized and streamlined glyph window Revolutionary new metrics and kerning editing multiline preview better class kerning smart autogeneration of classes Better bitmap and pixel font support import BDF files and make pixel fonts
331. ew Qutpuk panel Font Lucida Console af You can browse pages continuously by clicking on buttons Other buttons and their meaning are described in the table Import options Allows you to select a profile file that holds a particular configuration of all options and loads that profile You can create different profiles for different occasions and load them when needed for example separately for each format or foundry that you work with Export options Exports current options to a profile file In a workgroup environment you can export a profile file and give it to your colleague who then can load it and generate fonts in the same environment When sending technical problem reports to Fontlab Ltd please always export your options into a profile file and attach that file with your report Apply Applies the changes without closing the dialog box Many interface changes become visible immediately in the corresponding windows OK Applies the changes and closes the dialog box 65 66 General Options Allow to enter Unicode strings in dialogs Windows 2000 or Windows P required Automatically open Output panel if message is waiting Sample text to show in File Open and Generate dialogs ABRaegi 2s Font used in Python and OpenType editors Courier Mew Output panel Font Lucida Console Allow to enter Normally you cannot directly type extended Unicode Unicode strings characters into the various
332. f The glyph outline may appear contoured or filled depending on the Fill Outline preview mode Moving Points To move points simply drag them with the left mouse button Hold the SHiFT key down to constrain movement to the vertical or horizontal direction Changing Point Type To change point type from corner to curve to tangent simply double click the node with the left mouse button Removing Points There are two ways to remove unnecessary points 1 Use the Eraser tool Select the tool E position the cursor over the point you want to remove and press the left mouse button Drag the mouse to remove multiple points CrrRL click and drag to surround the points you want to remove with a rectangle 2 Using the Edit tool start dragging the point with the left button and click the right button without releasing the left button When you remove a point you ll notice that FontLab Studio tries to keep the outline smooth In normal outline mode you usually try to minimise the number of nodes and use Bezier control points and off curve points to make the outline look smooth The main feature and benefit of Sketch mode is that you can add as many curve points as you want to make the outline smooth and precise and the curves will be aligned and optimised automatically 489 490 Inserting Points One way to insert points is to use the Knife tool a 1 Select the tool on the Tools toolbar 2 Click on the
333. f the link is connected to a standard stem width and gray if it is not If the link is connected the stem name may appear near the mark Base point Fe _ Stem name a Linked point 38 In the Program panel a single link command appears as SingleLinkV 12 gt 38 0 1 where 12 is the base point 38 is the linked point 0 is the number of the stem to which this link is connected or ns if it is not connected to the stem and 1 is the type of alignment for aligned links or na for links that are not aligned How the SingleLink Command Works 1 First the original not grid fitted positions of the base point and the linked point are retrieved and the distance between them is measured 2 Ifthe link is connected with a stem the distance is replaced by the prepared stem width for this PPM If the scaled distance is equal to or exceeds 3 pixels it is rounded to the closest integer If the link is not connected to the stem the distance is rounded or not depending on the rounding option of the command 3 The distance of the linked point is set equal to the grid fitted position of the base point shifted by the distance 4 If alinkis aligned then the position of the linked point is rounded to the grid according to the align mode stored as the last command parameter 713 714 Customizing the Single Link Command There are two ways to customize the single link command the context menu and the Program pa
334. f the number of similar glyphs in the group increases the number of necessary pairs will rise dramatically A better way to handle the kerning of similar glyphs is to define glyph groups or classes In our example the first class will contain the glyphs A and Acaron and the second T and Tcaron Then we will need to define only one pair and all glyphs in both classes will be covered Kerning classes may save a lot of time if you need to kern a font that contains a lot of similar glyphs The typical number of class kerning pairs which define kerning between classes is a few hundred Compare this to several thousand pairs that are necessary to define the same kerning data using traditional methods Classes are also actively used to define OpenType features that are applicable to a set of glyphs so we will return to this subject in the OpenType Fonts chapter 581 582 Class Based Kerning and OpenType Fonts By default FontLab will keep a class based kerning structure when you open an OpenType font that has it For each kerning class FontLab will automatically generate a class name and mark the first glyph in the class as the key glyph This feature allows you to work with the huge kerning tables of some OpenType fonts in a comfortable environment that excludes most repetitive pairs When you finish edit kerning pair values in the Metrics window you need to create a kern feature that will build kerning
335. fault lining style to oldstyle form sups Superscript Replaces lining or oldstyle figures with superior figures and replaces lowercase letters with superior sinf Scientific Replaces lining or oldstyle figures with inferior figures Inferiors 874 OpenType Glyph Properties The OpenType format allows you to define a glyph s type This can be one of the following values Unassigned Glyph type is not defined Simple Single character Ligature Multiple characters Mark Non spacing glyph used as a mark Component Part of a character Glyph type is used in a lookup when you need to limit it to the glyphs of a particular type using the lookupflag command page 832 You define the glyph type using the glyph properties panel Select one or more glyphs in the Font window and open the panel with the Edit gt Properties command Glyph Properties Font FreeFontPro HAHE three Wa 0033 Replace existing glyphs oT Unassigned we 4 EEA Select the glyph class in the list to the right of the OT icon If multiple glyphs were selected the new type will be assigned to all of them 875 876 Caret Positioning When several characters are replaced by a ligature glyph using the ligature substitution lookup a text layout application may keep the positioning cursor inside a ligature as if it still was a set of characters With FontLab Studio you can define caret positions inside the ligature Do the followin
336. fault it is set to 1 It is not recommended to use the BlueFuzz value other than 0 TrueType hinting algorithms do not use BlueScale BlueFuzz and BlueShift values Flex Hints Some glyphs have very shallow curves that are nearly horizontal or nearly vertical At low resolution and low point size it is better to replace such curves with straight lines Flex hint may be applied to a glyph outline segment only if following conditions are completed 1 Sequence is formed by exactly two curves 2 Outer endpoints must be at the same position x or y 3 The joining endpoint between two curves must be located on the extreme position vertical or horizontal of the outline section 4 The difference in x or y coordinates between the joining endpoint and outer endpoint must be less than BlueShift parameter global hinting parameter Same level Flex hints in FontLab Studio are set automatically during the font export in Type 1 or OpenType PS format You may only control this feature globally if you want font to include Flex hints switch on this check box on the Global hinting parameters section Automatically generate Flex hints in T1 and OT P S Fonts When you do manual Type hinting programming you can preview Flex hint zones 669 670 Stem Hint Programming Now that you know everything about font level hinting and know how to set and edit stem hints from the Glyph Window chapter It s time to talk about hi
337. ference points it is proportionally interpolated _ a Reference point 1 ate pe Reference point 2 464 c If point is outside the interpolated points it is shifted with the closest reference point 4 pa Reference point 1 __ V Reference point 2 1 To interpolate a glyph 1 Activate an Interpolation operation Select the Interpolate Nodes command in the Contour menu 2 You will see a panel with the OK and Cancel buttons You can press the OK button any time to finish your work with the Interpolation operation or press the Cancel button to reject all changes 3 Position the mouse cursor on the reference point that you want to set press the left mouse button and drag the point to a new location Release the button when you are done Note that the point will stick to all guiding layers as well as to other glyph nodes Hold the Suirt key down to constrain the direction of movement to 15 degree increments 4 You may want to set a so called base point a reference point that points to itself A base point will remain in place during interpolation 5 When you set the new position of the first reference point you will see the results of outline interpolation as a gray outline 6 Click on a reference point with the right mouse button to remove that reference point 465 466 7 Click on a link with the right mouse button to open the following popup menu Cancel Original Position S
338. fill the recommendations detailed below When fonts are embedded in electronic documents or sent to a printer under some circumstances only the information about the glyphs their glyph indexes names and outlines are retained while the encoding information the associated Unicode codepoints is lost The electronic document looks right but the underlying text streams are obscured or not available In such cases meaningfully constructed glyph names can be used as a help to rebuild or at least approximate the original text A practical example the user creates a text document that uses an OpenType PS font The document is printed to a PostScript file Since PostScript does not support OpenType PS the font is embedded in the print stream as Type 1 The OpenType information such as layout tables or Unicode codepoints is lost If Acrobat Distiller is used to convert the PostScript file to a PDF document the application first tries to locate the original OpenType PS font on the user s system if the font is found Distiller is able to use its original Unicode codepoints and embed them in the PDF document But if the original OpenType PS font is not available to Distiller for example because the PS to PDF conversion happens on a different machine Distiller embeds the Type 1 font found in the PostScript stream with no Unicode information Now when the text in the PDF document is being searched copy pasted or otherwise extracted by an applic
339. font are hinted in the vertical direction so that at some resolutions they can extend above or below the scaled Win Mac Ascender or Win Mac Descender values and unwanted dropouts do not appear We strongly recommend you always have this option switched on Using CacheTT to Build Device Metrics Tables There are two ways to make a device metrics tables You can use FontLab Studio to calculate these values or you can use the CacheTT program made by Microsoft FontLab Studio s own algorithm is very fast but is not as precise as CacheTT We recommend you use FontLab Studio s calculation while you are working on the font and use CacheTT when you prepare your font for release To calculate the device metrics tables using the CacheTT 1 Download and install the CacheTT program You can download it from this location http www microsoft com typography tools cachett zip Open the Options dialog box Tools gt Options command Select the General page i Use CacheTT program to generate device metrics tables in TT fonts Location of the CacheT T exe file C Distributives cachett cachett exe Enter the full path to the CacheTT exe file in the Location of the Cache TT exe file field or click on the button to find the CacheTT exe file using the file open dialog box Check the Use CacheTT program to generate device metrics tables in TT fonts checkbox if you want FontLab Studio to use CacheTT to generate device metrics t
340. font has binary OpenType tables included for more information on dealing with binary OpenType tables see the OpenType Fonts chapter m Test Font a me ve Coen Ly 334 tla dol 3 Cyg hio kli bN ca Jy el Y es Lin a ele Gi aleg Igea Sac You can print the display text from this dialog You can launch other applications e g MS Word or InDesign and see how the font works there The font name is generated automatically and starts with FLSFNT To finish testing the font and close the window click on the Close button Other Proofing Methods In addition to the proofing features described above that allow you to produce printouts FontLab Studio offers additional methods for visual proofing of your fonts on screen They are discussed more extensively in other sections of this manual but here follows a quick summary Preview panel The Preview panel Windows gt Panels gt Preview allows you to preview sample strings with a variety of options It can be docked at the top or bottom of the screen or positioned on a second monitor With the panel you can type arbitrary strings that will be previewed using your current font or choose the strings from a combo box Extended characters can be inserted by typing glyphname or XXXX or uXXXX for Unicode codepoints 4 Tip SC Unipad http www unipad org is an excellent Unicode text editor that can quickly convert between true Unicode characters and the uXXX
341. fonts do not have such extensive support for multiple codepages The character names they use to identify characters are mapped to codes through the encoding vector There is one parameter that is used to tell Adobe Type Manager used to support Type fonts in Windows how to interpret the encoding vector This is the Microsoft Character set Some of the values for Microsoft Character set ANSI The Font has all the characters necessary to represent the standard Windows Latin 1 character set No reencoding is necessary Symbol The font is symbolic with a custom encoding vector It should appear as Symbol in Windows applications and the font s own encoding vector should be used to access characters OEM The font has MS DOS characters This setting is rarely used in Type 1 fonts Bitstream This is a normal text font but it has its own encoding that should be used to access characters This setting is highly recommended for all text fonts with a non standard encoding vector Arabic The font has Arabic encoding Other values cover more codepages that may be supported by the font Choose the codepage that is the default for your font Custom cmap encodings Additional cmap tables gt Use custom cmap encoding Format Contents 6 Font window 4 Unicode 4 Unicode Platform Encoding Language Macintosh w 0 English Format 6 Trimmed table mapping ka Contents Font window lt When you are generating
342. fy any actions in your action set you can use this batch transformation feature to convert fonts from one format to another 649 650 6 Enter the path to the destination directory or use the L button to select it from the one of existing directories Destination folder Save into source folder Use the Save into source folder choice to put new fonts to the directory with the source fonts reside 7 Click Start to complete the definition of the list After you start the action set FontLab Studio will open fonts from the list apply the action set adjust the font and file names if specified and save the resulting fonts in the selected formats to the selected directory on your disk Hinting This chapter is about hinting Type 1 and TrueType fonts Hinting is a rather technical stage of the modern font design process It is the stage where art truly meets technology You need a lot of technical information to make well hinted fonts and this chapter will give it to you Font Scaling PPM One of the most important features of outline fonts is that they can be used on many different output devices from computer monitors to imagesetters Because character outline shapes are defined as sequences of lines and curves it is easy to scale outlines to any size and resolution However almost all output devices have discrete elements arranged in a regular rectangular raster grid and the images that these devices produce ar
343. g 1 Click on the Options button of the Options panel TrueType Options a Current PPR 16 v Link ko skem AJtomatic E ne 2 Click on the Zones tab in the appearing dialog box Stems 40N 5 General You will see the Zones page TT Hinting Options Name vo wI a CACC sg 435 450 462 666 jga 70g fed Apply 702 The zones page contains a toolbar two lists and a command area below each list The left list stores all information about the top zones where alignment happens in top to bottom direction and the right list about the bottom zones For each zone you may specify its name and position of the snap to primary line v0 and a secondary v1 The position of the secondary may be defined in absolute coordinates or as a distance from the primary line top zone pictured lt lt C71 a VO To change settings for a zone select it in the list and use controls below the list There is a toolbar above zones lists Use it to call following commands t Add new top or bottom zone respectively Remove current top or bottom zone i Import Type 1 zones of the current font Import TrueType zones from another font font selection dialog box appears E Replace Type 1 zones with the TrueType zones 703 704 AlignTop and AlignBottom Instructions These instructions are available only when the vertical hinting direction is selected To add AlignTop or AlignBott
344. g 1 Open the ligature glyph in the Glyph window 2 Open the properties panel with the Edit gt Properties command 3 Inthe properties panel select the ligature glyph type 4 To the right of the glyph type selection list enter the number of components in the ligature 5 Make sure that View gt Show Layers gt Anchors and Carets option is on 6 You will see several vertical caret lines appeared in the Glyph window The number of the lines equals the number of components of the ligature minus one 261 BeOls E Use the Edit tool to move the caret lines to the desired positions Generating OpenType Fonts When you have a font that contains feature definitions and you want them to be generated as an OpenType font file the first thing you need to do is to compile and test your features using the tools in the OpenType panel If youre trying to generate an OpenType TT font and feature definitions contain errors they will not be exported and you will get a plain TrueType font file without any features If you are generating an OpenType PS font and the feature definitions contain an error the font will not be generated at all When you know that there are no errors in the features and the features work as expected you need to check the OpenType generation options in the Tools gt Options gt Generating OpenType amp TrueType dialog box Write stored custom TrueType OpenType tables Compile feature definitions Contextu
345. g the node to move it without the adjacent control points y If the connection is smooth press the ALT key before moving the connecting node to keep the connection s curvature optimised Hold down the CTRL key to involve all 4 control points in the process me 357 358 4 When you are editing control points of a Bezier curve press the SHIFT key before clicking the button to keep the direction of the control vector unchanged Le a 5 Ifyou are moving a control point of a curve with a sharp connection press the ALT key to temporarily change the connection type to smooth so that the adjacent control vector will be collinear Do not forget that you can press the lt key the key under Esc at any time to get an instant high quality preview of the glyph outline as it will print LO So Bo Normal outline High quality preview Outline Echo If you want to see how the outline looked before you moved a node switch on the Echo mode Open the Glyph Window page of the Options dialog box and switch on this option FJ E ee dd e Leave echo while editing This is how editing field will look when echo mode is on Using the Keyboard You can use the keyboard to move nodes and to select a node for editing Arrow keys Every click moves current node by one font unit Sa ey eer S a Re Re ere cece Seem eee renee i ere eee eg eee erie eter ai RS Ser et rer mes eee eee Se are eee See ere F eee eee
346. g and OpenType Fonts 525 526 527 530 531 532 534 535 536 537 537 538 539 540 541 544 545 545 546 547 548 548 549 550 551 553 555 556 557 559 563 564 566 567 568 568 570 573 575 576 578 579 581 582 Classes Panel Class Definition Defining the Class Key Glyph Rearranging Classes and Glyphs Editing Class Based Kerning Generating Kerning Classes Automatically Kerning Exceptions Class Kerning Modes Previewing Class based Kerning Kerning Classes and OpenType Kerning Kerning Assistance Metrics Assistance Editing Metrics Class Properties in Classes Panel Opening Metrics Files Saving Metrics Files Printing ACTIONS The Actions Dialog Box Actions Contour Transformation Hints and Guidelines Transformation Metrics Transformation Effects Action Set Dialog Box Action Set Range Action Set Using the Preview Window Saving and Opening an Action Set Transforming Fonts HINTING Font Scaling PPM Coordinate Rounding Gridfitting TrueType and Type 1 Hints Type 1 Hints Font Level Type 1 Hints Alignment Zones Standard Stem Widths Additional Control Data Flex Hints 615 616 619 620 628 630 633 641 642 645 646 647 648 12 Stem Hint Programming Type 1 Hinting Tool Inserting and Removing Replacement Points Adding and removing hints Editing Hints Autoreplacing Preview Pixels Preview Panel Some Examples TrueType Instructions Font Par
347. g masters will be blended according to their position on the removed axis which you can specify To remove an axis select the Tools gt Multiple Master gt Remove Axis command A dialog box appears Remove Axis Choose the axis to remove Weight ou have selected asis Weight to be removed Select a position for the remaining masters on the removed axis lt o 0 1000 1 masters will be removed if you remove this axis Remaining masters will be blended accordina to the selected position Select the axis you want to remove in the axis list at the top of the dialog and use the scroller to set the blending coordinate that will be used to blend the remaining masters You can use the Generate Instance feature described on the page 810 if you want to convert the MM font to single master font Sometimes it is easier to use than the Remove Axis feature 803 804 Multiple Master and Font Info Here is a list of the pages of the Font Info dialog box with notes about their information in a Multiple Master font Basic Set of Font Names Have minor changes 1 Multiple Master fonts usually have the MM suffix at the end of their names 2 The length of the Menu name is limited to 7 characters 3 MM fonts with a Weight axis have the All value in the Weight field MM fonts with a Width axis have the All value in the Width field
348. ghest class in the FontLab Studio hierarchy is a class named FontLab You cannot create it explicitly but the object of this class is always available and is named fl This class contains seven most important members ifont Index of the active font e e ee E T Fre E PE en eT eT ae ATE ees oe T a a aa P ee tn Peers phaser hee epee ae eg nnesdiseesa dhs eens mE NEREEHEREREERERHOE er eee iio een eee count_selected Number of selected glyphs in the Font Window You can also access the fl object as a list of Font type objects print fl O font_name 896 There are several important methods Close fontindex Closes the current or fontindex font Open filename Opens the font from the file using the current Open filename addtolist opening options If addtolist is True the font is added to FontLab Studio s font list Save filename Saves the current or selected font using the Save fontindex filename standard FontLab Studio Save routine Add font Adds font to the list of open fonts and opens the Font Window for it UpdateFont Updates the current font or fontindex slow UpdateFont fontindex operation UpdateGlyph Updates the current or glyphindex glyph of the UpdateGlyph glyphindex current font EditGlyph Opens a Glyph window for the glyphindex glyph in EditGlyph glyphindex the current font Selected Returns True if the current glyph or glyphindex Selected glyphindex glyph is selected r
349. ght mouse button The selected contour will be highlighted 3 Inthe popup menu choose one of these commands Up To move the contour one step up contour 3 will be 2 oa ea E O E S First To move the contour to the top of the sequence contour 3 will be 1 Last To move the contour to the bottom of the sequence contour 3 will be the last contour in the sequence Double click to accept the changes you can also press the RETURN or ENTER key on the keyboard or press the Esc key to reject the changes 460 Simplifying Path Using this operation you can simplify a segment of the glyph s outline to a single curve i e remove excess nodes on a path bee hones Original outline Outline after simplifying To simplify part of the outline 1 Activate the Simplify Path operation select Contour gt Path gt Simplify Path CrrL ALT C or press the D3 button on the Path toolbar 2 Click the left mouse button on the outline where you want to start the curve Hold the Suirr key down to make a smooth transition between the new curve and the old outline 3 Click the left mouse button where you want to finish the curve Again hold the Suirr key down to make a smooth transition The shorter segment of the closed path will be simlified Hold the Arrt key when clicking to simplify the longer segment Note that the starting and finishing points must be on the same contour but don t have to be on exiting nodes Double click o
350. give you an accurate presentation of the glyphs in context The process of letterspacing devising of glyph metrics and kerning should not be done for each individual character separately Inter glyph whitespace should be designed based on words and strings of text You can do this in the Metrics Window To modify glyph metrics switch the Metrics Window to the Metrics mode Click on the Metrics Mode button iMi in the Metrics Tools toolbar or select the Metrics command in mode selection menu on the bottom command area Preview Text wf Metrics kerning You can also right click the editing area and select the Metrics Mode command in the context menu 553 554 The easiest way to see the metrics of a glyph is to use the Property area ae se S enle El we loos E Sci 427 G06 ELES 506 ambu By default the Property area is empty To make the metrics editing controls visible click the left mouse button on a glyph in the editing field The metrics editing controls will appear and the sidebearings lines with editing handles will appear at the sides of the glyph The numbers at the bottom of the glyph are the left and right sidebearing values and the glyph s advance width Manual Metrics Editing To modify a glyph s metrics you can use several methods 1 Drag the sidebearings lines 2 Drag the glyph within the editing area 3 Edit the values in the property area of the Metrics Window 4 Use the Metrics Panel
351. glyph Unicode codepoints proceeded by backslash You can use the Choose Glyph button to open the Find Glyphs dialog box 3 Set other printing options Nodes If this option is on FontLab Studio will print squares visually representing nodes Node coordinates If this option is on FontLab Studio will also print coordinates for each node in font units Node coordinates cannot be printed without printing nodes Glyph metrics If this option is on FontLab Studio will print lines representing glyph metrics Hints If this option is on and hints are present they will be printed Fill outline If this option is on glyph outlines will be printed filled 286 Fit glyph to page If this option is selected each glyph will be printed vertically scaled to fit the page vertically and centered horizontally Use current Glyph If this option is on each glyph will be printed at the size window zoom of the currently opened Glyph window This option cannot be selected if there are no opened Glyph windows 4 Click OK You will see the standard Windows Print dialog box Use combinations of different options to see the printing result which better meets your needs Printout of the glyph sample with default printing options FONTLAB GLYPH SAMPLE Adobe Systems Incorporated Font BellMT SemiBolditalic 09 15 05 12 55 53 pee Page 1 1 Z 287 Printing Glyph Waterfall To print the glyph waterfall sample 1 Select the Print command in the File m
352. glyph cells corners of the glyph cells Refer to the Font Window section for more information about their meaning Show note icons Glyphs can have notes associated with them With this option enabled if a glyph includes a note a small icon will appear in the corner of the glyph cell Smooth glyph Turns on and off the anti aliasing of the rendered glyph thumbnails previews thumbnails in the glyph cells Highlight conflicts The default Unicode Name mapping table see pages 69 and between name and 91 determines the ideal recommended mapping between Unicode index glyph names and Unicodes In your font glyph names can be mapped to other Unicodes than those recommended or glyph may have no Unicode codepoints assigned although they should With this option enabled FontLab Studio will show the caption background of the glyph cell in red color for all such problematic cases To automatically correct the problem use Glyph gt Glyph Names gt Generate Unicode Templates This section regards two different sorts of templates used in FontLab Studio New font template a vfb file that can be used as basis for all new fonts that are created in FontLab Studio If you regularly create new fonts for the same foundry you can save any of your fonts as a new font template You may want to set an encoding fill in the designer and vendor information but perhaps clean font naming and all the glyphs Later when creating new fonts in FontLab S
353. glyphs in the glyph list above A Choosing the class name will add glyphs of the class to the list above 644 Action Set In the middle of the dialog box there are two list boxes Available actions Action set Contour A PS Scale 80 00 100 00 HMZ Shift Rotate 15 009 Cw 2 Mirror Scale Rotate i slant DernmnnsA bail L x The left list box called Available actions includes the names of all available transformation actions The actions are grouped in categories for easier selection The right list box previews the current set of actions that will be applied in sequence You may add as many actions as you want to the action set delete actions from the set or rearrange actions to make them execute in proper sequence To add an action to the action set select the action use the and icons in the Available actions list to expand and collapse the action categories and press the 2 button or double click an action name The action will be added to the bottom of the action set the right list with its default parameters To adjust an action s parameters select the action in the Action set list and enter new parameters in the Current action area The actions parameters panels are described in the previous sections To remove an action from the set select the action that you want to remove and press the _ button or double click the name of the action in the right list To
354. gram Panel a Preview Panel All the commands except the two at the bottom control the appearance of the layers that represent information about the hinting process The layers are described in the following section The two remaining commands let you open the Programs panel that previews the source code of the hinting program and the Preview panel that shows the result of the hinting 693 694 Layers With the TrueType tool you can see various information layers in the Glyph Window s ___ _ _ Gridlines 7 Point indexes or l a Resulting outline EA Pixel centers Resulting pixels IVY Original outline These layers are different from the usual editing layers so we will explain them here Outline The original untouched outline of the glyph always appears in the Glyph Window in black The Resulting outline which is the result of the interpretation of the instruction program appears in gray tt Grid Gridlines Gridlines mark the edges of pixels that will appear in the selected PPM size js Centers Centers of pixels When the outline is filled all pixels whose centers are on the outline or inside the outline are set black This layer is very useful for delta hinting Ww Pixels Resulting pixels FontLab Studio uses the real Windows TrueType rasterizer to preview a filled glyph at the selected PPM after interpretation of the instruction program Point indices Point numbers
355. gram panel in expanded mode Point Align Closest pixel edge w Links Links are the most important visual commands They are used to set relationships between outline points and to set distances between points to one of the standard stem values There are two types of links single links and double links Single links need to have a base point that is set by a previous command This can be any command except a final delta A double link does not need to have base points It sets the position of two points and they can be used as base points for a single link or interpolate command 709 710 Standard Stems All link commands can be connected with one of the standard stems When a link is connected to a stem it sets the distance between points to the scaled and rounded width of the stem Using this technique you can implement standard stem based hinting keeping important stem widths the same in every character in which they are used Please note that Type standard stems and TrueType stems are different although they function similarly There is no limitation to the number of TrueType stems and they may be named We will discuss all the different options of TrueType stems later on page 731 You can use the Options panel to select standard stem options Link to stem Automatic O None Ofra w i Round distance There are three main options Automatic connection to the stem Manual connection and no connection at al
356. gt Colors page Path direction mark This feature allows you to make the direction marks almost invisible but still know the direction of the contours Curves and Lines Segments are of three types straight segments PostScript curve segments or TrueType curve segments Straight segments Sometimes called vectors are straight lines that connect two sequential nodes PostScript curves also called Type 1 curves are Bezier curves 34 order cubic B splines To modify the form of the curves two additional sub nodes are used Bezier Control Point w End Point Bezier Curve 7 7 7 T Control Vector E d End Point These sub nodes are called Bezier control points BCPs and the vectors that connect the control points with the curve s ends are called control vectors In the Glyph Window straight segments end in square in black white mode or red in color mode dots and curves end with round or green dots Note that the contour direction plays a role here it is always the shape or color of the final node of a segment that tells you about the type of the segment TrueType curves are 2 4 order curves quadratic B splines that have one control point called the off curve point Control off curve point ae End on curve point fo I it E a E End on curve point 343 344 Some TrueType curves may appear linked together and form a long curve with off curve points only In such curves the interme
357. guage is referred to by the feature definition they are listed in the combo boxes on the command bar Use them to select the script and language to preview When a script is selected you will see a list of the features that are defined for that script and language Please note that when you select the non default language only features that are unique for the selected language are listed Every feature name has a check box Use it to turn the feature on or off When several features are selected they are applied in the order in which they are listed To the right of the list there are 3 fields source text source preview panel and resulting preview panel You must enter the text you want to use to preview in the source text field Use FontLab Studio notation to enter glyphs that are not directly accessible from the keyboard followed by the glyph name and a space or V followed by the Unicode index You can also drag drop glyphs from the Font window or from the Classes panel into the source text field The Source preview shows the glyphs before OpenType features are applied The Resulting preview panel shows the glyphs after the OpenType features do their work You will also see the result glyph names below the Resulting preview Interpretation of the features is based on the OpenType specification and is carefully tested for compatibility with OS and Adobe InDesign interpretation However please be aware that feature interp
358. h Window Use the Double click opens a new window option in the Font Window page to activate this feature Click the right mouse button in the Font Window and select the Open Glyph Window command to open the glyph in a separate Glyph Window The lock button allows direct keyboard access to glyphs in your font If the button shows a closed lock single letter keystrokes are used for keyboard shortcuts such as Z for zoom in If the button shows an open lock pressing single keys on the keyboard takes you to the corresponding glyph in your font so pressing Z will open the z glyph for editing Shift Z will open the uppercase Z To access an extended character quickly type its glyph name For example to open the a glyph type aADIEREsIS on your keyboard Note that usually just typing apt will do if there is only one glyph in the font with the name that starts with that string Use Shift for uppercase names Click the left mouse button on the glyph selected in the Font Window and drag it into any Glyph Window Select the Find command in the Edit menu and find the glyph that you want to open If you have a wheel on your mouse hold down the CTRL key and scroll the wheel to move to the previous or next glyph 323 324 Creating Glyphs If you want to create a new glyph in an empty place in the font a gray cell in the Font window double click the cell If you want to create a group of new glyphs with a single com
359. h the existing glyph contours using our unique contour processing technology When you click on one of the tools on the Tools or Paint toolbar you enter the VectorPaint mode To open the Paint toolbar select it the View gt Toolbars menu The keyboard shortcut for the mode is ALT 3 The type of interaction between existing and new contours depends on the selected color mode This process is very fast and is completely transparent to you so if you switch on the preview mode where the glyph appears filled the illusion of bitmap like editing of a contour based glyph image is very realistic All the paint tools can work in 4 different color modes Transparent Newly created vector objects that are generated by the application of VectorPaint tools do not interact with the existing glyph s contour and appear selected for easy editing FE Automatic The color of the brush depends on the point where you begin drawing If you begin in a white area a white brush will be selected if in black a black brush will be selected Use this color mode to easily extend white or black areas of the glyph Mi Black Generated contours are added to existing contours expanding the black area of the glyph It looks like a black brush applied to a black picture White New contours are subtracted from existing contours simulating a white brush Here is an example of a brush stroke applied with Transparent Black and White colors qe
360. hange its width or position You may later use the FontInfo dialog File gt Font Info to check the exact parameters of the zones 485 486 Sketch Mode Sketch mode is a new easy alternative way to create outlines To activate Sketch mode just select the Sketch mode command in the Contour menu or use the ALT 2 key combination To return back to Edit mode use the ALT 1 key combination When you enter sketch mode for the first time the glyph outline is automatically converted into a special format that is optimised for freestyle editing Thus the sketch mode has two outline layers one with the original real glyph outline and one with the sketch outline In contrast to the outline representation used in the Edit mode the Sketch outline is not WYSIWYG Before exporting to a font file all sketch outlines must be converted into standard outlines I e you edit the sketch but nothing changes in the real glyph outline until you do the conversion In the Sketch outline all points that define the outline are positioned on curve There are no Bezier control points or TrueType off curve points The principle is somewhat similar to the Ikarus font editor by URW but the underlying geometry is not identical In the Sketch mode there are 3 types of points corner curve and tangent When points of known types are set FontLab Studio automatically draws the outline to match their positions If you want to c
361. hange the shape of the outline just move the points or add more points to increase the precision When you enter the Sketch mode you will see an additional Sketch toolbar Sketch Here is a short description of the commands available on the Sketch toolbar Show outline Displays the real glyph outline in the background of the sketch outline lt Show marks Shows point and direction marks New sketch Use to create a new empty sketch I e delete the current sketch Av Import sketch Convert the glyph outline to a sketch hA Add to outline Add the sketch outline to the glyph outline The same commands are available in the popup menu that appears if you right click the empty space of the Glyph window 487 488 Visualization of the Sketch Outline Every point in Sketch mode can have 2 marks The Node icon which is similar to how nodes are shown in Edit mode The Direction mark which shows the curve direction the mark is on the convex side of the curve at the point Direction marks are different depending on the type of the node Short mark a Curve point Mark with an arrow iP Startpoint of the contour Use the View gt Show Layers gt Nodes command to switch the node icons on or off and the Show Marks button on the Sketch toolbar to show or hide the direction marks With the Show Outline button you can turn the real Edit mode glyph outline in the background of the Sketch outline on or of
362. haracter codes of each glyph 133 134 Font Window Modes The Font Window can be presented in four modes that can be used to browse the font s glyph collection using certain criteria In some cases the Font Window mode also influences the encoding of the final generated font particularly for Type 1 fonts The four modes of the Font Window are the following 1 Names mode This mode lists encoding tables Each encoding table is an ordered list of glyph names and may also include local character codes that correspond to some of the glyphs An encoding table performs one of two functions it serves as a Type 1 encoding table that is used to determine the character encoding in Type 1 fonts or it can serve as a glyph arrangement table The latter is used by type designers to visually arrange glyphs in the design stage usually of an OpenType font and is not directly used as the source of the font s encoding as OpenType fonts are based on Unicode Since an encoding table is based on glyph names it can reference both encoded glyphs i e those with at least one Unicode codepoint assigned and unencoded glyphs those without Unicode codepoints Codepages mode This mode lists codepages Each codepage is a mapping of local character codes to Unicode codepoints The codepage can use one or two byte local character codes Two byte codepages are used to reference characters in Far East fonts Chinese Japanese Korean or Traditi
363. haracters are automatically symmetrical in both directions So it s enough to set the positions and width of the vertical and horizontal stems and the center points will be interpolated and automatically set in the central position oo og 50 00000000000000000000Q0 For pike characters this is not good enough because the position of the pike point is important At most PPMs you must set the width of the pike to one pixel Automatic interpolation of the outline may set the pike point to a position where the pike will disappear So in the case of pike characters we have to begin by positioning the pike point with the align to pixel center command and then set the positions of all other points by linking to this point ee Y VY VY WWV VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV V 759 760 Interpolate or Not As you already know all points that were not positioned by commands untouched points are interpolated automatically by the final interpolation command Final interpolation sets the position of any untouched point proportionally to the closest untouched points But sometimes you may want to control the interpolation process and directly set the base points of the interpolation Usually this happens when a point is geometrically between two touched points that belong to different contours The only way to keep point 10 between points 31 and 34 is to set an interpolation command in the vertical direction It s a good idea to inte
364. hat are used as settings for various commands Every character outline is scaled according to the selected PPM value Point coordinates are stored as fixed point numbers they are not integers but have a fixed precision Then the glyph program is interpreted The glyph program measures the distances between outline points uses font level constants and resets the position of some outline points These points are called touched points All untouched points usually interpolate by the last glyph program command between the new positions of touched points IED 2 Original outline Hinted outline Hinted outline before interpolation after final interpolation There are several special commands that are applied to the glyph outline at specific PPMs These commands are called delta instructions and are used to slightly modify the position of outline points to improve the character s appearance We will not include here a complete description of all TrueType instructions If you are interested we recommend that you read Technical Specifications for TrueType Font Files which is available from Microsoft 687 688 Font Parameters Because within each font it s very impo
365. he Glyphs Bar is active choose the cell with the left and right arrow keys and click the ENTER key 321 If you hold down the Suirt key while using the left and right arrow keys glyphs are opened instantly The fastest way to open a glyph is to use the keyboard 1 Open the Glyphs Bar with the Tas key 2 Press the key of the character that you want to open on the keyboard 3 Ifthe glyph is not directly accessible from the keyboard enter its name You have one second to enter each character of the name 4 Click the Tas key again to close the Glyphs Bar You may close the Glyphs Bar at any time by clicking the Glyphs Bar collapse button or pressing the Tas key When the editing area is active you can just press the B key 322 Selecting a Glyph for Editing In addition to using the Glyphs Bar you can open a glyph in the Glyph Window using any of the following methods Double click the glyph s cell in the Font Window to open it a DE PE If you already have an open Glyph Window with a glyph from the same font the new glyph will be opened in the same Glyph Window where the previous glyph was shown Hold the Crri key down when you double click on the glyph cell to open it in a separate Glyph Window Note that if this method doesn t work it usually means that it is switched off in the Font Window s options in the Options dialog box You can force FontLab Studio to always open a glyph for editing in a new Glyp
366. he sidebearing measurement Error Objects cannot be created from editing field codes You can see measured values appear above the line when you move the right or left sidebearing The same values appear in the glyph properties panel Error Objects cannot be created from editing field codes You can drag the measurement line to any position and the information in the Glyph properties will be updated accordingly You also can change the measurement line position in its Properties panel if you left click the measurement line while holding down the Crru key on the keyboard 469 470 Baseline Properties Panel With this property panel you can adjust the position of the glyph s baseline To open it click the right mouse button on the baseline and select the Properties command in the popup menu Properties or left click the baseline while holding down the CTRL key on the keyboard Baseline Properties x Baseline position Position E units From baseline position To change the position of the baseline 1 Select the base level of the modification It can be the old position for relative offset the top of the glyph the bottom of the glyph the top sidebearing or the bottom sidebearing 2 Change the position of the baseline relative to the base level 3 Press the ENTER key or click anywhere in the editing field to apply the changes Metrics Properties Panel To open the metrics property panel positi
367. he 20h 32 code of the space character The empty character is mapped to 0 as usual This font is exported in TrueType format using all the TrueType export settings including grayscale settings maintaining the existing instructions setting and autohinting A special font name is set for this font to avoid conflict with any installed fonts This font is saved in the Windows TEMP directory with a name beginning with FL and with a TMP extension The new font is installed in the system All previews are made with this font Previews in the Preview panel can use grayscale output if it is available from the system and is allowed by the font When the font is no longer needed it is uninstalled and the font file is removed Like the Type 1 hinting preview panel the TrueType hinting preview panel can be opened and its options can be customized Please refer to the description of the Type hinting preview panel on page 679 for more information 697 698 Program Panel In the Program panel you can see the text of the instruction program as it is interpreted TrueType Program Instructions _ SingleLinkH 113 gt 108 0 SingleLinkH 39 gt 115 r na AlignTop 14 44 AlignTop 16 44 AlignTop 19 44 AlignTop 24 44 AlignBottom 47 04 AlignBotkom SO 0 AlignBotkom 55 0 AlignBottom 58 0 To open the Program panel use the command from the TrueType hinting options menu The Program panel
368. he Macro folder They will appear as new categories in the Macro folders combo box on the Macro toolbar Note that there are two Macro folders in FontLab Studio 5 one in your user data folder and one in the application data folder We recommend placing your own macros in the Macro subfolder within the FontLab Studio user data folder and not within the FontLab Studio application folder 893 894 First Steps Let s write a few basic programs The Hello World program is a typical benchmark of the simplest useful program you can write It is very easy to do in FontLab Studio Python 1 2 Open the Edit Macro panel If there is something there click on the g button and select the New program command to clean the editing field Enter the following code print Hello World Edit Macro w d e e print Hello world Click on the button to run the program You will see the output panel appear on the screen containing our text Hello world All text you output with the Python print operation appears in the Output panel There is more information about using this panel in the OpenType Fonts chapter on page 849 OK now let s do something more useful using FontLab Studio classes which are partially described below Suppose we want to find all the glyphs that are empty i e don t have an outline or any components The space is a good example of such a glyph First open the fon
369. he Type 1 hinting system allows so called FamilyBlues alignment zones that are used in the whole font family To set family alignment zones switch on the Set family alignment zones check box Then edit the alignment zones as usual To return to editing local alignment zones switch on the Set local alignment zones check box 257 258 Type 1 Standard Stems Type 1 hinting standard stems e Set stems for the master stems H stems 60 _ ForceBold used to make Type 1 font looking bold Standard stem widths are also controlled through the Alignment page of the Font Info dialog box To edit standard stems open the Font Info dialog box and select the Alignment page There are controls for both vertical and horizontal standard stem widths All available horizontal stems appear in the horizontal lists You can select any stem just as you would in normal vertical list controls To add a stem to the list of the standard stems press at the right side of the stems list To edit a standard stem width select it using the left mouse button and edit its value in the edit field to the right of the list To remove a stem from the list select it and press the button Note that FontLab Studio will sort stem widths starting from the second in ascending order when you close the Font Info dialog box ForceBold when this option is switched on Type 1 rendering algorithm makes the font looking bold The quic
370. he font in applications This name must not include style information bold italic or similar The length of this field is limited to 31 characters for TrueType or single master Type 1 fonts and to 7 characters for Multiple Master fonts To ensure that the current Menu name is made properly press the Check button FOND Name This name is used by the Mac OS to organize fonts into font families Windows does not use it We recommend you fill in this name if you plan to port your font to Mac by FontLab Studio for Mac or TransType Build Names Press this button to automatically generate the Font Name and Full Name fields If you are creating a new font we recommend that you fill in the Family Name field generate or manually fill in the Style Name field and press this button to create the Font and Full names If necessary you can edit the names later 218 Accessing MyFonts com Database The last button on the Basic names page is Check at MyFonts com Check at MyFonts com Click on this button to browse the huge database of fonts that is located on the MyFonts com servers to see if your font name has already been used MyFonts com Family name to check Times ID Type Marne a011 BS Times Ten Roman a011 TT Times Ten Roman a010 PS Times Ten Italic a010 TT Times Ten Italic a0g PS Times Ten Bold 8008 TT Times Ten Bald a005 PS Times Ten Bald Italic a005 TT Times Ten Bald Italic PS PS Time Script D Light
371. he freehand select tool 5 in the Paint toolbar 2 Position the cursor on the point where you want to start the selection and press the left mouse button 3 Drag the mouse to extend the selection polygon in freehand mode or click the left mouse button to extend the selection polygon by straight segments 4 Click the right mouse button to finish the selection When you finish the selection you will see that the selection polygon was applied like a knife and you have a new contour or several contours that is separated from the glyph The new contours are selected so you can use the Edit tool to move them or transform the selection Of course you can use any Edit menu command with this selection Pen Contour Tool With the Contour tool you can create new contours or modify existing contours in a more artistic manner than with the Edit tool When you use the Contour tool you can draw new contours just as you do on paper FontLab Studio will trace your drawing and replace it with a series of curves and lines How to create a new contour If you begin a contour in a free area where the cursor has its ordinary shape you will define a new contour If you want to begin a new contour but its startpoint is on an existing contour press the CTRL key to force FontLab Studio to create a new contour How to modify an existing contour When you move the cursor of the Contour tool onto an existing contour or node it changes If you
372. he option selected The Reverse all contours option just changes the direction of all contours to the opposite Connections Use this action to reset and recalculate the types of connections between outline segments For example if the BCPs of two curve segments are aligned but the connection is sharp it will be set to a smooth connection This is useful after major modification of an outline when you want to review how outline segments are connected Extremes This command is the equivalent of the Nodes at extremes outline action that was described in the Glyph Window chapter Use it to automatically insert nodes at curves extreme points as is required by the Type 1 or OpenType PS specification Remove Overlap This action removes overlapping parts of the glyph s outline It also sets the direction of all the contours to counterclockwise as it required by the Type 1 specification Use this transformation as the final step to prepare glyph outlines for hinting or production Several examples of this transformation za as Ji EEEE Make Master This transformation takes three known masters of a four master Multiple Master font and calculates the fourth master It uses a simple algorithm of linear extrapolation so the results are not usually precise But they may give important information about the proportions of the fourth master so you can get a close approximation of what the fourth master should look like 625 O
373. he same command in the context menu that appears when you right click the editing field To get access to the controls for adjusting the properties of the lines switch the local command area to the top using this button located in the top right corner of the editing area This is how the Metrics window should look W Preview Metrics Adobe Caslon Pro Seles l 100 E u Gal E zda 50 W430 650 746 45704 Ati 500 500 551 552 There are two buttons and four editing boxes Click on the Underline button to show the underline 100 3 50 e eae S s Ta BEL TH 42T m04 411 S10 S10 ABCabc12 As you can see underline controls are now enabled so you can use this control i to change the underline position Use this control ue to change the underline thickness Use the Strikethrough button to show the strikethrough line and enable the related controls 100 ejo 246 50 Tas BGO T46 42T 4 411 S00 S00 Strikethrough may appear together with underline or separately as pictured Editing Metrics This section discusses horizontal glyph metrics the advance width and the sidebearings jointly referred to as just metrics and kerning In FontLab you can modify this information either manually or automatically Horizontal glyph metrics can be modified manually in the Glyph window by dragging on the sidebearing lines However this does not
374. he top area and a list of open fonts All open fonts are automatically arranged in font families using the Family Name entry in the font header see the Font Header chapter 199 200 You can choose to group fonts using the OpenType Family Name entry op ak Cronos Pro F Cronos Pro CronosPro Regular otF Cronos Pro Bold CronosPro Bold otf Cronos Pro Bold Caption CronosPro BoldCapt otf Cronos Pro Bold Caption Italic CronmosPro BoldCaptit otf Cronos Pro Bold Display CronosPro BoldDisp otF Cronos Pro Bold Display Italic CromosPro BoldDispit otf Cronos Pro Bold Italic CronosPro BoldIk otf Cronos Pro Bold Subhead CronosPro BoldSubh otF Cronos Pro Bold Subhead Italic CronosPro BoldSubhit otf Cronos Pro Caption CronosPro Capt otf Cronos Pro Caption Italic CromosPro CaptIk ot Cronos Pro Display CronosPro Disp otf Cronos Pro Display Italic CronosPro DispIk otf Cronos Pro Italic CronosPro Italic otf Cronos Pro Light CromosPro Lt otF Cronos Pro Light Caption CronosPro LiCapt otF Cronos Pro Light Caption Italic CronosPro LtCaptit otf F Cronos Pro Light Display CromosPro LtDisp otF F Cronos Pro Light Display Italic CronosPro LtDispIt otf F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F Total Fonts 32 Grouped by OT Family Name Use the popup menu in the toolbar to select how to arrange fonts in families ae al a a a Y ee Group By Family
375. he untouched points This point becomes touched after interpretation of the middle delta command so the position of other untouched points will be changed proportionally to the shift of that point Middle delta instructions We recommend using the middle delta command with untouched points when it s necessary to shift several points at once Usually you have such a situation on diagonal and curved stems Single Link or Double Link We recommend using the double link command only in situations where only the width of the stem is important not the position Double links Here is a good example of the situation where double links should be replaced by a chain of single links nmmmmmmmmmmMmm mm mm mm mm mmm mM 753 754 mmoammmommmmmmmmmnamnmM mmmmMmM Another possible application of the double link is hinting a character s middle horizontal stem If the position of the middle stem in different characters is different you cannot be sure that the hinted position will be the same at all PPMs even if the difference is very small There is always a chance that at some PPM the rounding of linked points will be different and the link will be shifted top or bottom Be ready to set a number of middle delta instructions or better yet set a special middle line alignment zone and use a combination of align and single link instructions Hinting White Space Sometimes it s necessary to set the width of the white spa
376. hints work when font is rendered with ClearType technology but with some limitations For example final delta instructions are not used at all With the Preview panel you can see a sample of the font rendered with ClearType use this button to choose the rasterizer Black White Grayscale w ClearType If you select ClearType in this list all rendering in the Preview panel will be done using this rendering technology Mac OS X Apple and Acrobat Adobe also use subpixel rendering algorithms The principle is similar to ClearType but the details of the implementation differ This means that the effects of subpixel rendering of the same font on Windows on Mac OS X and in Acrobat will usually be different Multiple Master Fonts With FontLab Studio you can make a special type of font called a Multiple Master font Multiple Master fonts contain several font styles called masters in one font file A program that uses a Multiple Master font can select not only one of the master fonts but also any intermediate style created by interpolation of the master fonts So it can use not only Bold Normal Narrow or Wide styles but any style in between such as 30 Weight and 47 Width We will discuss this process in full detail in the next sections 766 Multiple Master Fonts Theory The Multiple Master font format was developed by Adobe Systems as an extension of the Type font format This means that Multiple Master fonts or MM fonts for
377. his might not be the same as the measured height of the lowercase x CapHeight The height of the optical line describing the top of the uppercase H in font units This might not be the same as the measured height of the uppercase H 273 PCLT Codepages PCLT supported codepages e Typeface M Arial File name ARLA OQ Character Set Undefined w Character Complement OOU0000000000000 Typeface This 16 byte ASCII string appears in the font print of PCL printers Care should be taken to insure that the base string for all typefaces of a family are consistent and that the designators for bold italic etc are standardized Times New Times New Bd Times New It Times New Bdlt File name This 6 byte field is composed of 3 parts The first 3 bytes are an industry standard typeface family string The fourth byte is a treatment character such as R B I The last two characters are either zeroes for an unbound font or a two character mnemonic for a symbol set if a symbol set is found Examples TNRROO Times New text weight upright TNRIOO Times New Italic Character Set Symbol set values are assigned by HP Boise Division Unbound fonts or typefaces should have a symbol set value of 0 See the PCL 5 Printer Language Technical Reference Manual or the PCL 5 Comparison Guide for the most recent published list of codes In most cases all you need to do is to select one of pre defined values in the list to the right of
378. his properties panel you can change the number of the star s rays and the values of the internal and external radii FontLab has a standard for smart shapes modules Fontlab Ltd may offer additional Smart Shapes in future 517 518 Importing and Exporting Glyphs With FontLab Studio you can exchange outline data with other vector editing programs either using the clipboard of files The most common format for vector data is Encapsulated PostScript EPS Vector editing programs such as Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Freehand typically are able to open and save EPS files EPS was the native file format of Adobe Illustrator until version 8 0 though more recently the Adobe Illustrator file format AI is based on PDF rather than EPS FontLab Studio can exchange outline data with Adobe Illustrator via the clipboard and also export and import glyphs to and from AI compatible EPS files On one hand you can use Adobe Illustrator or other compatible applications to draw your glyphs and then import them into FontLab Studio On the other hand files exported from FontLab Studio can be opened in any program that supports Al compatible EPS files e g Macromedia Freehand Corel Draw ACD Canvas etc By default all font units in FontLab Studio correspond to points in Adobe Illustrator or other vector drawing applications This means that if you want your uppercase letter H to be 700 units high in FontLab you should make it 700 pt high i
379. hods 1 Using the Transformation panel 2 Using the Transform tools 3 Using the Free Transform operation Z Note To avoid naming confusions former Tools gt Transform and Tools gt Transform Range features have been renamed to Action and Action Sets respectively Starting from FontLab Studio 5 the user interface uses the terms Transform and Transformation to refer to geometric transforma tions such as rotation or scaling that can be applied to glyph outlines Actions refer to operations that may affect outlines but also other font elements such as metrics or hints Using the Transformation Panel The Transformation panel allows you to apply several simple transformations to the selected area or to the whole glyph To open the Transformation panel you can select a Transformation command in the Window gt Panels menu Transformation Rotate a Center of selection gt gt Cemi ae Center _ ry To transform the glyph or the selected area Select the type of the transformation by clicking on one of the buttons in the left and the transformation options in the right area Shift Shift x p E 0 L Enter a distance to move the selection in font units Center Zero point 7 Enter the rotation angle degrees counterclockwise and select a center of rotation Center of selection Bottom left corner Scale Reference point Scale p 100 0 1100 0 z
380. ic value In FontLab Studio you can also define vertical glyph metrics the vertical advance width called vertical advance vector for Asian glyphs used to type in vertical direction from top to bottom To define a vertical glyph advance vector hold the Suirr key while moving the base line 473 474 Hints and Links Layer Hints are used by the font rasterizer to improve a glyph s appearance on devices with low output resolution like computer monitors or low res printers A detailed description of the hinting methods and manual and automatic hinting features available in FontLab Studio is in the Hinting chapter For now we ll just mention that in the Glyph Window you can see font level alignment zones and Type 1 character level hints and links There are two hinting methods applied to Type 1 fonts hints for True Type fonts are always generated automatically font level hinting and character level hinting Font level hinting is generated automatically in FontLab Studio so you don t have to edit it manually Character level hinting is applied to the characters stems Vertical stems Horizontal stem All important stems in a glyph should have stem hints a pair of vertical or horizontal lines The information in the hint includes not just the position of each of the two lines that build the hint but also the position of one major line and the width of the hint You can declare stem hints in FontLab Studi
381. ick to o z after Alt double click Using the Keyboard When a glyph is selected in the sample string you can use the left and right arrow keys to change the kerning by one font unit at each key click Hold the Surrt key to change the kerning by 10 font units Use the CTRL and CTRL keys to change the glyph in the string and PAGE Up and PAGE Down keys to move to the previous and next glyph in the string Using the Metrics Panel When the properties area is expanded and kerning editing mode is activated you can see all the glyph metrics and pair kerning information in the editing field Late E os ee ae ee ak se ke Ee op 4 we TOE 43 fle 436 s 8 Kerning is displayed on the fifth row in the Metrics Panel and each value is positioned between the glyphs that form the kerning pair The background color for the kerning value is white when there is no kerning light blue if kerning is negative glyphs are shifted toward each other and yellow if kerning is positive To change the kerning value click on the kerning row in the table and enter the new value Click ENTER key on the keyboard to accept the changes or Esc to cancel Use the Tas and Suirr Tas keys to select a pair in the sample string 569 Using the Metrics Table If the metrics table is visible if not use the E button on the toolbar or the button on the bottom panel to show it in kerning mode it will have thre
382. ides etc into the Windows Clipboard and paste it into a different place To copy parts of the glyph s outline use the commands from the Edit menu or the buttons on the Standard toolbar Cut 4 To copy a selected part of the glyph onto the Clipboard and delete it from the glyph Copy To copy a selected part of the glyph onto the Clipboard Paste EA To add a contour part copied to the Clipboard into the current glyph as a new contour Insert To replace the current selection with the Clipboard contents Delete To remove the selected part of a glyph s contour Duplicate To insert a copy of the selection into the current glyph as a new contour When you use the Paste command the selection is pasted without offset from the original location If needed you can set the amount of shift in the Options gt Glyph Window gt Dimensions dialog box Tools gt Options command Lopy Paste offset 100 y 100 On the same page you can adjust the amount of shift during the Duplicate operation Duplicate offset 100 x 100 Because the Clipboard is used as a buffer for copying contours you can paste glyphs and their parts not only to the current font but also to any glyph of any font of any application that is compatible with FontLab Studio ScanFont 3 0 for example 403 404 Transforming the Selection Sometimes you need to scale rotate or slant a whole or part of a glyph outline In FontLab Studio you can do this using several met
383. if there is a base anchor named top in the base glyph there must be an accent anchor named _ top in the accent glyph FontLab Studio will be able to match these two anchors and create a virtual composite by snapping them to each other 3 cc Z Note In our example we call the anchors top _top bottom and bottom but other names can be used provided that they match by the underscore rule e g ogonek and _ogonek Remember in each pair of anchor names the base anchor always has the name without the underscore while the name of the accent anchor always starts with the underscore 6699 First open the base glyph e g o OES Insert the base anchors there In our example we create one base anchor top to which the accent anchor _ top will snap and one base anchor bottom to which the accent anchor _ bottom will snap OF i e To add anchor points use the Add Anchor command from the Glyph Window context menu and set the names of the anchors accordingly Z Tip There is a special shortcut that creates base anchors with predefined names every time you use ALT SuHiFT Right click a new anchor will be added with a predefined name first top then bottom left right 3 66 and later anchor4 anchorS etc 505 The next step is to add matching accent anchors in the accent glyph
384. ightVector 805 Western Roman 138 wheel 326 Width 771 WinAscent 247 WinDescent 247 Windows 17 23 25 93 97 108 118 Symbol Encoding 103 Windows List 198 Windows Fonts folder 116 workspace 62 205 www fontlab com 902 X x height 245 XUID 238 Z zero point 339 zoom 53 Zoom mode 325 913
385. igned automatically when you move glyphs in the Font window But if you want to see the information and correct it select the Rename Glyph command from the Glyph menu Or just press CTRL on the keyboard You will see a dialog box Rename Glyph Current glyph name and Unicode indexes HANE 5 3 0053 New glyph name and Unicode indextes HANE 5 new Ma 0053 Options Replace existing glyphs with the same name or Unicode index keep replaced glyphs with the new name or Unicode index _ Rename glyph in all classes Rename glyph in OpenType code Rename Mext Glyph In the top part of the dialog box you see the current name and Unicode codepoint indexes of the glyph In the middle there are two edit fields where you may change the information Below them lie the options controls To change a glyph s name enter a new name in the Name field If this glyph has a properly assigned Unicode codepoint and you want to find the name mapped to that index in FontLab Studio s database press the Auto button to the right of the edit field and FontLab Studio will fill in the Name field for you If the option Replace existing glyphs with the same name or Unicode codepoint option is not checked then if you enter a name that is already assigned to one of the font s glyphs the OK button will be disabled and you will not be able to assign that name Switch the option on to allow FontLab Studio to replace glyphs Use the next
386. ike tiles on a rectangular floor Tile vertically Windows Opens the windows management dialog box Choose the Windows command and you will see a dialog box Windows Select window ss Activate Font FreeFontPro C treefontpro wtb ITC Officina Sans Bold Cyrillic C NPSFONTSS OSNB5 Cl ont ITE Officin a Sans Bold Italic Cyrillic E PSFONTSSOSN6 ITC Officina Sans Book Cyrillic C PSFONTSSOSN45 _ C save ITC Officina Sans Book Italic Cyrillic L APSFONTSS0SN4 isse Windau PT BlackGrotesk Cyrillic L APSFONTSELGS5 __C FFE PT BlackGrotesk Oblique Cyrillic C SPSFONTSSBLGSE PT FreeSet Bold Cyrillic C SPSFONTSS FAS65_C PFB FPT FreeSet Cyrillic C M PSFONTSS FAS45 C PFB FT FreeSetBlack Bold Cyrillic C S PSFONTSS FAS96 C F FPT FreeSetBlack Cyrillic C PSFONTS S FAS95 C PFB PT Futuris Black Cyrillic C PSFONTSSFT 95 C PFB PT Futuris ExtraBold Cyrillic C NPSFONTSSFTH685 C PFE PT Futuris ExtraBold Italic Cyrillic L FSFONT SSF T56 OS ete eC MP Ai td no a CEA narasi Teab rro arse rt re ea Minimize Most of the dialog box is covered by the list of open windows Select one of the windows in the list and click the Activate button to activate that window and move it to the top To close one or more windows select them in the list and click the Close Window s button Select two or more windows in the list and click Cascade Tile Horizontally or Tile Vertically to perform one of the oper
387. ile Switch this option on to create a PFM Printer Font Metrics file when exporting a Type font PFM files are used in Windows to install Type 1 fonts They contain metrics kerning and partially font header information On Windows you cannot install a Type 1 font without a PFM file If you have Adobe Type Manager 4 1 it can automatically generate a PFM file based on an AFM and INF file but in general we recommend leaving this option on at all times Make AFM and INF Switch this option on to make AFM Adobe Font Metrics and files INF font INFormation files when exporting a Type font These files are text files and contain descriptions of the font metrics kerning and header font names weight width encoding and other information It is possible to install a Type font with Adobe Type Manager if you don t have the PFM file but do have the AFM and INF files because ATM will automatically build the PFM file using data from the AFM and INF files The AFM file is necessary to install a Type 1 font in ASCII form with pfa extension in most Unix based operating systems To install an exported Type 1 font in Windows you must have the PFM or at least AFM INF files We recommend making all these files when you finally produce a font so that your font will be compatible with various environments 95 96 Encoding Options The dialog has a list of possible encoding options when a Type 1 font is generated Encoding op
388. ill analyse the font and add characters that are necessary for complete font compatibility In Windows only two characters are really necessary the notdef and space characters On the Mac a couple additional characters are required CR and NULL Note that FontLab Studio will generate these characters only if they do not exist in the font so you can create them manually and control their appearance We recommend leaving this option on especially if you are developing Macintosh fonts 265 266 Device Dependent Metrics Device dependent metrics hdmx and ydmx e hdms table PPM use and to define ranges like this 11 13 15 16 Note that these values will not be used if you try to keep existing TrueType hints Create vdms table it is necessary if this font has vertical delta instructions The hdmx control lets you customize the sizes for which FontLab Studio will generate records in the hdmx TrueType table This table is used to pre calculate pixel metrics of font glyphs so it will not be necessary to run a hinting program to get the correct width If you don t want FontLab Studio to generate a hdmx table for your font empty this editing field Use a colon to separate entries and to define ranges of PPM Use the Create VDMX Table control to ask FontLab Studio to automatically calculate a VDMX Vertical Device Metrics table This is necessary if some characters in the
389. ill notice that it automatically creates FontLab notation for all non ANSI characters Using Drag Drop The easiest way to fill a sample string is using the drag drop method You can simply drag any glyph from the Font Window and drop it in the Metrics Window and it will be inserted in a position highlighted by the caret If you want to add glyphs to the string hold the Suirr key If you want to replace the sample string with the dropped glyphs hold down the CTRL and Suit keys You can also drag glyphs from the Classes panel glyphs or classes If you drag a class from the class list only the key glyph of the class will be inserted If you want to insert all glyphs of the class hold down the ALT key Navigating in the Sample String You can also use the PAGE UP and PAGE Down keys on the keyboard to navigate within the sample string The Home and En keys will jump to the beginning and end of the current line of text To scroll the window you can press the space bar and scroll the Metrics window with the hand tool If the sample text is really long switch the Metrics window into Preview mode and use the hand tool to scroll the editing area 545 546 Activating and Browsing Glyphs Click on any glyph in the Editing area and it will be selected for further editing In metrics mode you will see the right and left handles that allow you to change the sidebearings and in kerning mode you ll see a pair handle that highlights a positi
390. imported or manually created kerning pairs You can replace existing pairs by automatically generating new ones keep them unchanged or select the condition mode The Maximum number of generated pairs and Maximum absolute value for generated kerning options control the possible number of automatically created pairs and the maximum normal negative or positive kerning value 57 7 578 Resetting Kerning To remove the kerning information for some glyphs or for the entire font you must use the Reset Kerning feature To open the Reset Kerning dialog box press on the or select the Reset Kerning command in the popup menu The Reset Kerning dialog box appears Reset Kerning what exactly do vou want bo do O Reset kerning For all pairs in the string O Reset kerning For all glyphs in the string Limit the number of kerning pairs to 1000 Delete all pairs that are less than 10 check all masters of the MM Font O Completely reset kerning in the current font This dialog box includes options that control kerning removal Available options are Reset kerning for the This is the default if a pair is selected Removes kerning current pair for that pair only You can get the same result by clicking the right mouse button while editing kerning in the current pair Reset kerning for all pairs Default if no pairs are selected Removes kerning in all in the string pairs that exist in the current string Re
391. in E tended 4 European Latin Latin E stended E Latin extended B Croatian digraphs matching Serbian C Pinyin diacrtic vowel combinations Additions IFA Extensions IPA extensions Spacing Modifier Letters Phonetic modifiers denved from Latin Miscellaneous phonetic modifiers Spacing clones of diacritics Additions based on 1989 IPA Range names are aligned to the left of the list box and the subranges names are indented to the right Select the range or subrange that you want to work with and you will see the Font Window change so that only characters from the selected range are in the yellow encoded area The definitions of the Unicode ranges and subranges may be changed They are placed in a text file that you can edit in any text editor You can add your own ranges or subranges that for example may include only one character whose placement is very important to you 143 144 Codepages Codepages are tables that map character codes one byte long to the Unicode indexes Depending on the size of the page these tables may have 256 or 65 536 records one for each possible character code Long codepages are called double byte codepages and are primarily used to represent codes used in Chinese Japanese Korean or Vietnamese languages Codepages are necessary because we need to somehow encode text written in different languages in the one byte code space So when we have a text file encoded according to some codepage we us
392. in the Fonts panel Merging fonts is very useful when you have several fonts that cover different scripts and want to combine them into one big Unicode font Smaller fonts are easier to manage and open save During this process FontLab Studio will try to keep hinting information composite glyphs and kerning pairs FontLab Studio will also try to keep the Unicode codepoints and names of the appended glyphs To merge fonts in the Fonts panel 1 Open the two fonts you want to merge 2 Open the Fonts panel 3 Activate the font to which you want to append glyphs double click the font name in the Fonts panel 4 Inthe Fonts panel select the font from which you want to append glyphs 5 Click the Append button we in the Fonts panel toolbar If copied glyphs have names that already exist in the destination font FontLab Studio will replace existing glyphs To merge fonts with the menu command 1 Open the two fonts you want to merge 2 Activate the font to which you want to append glyphs 3 Select the Merge Fonts command from the Tools menu The Merge Fonts dialog box appears Merge Fonts Select the source Font in the list below BellMT SemiBaldItalic BellMT SemiBoldsc You have selected Font BellMT SemiBoldS as a source Font ABCABC123 IF a glyph already exists in the target Font Rename the existing glyph Mark appended and renamed glyphs 4 Inthe font list select the font from which you wa
393. in the expanded plain kern kerning table to a in the table certain number The kerning pairs with lesser absolute value will be removed until the overall number of kerning pairs is not larger than the limit specified here Generate kern FontLab Studio checks if a kern OpenType feature is feature if it is not specified in the OpenType panel If found the kern feature defined will be included as GPOS OpenType kerning This option controls what happens if the kern feature is not defined in the OpenType panel With this option enabled FontLab Studio will automatically generate the kern OpenType feature based on the kerning specified in the Metrics Window and the class information specified in the Classes panel With this option disabled no kern feature will be written into the font if the feature is not specified in the OpenType panel Trace Options Easy trace options How tight a Fit should the generated contour be Advanced trace options Trace tolerance distance From the outline to the bitmap edge less 4 lu gt more gt Curve fit quality allowed error of curve s approximation lt less ii gt more gt Straighten angle allowed error of straight lines lt less lt gt more gt Tracer may generate curves Tracer should generate extreme points on curves How tight a fit This setting includes some presets for the advanced trace should the options con
394. in the popup menu that appears if you press the right mouse button in the editing area of the Metrics Window When you switch to the kerning mode and the metrics property panel is visible you will see the total number of defined kerning pairs for the current font appear in the property area of the Metrics Window Pairs To make the Kerning Editing controls visible you must select the pair that you want to edit Position the mouse cursor on the right glyph of the pair and click the left mouse button You will see the Kerning Editing controls appear in the property area and the kerning line and handle appear in the editing area Pairs 782 kerning 95 I 1 i E kats i iti ci ay g De an There is now a blue area in the metrics ruler This means that negative kerning exists for that pair in the current preview string If that area is bright yellow it means that kerning between the two glyphs is positive 567 568 Manual Kerning Editing To edit kerning manually drag the kerning line or right glyph of the kerning pair using the left mouse button If you click the right mouse button while holding the left mouse button on the glyph or on the kerning line that kerning pair will be removed You will see that the total number of kerning pairs decreases Tip if you hold Alt key and double click the right glyph of the pair it will be copied to the left of the left glyph D k i 50 before Alt double cl
395. indows codepage in Windows say one of the DOS codepages 1 Nu wn Select the desired new codepage in the Codepages mode of the Font window Place all glyphs as necessary Save this properly encoded version of the font Select the Reencode Glyphs command Choose the Windows Symbol codepage and the Move option Press OK See the results in the Font window Do not forget to set the Symbol glyph set in the Font Info before exporting this font Situation 2 You imported a Type 1 font with non standard encoding and want to save it with standard encoding to be sure that it will work in all Windows 1 2 3 Select the Reencode Glyphs command Choose the Default Encoding and Generate Names options Press OK See the results in the Font window Unicode Related Operations Several commands in the Glyph gt Glyph Names menu work with the font s Unicode information Generating Unicode codepoints To automatically generate Unicode indexes for all the glyphs in the font select the Generate Unicode command from the Glyph gt Glyph Names menu You will see the dialog box Generate Unicode With this command you will automatically generate Unicode indexes for all glyphs in the font using the gliphs names as the source of information Please select one of the mapping files in the list below Standard T able Use this table as default Try to keep existing Unicode indexes i Cancel
396. ine color click on Default color to switch it off and then select some color in the color palette Marne Global line Default color Guidelines default colors are set on the Options gt Glyph Window gt Colors page 435 Meter Mode With this tool you can measure any distance and angle in your glyph It is very useful if you want to create very precise extremely high quality symbols To measure distances between two points 1 Select the Meter tool lt in the Tools toolbar The Meter tool panel appears 2305 x aay Mey This is a brief description of the fields on the Meter panel to 2188 Absolute position of the point relative to the glyph zero point 188 Reference distance relative to the position of the reference y 1503 point vt 545 Horizontal and vertical distance from the beginning to the end of the metering line ne 23 The total quantity of nodes and of selected nodes in the ibs glyph Note that you can open the panel at any time if you click on the 1 button in the bottom left corner of the Glyph window A second click on this button will close the panel 2 Position the mouse cursor on your first point 3 Press the left mouse button and drag the mouse to the second point In the Meter panel you will see the vertical horizontal and direct distance between two points and the angle of a vector that would theoretically connect these points Hold down the Suirt
397. ine segment that you want to make active using the left mouse button The active segment always appears in black and the hints that apply to that segment appear in green 675 676 Inserting and Removing Replacement Points The contour segments to which you may assign hints lie between two hint replacement points green marks To define a new contour segment you add a new replacement point Remember that the node where you put the hint replacement mark will be the first node to which the hint set is applied To add a hint replacement point 1 Position the mouse cursor on the node where you want to set the hint replacement mark 2 Press the right mouse button You will see the popup menu with two commands Cancel does nothing and Add replace point here adds the replacement point Select the latter command and a new replacement point will appear When you insert a new replacement point FontLab Studio automatically selects the hints that should be set in the new contour segments To remove a hint replacement point 1 Position the cursor on the node that has an HR mark 2 Press the right mouse button and select the Remove this replace point command from the popup menu FontLab Studio will combine hints from the two segments trying to make an optimal hint selection It will not let hints overlap Adding and removing hints FontLab Studio automatically chooses the hints that should be included in the hint set that
398. ing into a new enc file so next time FontLab Studio will match the encoding correctly 139 140 Glyph Arrangement Tables Type designers use any encoding table as a glyph arrangement table i e to visually arrange glyphs in a particular order during the design process of a font Type 1 TrueType or OpenType Such a glyph arrangement table can be used as a visual map for the font family so the designer knows what glyphs need to be designed in all members of the family this way you will not miss an important glyph For example if your font contains several glyphs representing the A character like A smcp for use with the small caps feature A titl for use with the titling alternates feature A swsh for use with the swash feature A subs for use with the subscript feature it could be a good idea to have them appear close to each other in the Font Window S2 zl E A Glyph Definition Encoding tie Aawi subs alal You can easily build a glyph arrangement table yourself this is explained in the next section Remember that if you choose any glyph arrangement table in the Names modes the glyphs will be displayed in FontLab Studio in the order that you specified but the physical arrangement sequence of the glyphs in the font is still determined by the Glyph Indexes To view the Glyph Indexes sequence switch Font Window to the Index mode You can automaticall
399. ing options we also suggest particular opening options that will produce the best results in specific situations Source Destination Opening options Generating options TrueType TrueType Keep instructions do not All hinting options on do OT TT OT TT convert curves do not scale not reencode export to 1000 do not decompose bitmaps do not autohint read all records read OT store binary OT store custom do not interpret OT import bitmaps TrueType Type 1 Keep instructions convert Write PFM AFM and INF OT TT curves scale to 1000 do files Select encoding autohint do not decompose automatically Before do not read records read export switch the Font OT interpret OT window to the Names mode and select the desired encoding vector TrueType OT PS Keep instructions convert Autohinting on Decompose OT TT curves scale to 1000 do on autohint do not decompose store custom tables read all records read OT store binary OT do not interpret OT OT PS Type 1 Do not decompose Write PFM AFM and INF Generate Unicode files Select encoding automatically Autohinting off OT PS OT PS Do not decompose read all Autohinting off Decompose records read OT store off binary OT store custom do not interpret OT PS TrueType Do not decompose read all All hinting options on do OT TT records read OT store not reencode first 256 binary OT store custom do glyphs not interpret Type 1 Type 1 Do no
400. ing the Preview Panel The Preview panel may work in closed or expanded mode To open the panel click on the You will see the preview panel expand Type 1 Preview x The quick brawn Fox Pies The quick brown fox e EE BEBBBEBBBBBEBBBBB E 6 7 9 10 ii i it id if 16 if 1 15 20 A zz 22 gd 26 a amp The qack brown te Ss The quick brown fox io Tie quick bran foo ii The quick brown foo az The quick brown fox The quick brown fox The quick brown fox The quick brown fox The quick brown fox The top part of the panel remains the same and the bottom part is the sample string rendered at multiple PPMs You close the panel by clicking the 1 button Preview Panel Options With the Preview panel options dialog box you can customize the PPMs at which the horizontal waterfall and sample string are rendered To open the dialog click on the button to the right of the sample string editing control You will see the options dialog box Hinting Preview Options List of PPMs bo previews 5 36 38 40 42 48 List of PPMs in expanded view 8 24 _ Lock preview kext box Contents of the preview text combo box The quick brown Fox Histo 45 AGREES RUNAS BCabciza ABCDEFGHIIELMYOPOR STU ys Z hamburgevons HaAhiBURGEYORS SHE VERSE ASHORE GORGEOUS MAME HAHHA AGHA A Font to use in the preview combo box T At the to
401. ingle contour like in the sample picture above To join two contours you need to move the starting or ending node of one contour to the starting or ending node of another contour Hold down the Axr key to prevent the contours from joining Node Commands If you right click a node you will see a popup menu with many useful commands Cancel Make Node First Convert PSITT Delete Node 4 Duplicate Mode Retract BCPS 4dd Anchor Reverse Contour Contour Delete Contour Break Contour Subtract Contour Select Contour Make Parallel Path Fixed BCP Direction Connection Properties Macro 371 Below is a description of all the commands in this menu Make node first Starts the current contour from the selected node i e makes it the startpoint This command is useful when you need to join contours since you can only connect starting and finishing nodes Duplicate node Adds a zero length straight segment to the node I e puts a new node on top of an old one This command is useful when you are editing Multiple Master fonts Make corner Makes a 90 degree corner this operation is not always available Fixed BCP Makes the connection fixed You can use it instead of Direction Alt double clicking the node Connection Popup menu with connection settings You can use it instead of double clicking node Contour Set of commands related to the contour to which the selected node belongs described
402. ings you have in the vector editing application only information about outlines will be copied to FontLab Studio Ideally in your vector editing application set the fill color of all your objects to 100 black and the width of the outlines to none 522 Printing a Glyph To print a sample of the current glyph select the Print command in the File menu while the Glyph Window is active Refer to the Printing and Proofing Fonts chapter for further details 523 Editing Metrics The tools in FontLab Studio for editing metrics data are common to all FontLab applications so if you have learned how to use these tools in FontLab Studio you will be ready to use these same tools in any of the FontLab programs 526 What are Font Metrics A program that aligns and spaces text calculates the total width of all the characters in a paragraph It then adjusts the widths of the space characters that separate the words and tries to put as many characters as possible into one line The information about the words that are used to make a paragraph and the information about the width of the individual characters is the only information necessary To determine distances between lines the application uses information common to all glyphs in the font such as the length of ascenders and descenders and a suggested line gap and places the lines of text on the page using these distances This information about horizontal and vertical spacing i
403. into the final OpenType font You can use the special macro program available in the Macros submenu of the Metrics window context menu or you can simply remove the kern feature and FontLab will automatically generate a new one on export of the OpenType font Classes Panel To define glyph classes in FontLab you need to use the Classes panel Open the panel using the Panels gt Classes command from the Window menu Er ae Pe EAL Al Name Unic Width lt i a Dip 0044 813 29 42 aha H jo 0024F 8zi 48 48 pe Glg 0051 815 48 E Bsmal Oslash oObse 821 46 43 C1 Eth ooD0 813 29 42 we Oacute 0003 821 45 48 t Csmalll Ocircumflex D004 821 48 48 E Csmall O Odieresis 00D oe 1 48 45 an O Ograve oob2 521 46 45 E Dsmall z KE O otilde o0DS 821 48 48 E Esmal Dinrarnon ninF A13 z9 4 BG _D D O Oslash Eth Cacute Ocircumflex Odieresis Cgrave Ckilde Dcaron k Gsmall Deroak Ohungarumlaut Gmacron 14 glyphs in this kerning class This panel contains a toolbar a list of classes a class preview panel a class definition panel and a status bar that tells you how many glyphs are defined for the current class 583 584 On the toolbar there are several buttons o0 gg File operations Ih a Reset Classes Jq t Open Classes Generate Classes Clean Up Classes m m Save Classes lk E Close Panel Reset classes removes all classes Open classes
404. into three sections The first two sections let you specify the fonts to blend To select the first or second font choose the font name in the list The Preview panel will show a sample of the font You cannot select the same font in both sections FontLab Studio will take care of that The bottom section lets you specify blend options f Blendfonts C Build the Multiple Master font You have two main choices to make a single master font that will contain the result of the source fonts blend or to make a Multiple Master font that will have the two source fonts as the masters Here we will describe only single master mode Please refer to the Multiple Master Fonts chapter for information about using the Blend feature to make Multiple Master fonts In the Destination font combo box you can select the font in which to store the blended glyphs Choose New font to put the generated glyphs into a new font Further down there are two options f All existing source glyphs f Selected destination glyphs Select the second option if you want to blend only glyphs that are selected in the destination font To the right there are controls to specify the blend amount Blend amount 50 W Unitor Enter the blend percentage in the editing field If you want to blend fonts nonproportionally along the X and Y axes uncheck the Uniform check box and enter the blend amount for the two directions To not let FontLab Studio add
405. inux and Mac OS X May contain up to 65 535 glyphs supports Unicode and can contain OpenType Layout features Suitable for Western Roman fonts non Latin fonts multilingual fonts and advanced typography May include class kerning allowing for moderately sized kerning tables TrueType hinting allows precise control in small screen sizes can also contain bitmaps Can include embedding rights information defining whether or not the font may be attached to electronic documents Cons Does not work on Mac OS 8 9 May cause output problems on ten year old PostScript output and printing devices The designer usually needs to convert the outlines from Bezier curves which may introduce very slight changes in the shape When converted back to Bezier curves e g in Illustrator the resulting curves have superfluous points Manual TrueType hinting is laborious to create The multilingual and advanced typography features only work with new OpenType savvy applications otherwise just the basic character set is available For font families requires two versions of the family name within each font the first may contain any number of styles the second brief family may contain only four styles a Windows Type 1 Also known as Windows PostScript PC PostScript PC Type 1 File extension pfb with supplementary files afm inf pfm Pros Works on Windows and Linux Works in all PostScript commercial output and printing devices Uses the same c
406. ion Font version and revision information e Version Revision Complete Version record 002 098 TrueType Version record Version Version of the font Revision Revision of the font Version and revision numbers are combined and build a complete version record that appears in Type 1 font headers TrueType name 5 TrueType font version records have a different format Version Record You may enter the TrueType version record here or just press the Recalc button at the right of the field to fill this record automatically You must have the Names and Copyright pages filled in to use the automatic features on this page Press the Apply button at the bottom of the dialog box to enter the new Font Info values into the font s header 237 238 Basic Font Identification Font identification values e TrueType Unique ID record FontLab Ltd Inc FreeFontPro 2003 Type 1 Unique ID number O00 Type 1 XUID numbers 0 TrueType vendor code Use it as default Pyrus Font creation date TrueType Unique This field is necessary to identify TrueType fonts Usually it ID Record includes the creator s name font family name and creation year The format of this field is freeform but we recommend that you use the button to fill this field automatically Type 1 Unique ID An integer number identifying the font Unique ID numbers Record must be registered with Adobe Systems However you may leave 0 in this field or enter a va
407. ion the letters of the word Sample were scaled 80 horizontally and the letters of word text were proportionally scaled to 120 of original size Sample text Rotate Rotation angle Clockwise Counterclockwise MH Rotate around Origin point 0 0 w This transformation action simply rotates glyphs You can set the rotation angle the position of the center of rotation and the direction of rotation i You can rotate glyphs around the origin point around the reference point around the center of the glyph s bounding box or you can specify a point that will be used as the center of rotation To specify the reference point drag the glyph s origin point in the Glyph window Here is an example of the same rotation transformation around different center points SSS Slant Slant angle Slant to the right Slant to the left MM Slant center Origin point 0 05 This action slants glyphs It is the quickest way to make an oblique version of your font Just apply this transformation to all the font s glyphs and correct the Font Info settings to let the operating system know that this font is now oblique Here is a sample of Slant transformation Sample is slanted 12 degrees to the right and text is slanted 30 degrees left Sampler 623 624 Decompose This action is the equivalent of the Decompose command from the Glyph menu It replaces references to other glyphs
408. is option if you want to compare Glyph Windows from different fonts side by side Kerning information This option controls the behavior of FontLab Studio if the user is copied with the copies any glyphs in the Font Window using the clipboard If glyph enabled all kerning pairs associated with the glyph will be copied If disabled the kerning pairs will not be copied Disable this if you only want to copy and paste the glyph shapes but not the associated kerning 71 72 Glyph Cell These options control the appearance details of glyph cells in the Font Window Each cell should have dimensions of 32x32 pixels Give each cell a caption Small Fonts 6 Show information marks in glyph cells Hinting Multiple Master mask compatibility Show class key mark Show note icons Smooth glyph thumbnails Highlight conflicts between name and Unicode index Each cell should Controls the default size of the glyph cells in all Font have dimensions Windows Note that when the local control area of the Font of Window is placed at the bottom you can use the Increase Decrease cell size buttons to temporarily change the size of the glyph cells in the currently active font Give each cella Shows hides the caption of the glyph cell the small caption rectangular bar shown at the top each glyph cell and allows you to choose a font that should be used there Show information Shows hides the small colored information marks in the marks in
409. is so important The UPM Units Per eM is the basis of all font dimensions The UPM is the number of font units that defines the font height and the coordinate grid on which the glyphs are drawn The bigger the UPM is the more coordinate space you have so you can set more precise positions of points For technical reasons in FontLab Studio the UPM is limited to 10000 units but we strongly recommend you work with one of the standard UPMs In Type 1 fonts the standard UPM is 1000 units and in TrueType fonts the UPM may be set to any value but the recommended value is 2048 units If you change the UPM value in the Dimensions page of the Font Info dialog box this doesn t necessarily mean that the size of the characters will change For example if you change the UPM from 1000 to 2000 all the glyphs will now be half as big as they were before because they are still dimensioned at 1000 UPM You have to scale all the characters to fit them in the new UPM setting manually or you can switch on the Scale all characters according to UPM change check box and all the font data will be scaled automatically Basic Font Dimensions Most important font dimensions e Set dimensions for the master Ascender Descender 251 Caps height x height Copy values to TrueType metrics Italic angle jo Slant angle o Synchronize Slant and Italic angles Underline Thickness Font is monospaced This option is synchronized with the Pa
410. ition of the alignment zones at some PPMs With FontLab Studio you can adjust the position of the zones around the linearly scaled position Every alignment zone has a yellow icon at the left To BO You can drag this icon up or down to adjust the position of the zone at the current PPM Bl If you move the icon you will see all glyphs that have align commands applied to that zone changed their shape You may find this feature useful when you have to add glyphs to an already hinted TrueType font New glyphs often have a different height at some PPMs and you can correct that with the zone alignment command and zone hinting 705 706 Align Instruction Use the Align command when it s not necessary or possible you can t align points to horizontal alignment zones to align a point to an alignment zone but you want to align the point s position to the grid The Align command is available in both directions The Align command allows you to directly control how point coordinates are rounded To select a rounding method use the alignment control radio buttons in the Options panel Round position Or OF OF O Center Double Round destination Here is a graphical description of the various rounding methods Rounding Appearance Code Description 0 Aligns to the closest grid line Di E e lt gt v ia i Aligns to the left o
411. itten right to left Please note that it is the application or the operating system that detects word boundaries and applies one of the features You are not expected to pay attention to that in the feature definition Usually these features are simple substitutions feature init sub isolated_forms by initial_forms init 871 Latin Features cpsp Capital Spacing Globally adjusts inter glyph spacing for all capital text feature cpsp pos uppercase lt 7 0 14 0 gt 3 CPSP pnum Proportional Replaces figure glyphs set on uniform tabular widths Figures with corresponding glyphs set on glyph specific proportional widths feature pnum sub figures by figures_prop pnum Inum Lining Figures This feature changes selected figures from oldstyle to the default lining form hist Historical Forms Replaces glyphs with their historical forms like long form of s or Fraktur form of k feature hist sub s by longs hist ordn Ordinals Replaces default alphabetic glyphs with the corresponding ordinal forms for use after figures smcp Small Capitals This feature replaces lowercase characters with small capitals sinf Scientific Replaces lining or oldstyle figures with inferior figures Inferiors smaller glyphs which sit lower than the standard baseline primarily for chemical or mathematical notation ornm Ornaments This feature lets the user access ornament glyphs in the font 872 liga Standard Replaces a s
412. k brown fox ForceBold is OFF The quick brown tox ForceBold is ON StdHW StdVW StemSnapH and StemSnapV Parameters From the Type 1 font specification you may know that in Type 1 fonts two types of standard stem widths are used Standard Width and Stem Snap Width There is one standard width for each direction and up to 10 stem snap values In FontLab Studio these values are united in the stem list StdHW and StdVW are taken from the first records in the stem lists StemSnapH and StemSnapV records are the remaining records in the stems list FontLab Studio also has a faster way to append stems to the list of standard stem widths Any vertical or horizontal hint may be used as a source of stem width information Just point the Edit tool at the hint press the right mouse button and select the Define a Stem command in the popup menu If this command is not accessible it means that this stem is already in the list To automatically calculate standard stem widths press the Auto stems button How FontLab Studio Calculates Standard Stems FontLab Studio can calculate standard stem widths only if some characters in the font have Type 1 hints 1 It builds a table of all hints that are used in the font sorts this table by frequency of usage and selects the most frequently used hints 2 Allselected hints are then compared with these most frequently occurring stem widths and hints with widths that are close together are combined into a single r
413. k on the node and enable Connection gt Fixed to fix the direction of the control vectors for that particular node With the option All BCPs are fixed you can fix the direction of all control vectors in a font for the purposes of non node editing When curve is When enabled you can select a curve segment and use the selected keyboard arrow keys to move the BCPs adjusts BCPs Align to all contour When disabled View gt Snap to Layers gt Outline makes points if snap to nodes snap only to other nodes When enabled the nodes contour is on snap to all locations on a contour not just nodes Edit Delete When disabled the Edit gt Cut command breaks opens a command breaks contour but Edit gt Delete only removes nodes but leaves the contour contour closed When enabled both Cut and Delete break the contour Keep smooth Enable this to prevent smooth node connections to turn into connection smooth sharp connections when blending is used at all times VectorPaint tools With this option FontLab Studio will provide separate set of have separate view the view setting for the Vector Paint mode settings 79 Dimensions These settings control visual dimensions in the Glyph Window Visual ascender and descender ie So OF UPM Duplicate offset x Copy Paste offset o x arid step x Snap to distance Shift arrow keys increment Visual ascender When you select 100 as the zoom value in the Glyph and descender Window FontLab Stu
414. keeping the filled result unchanged The Merge Contours command is the outline equivalent of the Boolean OR operation The Get Intersection command will keep only the area of intersection removing all other parts This command is the outline equivalent of the Boolean AND operation The last command the Delete Intersection works in the opposite manner of the Get intersection command keeping only those areas of contours that don t overlap This is the outline equivalent of the Boolean XOR operation Note You can select multiple glyphs or all glyphs in the Font Window and apply the commands to many glyphs at a time You can also use Actions or Action Sets to apply the Remove overlap command in batch mode 425 426 Converting Contours Several commands in the Contour menu are used to change contours attributes Sometimes you may find that e g the interior counter of o is black instead of white transparent or two overlapping contours create a white intersection This means that one of the contours in your glyphs has a wrong direction FontLab Studio can detect such problems and automatically correct the contour direction for PostScript Type 1 Bezier or TrueType outlines For that use the Set PS Direction for Type 1 or OpenType PS contours or Set TT Direction for TrueType OpenType TT contours commands in the Contour gt Paths menu These commands will reverse some of th
415. kup SHARED lookup reference Since the labeled block literally defines a single lookup in the font the rules within the lookup block must be of the same lookup type and have the same lookupflag attribute The lookup block must be specified within a feature block and may not contain any other kind of block OpenType and FontLab Studio Implementation of OpenType features in FontLab Studio is based on the technologies provided by Adobe one of the two inventors and key supporters of the format OpenType support may be separated into three stages 1 Importing OpenType fonts and reading the binary OpenType tables FontLab Studio may store the original binary tables in the vfb file and also to try to interpret the binary tables into the feature definition format 2 Editing the features and previewing the results FontLab Studio provides a feature editor that is integrated into the FontLab Studio user interface and an OpenType Preview panel that can show how features work without actually exporting and installing the font file 3 Feature compilation and export At this stage the Adobe FDK for OpenType AFDKO library is used to compile the feature definitions into binary tables and build the OpenType font files Since FontLab Studio compiles the OpenType Layout tables from the feature definition language using the Adobe FDK for OpenType library there are some limitations of lookup types supported by FontLab Studio FontLab Studio
416. l In automatic mode FontLab Studio will automatically select the standard stem that is closest to the linking distance It will not connect the link with the stem if the difference between the distance and the stem width is more than either the stem or the distance In manual mode you select a stem to which you want to connect a link in the stems combo box and switch on the Select option However if the difference between the distance and the selected stem is too high FontLab Studio will not connect the link to the stem To keep from connecting a link with a standard stem switch on the None option Single Links The single link connects an outline point to a point whose position is set by another command If you set a single link that linked point will always be at the given distance from the base point ye lt lt Resulting stem Original stem Single link instruction A single link may be linked with one of the standard stem widths If it is so linked then the distance to the base point is replaced by the scaled and rounded stem width So if several links are connected to the same stem width the distances from the base points will always be the same Single links are very straightforward they have one base point and one affected point If a single link is connected with one of the standard stems the linking distance is always rounded to the grid If the link is not so connected then it may be rounded or not
417. l not grid fitted positions of two linked points are retrieved and the distance between them measured 2 Ifthe link is connected with the stem the distance is replaced by the prepared stem width for the PPM If the scaled distance is equal to or exceeds 3 pixels it is rounded to the closest integer If the link is not connected to a stem the distance is rounded to the closest integer starting from 1 The grid fitted positions of the two linked points are stored Both points are aligned to the closest grid line Rounding errors for both points are calculated by comparing original and rounded positions The point whose rounding error is less remains in place and the second point is set at the distance calculated in step 1 If the rounding errors are equal then the point with the lower coordinate value is set 7 The distance of the linked point is set equal to the grid fitted position of the base point shifted by the distance Se a 717 718 Customizing the Command Right click the middle icon on the double link to open the context menu Cancel Delete Command Distance Alignment d Convert to Single Link Align Left Bottorm Point Align Right Top Point The Delete command and Distance alignment options are the same as in the Single link menu An additional command is Convert to single link Use it to replace the double link command with the combination of the align and single link commands Program panel opti
418. l and select the General tab on the tab control You will see a General Options dialog box TT Hinting Options Stems Zones General Stem snap precision 17 i 16 ofthe pixel al Stop zones alignment above this PPM 45 aa x Do not execute instructions above this PPM o Shift key constrains setting of the delta instruction s direction Stem snap precision Measured in 1 16 of a pixel this value defines the difference between the actual stem width scaled but not rounded and the stem width in pixels specified by the stems dialog box If the difference is more than the defined value the stem is rounded linearly A value of 16 16 will mean that stem rounding will be controllable only when the difference is less than one pixel A value of 32 16 defines a possible difference of 2 pixels Stop zones alignment above this PPM Enter the font size in PPM after which zone alignment will not be operative and all points controlled by the AlignTop and AlignBottom commands will be rounded to closest pixel edge Do not execute instructions above this PPM Defines the PPM above which instructions will not be operative anymore Enter 0 to never stop instructions Shift key constrains setting of the delta instruction s direction Inverts the function of the Sn Fr key when you define delta instructions By default you can freely move the destination point of the delta offset and you have to press SuiFT key to limi
419. l path at which the new path will be created Left and right side option original path is not selected The side depends on the direction of the original path Select the Both option to generate parallel contours on each side of the source contour Contour offset defines the distance at which the new path will be created Use the Uniform option to have the same distance set for X and Y directions Check the Remove the original check box to remove the source contours and keep only the generated parallel paths Check the Generate closed contour check box to create contours automatically closed This feature is available only if the Both option is selected Below is a sample of what you can do with the parallel path feature and contour editing tools Glyph contour after multiple parallel paths created and then closed with the Add corner tool Rendering of the glyphs above As you can see with the Make parallel path feature you can create complex ornaments in minutes 423 424 Merging and Intersecting Contours With the Merge Contours Get Intersection and Delete Intersection commands which are available in the Contour gt Transform menu you can perform very interesting operations on contours All three operations are applied to contours that have at least one node selected or to the whole glyph outline if nothing is selected The Merge Contours command combines contours removing all outline overlapping and
420. lasses for left and right glyphs in the pair and a sample panel that shows the result of kerning of the pair The left and right lists contain all the kerning classes of your font The classes on the left contain the first glyph of a pair The right list contains second glyphs of pairs Check the classes that may act as a first glyph see previous section for explanation of the class side Those classes which are kerned with the key glyph of the left class will be highlighted with a yellow background and the sample panel below the lists will preview combinations of glyphs from the first and second class that are currently selected The actual kerning positioning and the exact kerning value come from the kerning of the key glyphs of each of the kerning classes This means that if you have an _A class and a _V class which have A and V as key glyphs in each class respectively you must define the kerning for the AV pair using the Metrics window If you then checked _A class in the left list and _V class in the right list all glyphs in these classes would be kerned by the same value as the AV pair A preview panel in the bottom of the dialog box can preview the result of the class kerning Left drag to scroll the preview panel and see more sample pairs right to left direction Buttons on the toolbar for working with the kerning data Open data file Opens the data file with the kerning assis
421. latform For example you may enter 0411 for the Cyrillic beh Note that you can use the same notation in FontLab Studio s Metrics window or Preview panel so if you open a Unicode font you may test the name records there To remove a record select it in the list and click on the 7 button Click on the button to remove all name records You can use the OpenType page of the Options dialog box to control the import and export of the additional name records OpenType Import Read only non English name records w OpenType Export Append OpenType name records to the names exported by default wt Import options Read only non English This is the default choice FontLab Studio will read name records only those additional records that cannot be interpreted to standard name records which have dedicated pages in the Font Info dialog box Do not read OpenType With this selection any record that cannot be name records interpreted by the default algorithm is ignored Read all OpenType name All name records are imported as additional OpenType records records and are placed in the page Export options Append OpenType name This is the default choice FontLab Studio will export records to the names English names and then add only those additional exported by default OpenType names that aren t already covered Do not export OpenType With this option FontLab Studio will not export any name records additional name rec
422. layer You can use these as reference for drawing your glyphs or autotrace them using one of the Tools gt Background commands 177 178 Marking Glyphs Sometimes you need to visually differentiate groups of glyphs to easily examine and select them With marking you can add color to a glyph cell in the Font window There are five predefined colors red blue green magenta and cyan anda command for selecting a custom color Marking is useful when you want to add structure to a font for example make a visual difference between digits uppercase and lowercase glyphs If you want to use this information internally in macros we recommend you use glyph classes described in the OpenType Fonts chapter but if you only want to have visual differentiation marking is OK Ps es eee ee OF 0 25 3 49 050 eI Pasi L lt gt p ABc o EJFjsiH 1 K LI MIN o eat HRN S po a a pag cS 8 ale elalelrLoln Liki 1 lmn o paler Ls thu ev Lw x Ly kE LE be To mark the glyphs select them in the Font window right click and select the marking color in the Mark submenu of the context menu ek ee ae rt E Red Open Glyph Window WM Blue Properties Alt Enter Green Magenta a Cyan I Custom To remove marking select the marked glyphs right click and select the empty rectangle d in the Mark menu To mark the selected glyphs with a custom color select the Custom command in
423. le component tool is active Decompose Decomposes adds the outline to the composite glyph the current component Delete Removes the component Sets the scale at 100 for the component Note that the Type 1 font format does not support scaled components H Mirror Mirrors the component sets the scale for x or y direction to V Mirror 100 and adjusts shift accordingly Properties Opens a new Glyph Window with the currently active component Opens the Component Properties panel described below 499 500 Component Properties You can set the precise size and position of the component Right click the component with the Edit tool You will see a popup menu Select the Properties command in this menu and you will see the Component Properties dialog box Component Properties x Component E Foszition xo g vio ate scale a 100 01 100 01 3 In this dialog box you can select a different glyph to be used as a component and set the component s position and scale The component position is the distance between the composite zero point and the component s zero point Tip You may just double click on the component to get the component Properties dialog box Anchors Layer Sometimes when you work with a glyph it s helpful to mark particular positions and refer to them later In FontLab Studio you can use a special editing layer called Anchors to do this Anchors are simply named points
424. led in order to use the Preview panel To show the preview panel press the button in the command panel The preview panel consists of two fields a standard edit field where you can enter a sample string and a preview window where two types of preview appear Type 1 Preview HEO F Sample string text HBOxBo Sample string preview 1e2eBEBBBBBBBBBBBBB be Waterfall preview 10 11 H ig 44 15 ie iF if 1 20 21 2 23 f4 25 In the waterfall preview you can see the current character in various PPM sizes Note that if grayscale rendering is enabled you will see grayscale previews at some PPMs In the top part of the preview window a sample of any character can appear We recommend using this sample area to compare the rasterizing results of different characters in a font You can change the PPM at which the sample string is previewed very easily position the cursor on the PPM preview in the waterfall range and double click the left mouse button To see a preview of special characters that are not accessible directly from the keyboard use the usual FontLab Studio rules for entering special characters i e enter the character name after a slash character use two slashes to enter a slash FontLab Studio updates the preview panel every time you change something in the hint replacement program This may be a slow process on some computers but you can hide the panel edit the hint replacement program
425. letely replace kerning Remove all existing kerning pairs and replace them data in the current font with pairs imported from the metrics file Add imported Leave the existing kerning pairs unchanged but add kerning data to the current new kerning pairs from the metrics file font Add new kerning Import information about the glyphs that form each pairs but autokern them kerning pair in the metrics file and apply an autokerning algorithm to these pairs The What do you want to do with other data option controls the font header importing option FontLab can import the Font Info data from the metrics file and replace the current font info data if the Replace this data in the current font option is selected Note that when you open a metrics file while editing the metrics of a Multiple Master font only the metrics and kerning of the currently selected master will be replaced Be careful 611 Saving Metrics Files When you export a font file in Type 1 font format the metrics files in AFM and PFM formats are automatically written The TrueType font format includes all metrics information so it is not necessary to export additional files However if you want to export a metrics file alone you can always do so by using the Metrics Window Just press the W button on the Metrics Window toolbar The Standard Save File dialog box appears Save ir gt Fonts Premiere 9 Regd My Recent ECR PFM Documents so PEM i z Desktop M
426. lication user data folder Encoding folder typically C Documents and Settings Your Username My Documents FontLab Studio5 Encoding if you want to make the encoding available within FontLab Studio only Refer to Tools gt Options gt General Options gt Folders and paths for the actual locations of these folders All custom enc files should be located in this folder Restart FontLab Studio to see the new encoding will appear in the Encoding selection combo box Custom Unicode Ranges The Unicode ranges definition file is located in the Program Files Common Files FontLab Data folder and has the name URANGES DAT To view this file open it in a text editor You will see the following text FONTLAB STUDIO UNICODE RANGES 0x0000 0x007F CO Controls and Basic Latin 0x0000 0x001F CO controls 0x0020 0x007F ASCII 0x0080 0x00FF C1 Controls and Latin 1 Supplement 0x00A0 0x00FF ISO 8859 1 aka Latin1 0x0100 0x017F Latin Extended A 0x0100 0x017F European Latin 0x0180 0x024F Latin Extended B The first line of this file is an identification line It should not be changed or FontLab Studio will not accept this file as a valid Unicode range definition file All other strings have the same structure lt first index of the range gt lt last index gt lt range s name gt Note that there is no space before aname range s name but there are four spaces before a subrange s name Using this simple method you can indent ranges names as yo
427. line Delete Remove the contents of the background layer Press the ENTER key on the keyboard to finish positioning the background or the Esc key to cancel changes 448 Tracing Background In FontLab Studio you can easily trace background bitmap that is create contours from it and add to the glyph outline There are two tracing commands in the Tools gt Background menu Trace and Trace Pixels These commands stand for smooth tracing and pixel tracing Smooth Tracing To trace bitmap and put the result in the glyph outline layer select the Trace command in the Tools gt Background menu FontLab Studio will autotrace the image accordingly to the options set on the Trace Options page of the Options dialog box place the result on the outline layer and select it So you can copy move transform the selection right after the tracing operation The smooth tracing algorithm is customizable Easy trace options How tight a Fit should the generated contour be Advanced trace options Trace tolerance distance From the outline to the bitmap edge lt less S gt more gt Curve fit quality allowed error of curve s approximation less gt more gt Straighten angle allowed error of straight lines g less iil gt more gt Tracer may generate curves Tracer should generate extreme points on curves 449 450 Easy Trace Options In the easy trace options popup menu you can quickly select common predefined opti
428. list Select the font Select the Font in che lisk below laiat O OE m Cancel When you remove stems that are used by the hinting program in some glyphs FontLab Studio will replace any stem linked link with a simple rounded link 733 734 Stems Rounding Control over stem widths rounding is necessary for two reasons 1 To control a font s contrast If your font is low contrast like Courier or Arial you may want to set the jump PPMs for vertical and horizontal stems equal This way the font will never get high contrast as when vertical stems are 2 pixels wide and horizontal stems are only 1 pixel wide 2 To synchronise the scaling of stems with close widths like the stems that control straight and round vertical stems in uppercase characters At large PPM sizes they should be different but they have to make the 1 2 and 2 3 width jumps together Bigger jump values are necessary when you are working on a black or extra black font where 5 pixel width stems appear at low PPMs To change stem rounding 1 In the list select the stem that you want to edit 2 Inthe edit fields change the PPM sizes at which this stem makes its various jumps from one pixel up to 6 pixels Press the button to automatically optimize the stem rounding while trying to keep optimal contrast Use the button to reset all stem PPMs to linear values General Options Click on the button in the Options pane
429. lists You can select any stem just as you would in normal vertical list controls To add a stem to the list of the standard stems press F at the right side of the stems list To edit a standard stem width select it using the left mouse button and edit its value in the edit field to the right of the list To remove a stem from the list select it and press the 7 button Note that FontLab Studio will sort stem widths in ascending order when you close the Fontlnfo dialog box StdHW StdVW StemSnapH and StemSnapV Parameters From the Type 1 font specification you may know that in Type 1 fonts two types of standard stem widths are used Standard Width and Stem Snap Width There is one standard width for each direction and up to 10 stem snap values In FontLab Studio these values are united in the stem list StdHW and StdVW are taken from the first records in the stem lists StemSnapH and StemSnapV records are the remaining records in the stems list Standard stem widths are also used in TrueType hinting 665 666 FontLab Studio 5 also has a faster way to append stems to the list of standard stem widths Any vertical or horizontal hint may be used as a source of stem width information Just point the Edit tool at the hint press the right mouse button and select the Define a Stem command in the popup menu If this command is not accessible it means that this stem is already in the list To automatically calculate standard stem wi
430. ll Jsmall 7 Tamall LI Usmall Y wzmall Ka IGJic 2nd count 11 Total pairs 762 A A A A A A A A A es Show kerning only For the current glyph In the top half of the dialog box you see a table that has information about all the kerning pairs in which the current glyph is on the left Each row of this table includes the name of the paired glyph on the right and the kerning value 573 574 You can sort this list by the names of the right glyphs or by the kerning value To sort the list click on the header of the column that you want to use as the sort key You can edit a kerning value or change the right glyph of the pair using the edit controls below the list The sample window in the bottom part of the dialog box previews the selected kerning pair You will immediately see the result of the changes in the Metrics window To add a new kerning pair press the Add button The currently selected pair will be duplicated and you can change it This is very useful when you want to add a kerning pair that has a value equal to an existing pair but the right glyph is different as in the Ta and Ta pairs To remove a kerning pair select it and press the Del button You may also remove all kerning pairs associated with the current glyph by pressing the Reset button Adding Kerning Pairs To quickly add many new kerning pairs you can use the Add Pairs command which is available in the con
431. ll operations performed with the edit tool can be undone with the Undo command of the Edit menu or just by clicking the Undo button on the toolbar at the top of the Glyph Window You can undo up to 200 operations All undone operations can be redone with the Redo command of the Edit menu or with the Redo button on the toolbar In Edit mode you can use eleven different Edit Tools You can easily choose one of the tools using the Tools toolbar RAL tre Note that the Tools toolbar also contains buttons of other modes Alternatively you may use the keys from 1 to 9 to quickly select edit tools k 1 Edit Main tool used to drag objects on the editing layers and perform other operations In the following chapters we will assume that this tool is active in the Edit mode lt 2 Eraser This tool is used to quickly remove unnecessary nodes za 3 Knife Tool to insert nodes and break outlines 7 4 Magic Wand Tool to quickly select contours just click anywhere near the contour and it is selected Note that this tool is not available in the Tools toolbar by default t 5 Add Corner Tools to create new contours or insert nodes za 6 Add Curve ura 7 Add Tangent tA 8 Bezier Drawing Tool to draw the contour with the Bezier curves 2 Rotate Tools to quickly transform outlines EF Scale kF Slant 331 332 Temporary Activating the Edit Tool There are two methods to temporary activate the Edit tool while you are using a
432. lor To choose one of the Polygon tool modes use the options in the Polygon tool field If you choose Normal contour Polygon the polygon tool will create a simple contour that can include straight segments and curves If you choose the Brush trace option the current brush will be applied to the created polygon s contour In the Brush trace mode you cannot draw curves while defining a new polygon If you mark the Automatically Activate Transform Operation check box and select the Transparent painting color the Free Transform operation will be activated and applied to the contour that you created after the completion of any paint operation The last option Reverse auto color changes the behavior of the auto color brush mode If you begin drawing in a white area a black brush will be selected if in black a white brush will be selected The following option on the Glyph Window page of the Options dialog box F VectorPaink tools have separate view settings allows you to have different view settings View gt Show Layers set when you enter the VectorPaint mode To use this option first turn it on then enter VectorPaint mode for the first time and switch editing layers to create the most comfortable environment For example in Edit mode you may use an unfilled outline with all nodes switched on In VectorPaint mode you may switch on the Fill Outline mode and switch off all nodes Now when you enter VectorPaint mode the next time the
433. lue from the users Unique ID zone 4000000 to 4999999 If you enter this value and plan to export Type fonts be sure not to have more than one font with the same Unique ID value because that may cause a problem with PostScript printers or Adobe Type Manager software Type 1 XUID More advanced identification codes for Type fonts This Numbers number is used only in PostScript Level 2 printers Please refer to Adobe documentation for more information concerning the XUID field TrueType Vendor An up to four letter length code that is assigned to most Code TrueType producers to identify their fonts An uppercase vendor code must be registered with Microsoft or Apple All registered Vendor codes known at the time of FontLab Studio s release are placed in the drop down list box If you want to identify yourself without registering you may enter a lowercase four letter vendor code Below the vendor selection list you can see the full name of the registered vendor Click the name to open the vendor s page in a Web browser Use it as default Check this option to use the current vendor code as the default in all new fonts You may make your own code the default so you will not have to enter it every time Vendor dat File FontLab Studio stores information about registered vendors in the vendor dat file located in the FontLab Studio Data folder This is a text file with a simple structure 2REB 2Rebels 39BC Finley s Barcode Fonts 3ip Th
434. lways do correction option checked if you want FontLab Studio to always correct the outline format when opening a character When the Hinting Tool becomes active you will see that the editing field of the Glyph Window has changed i a Current PPM 16 Link to stem Round distance The quick brown fox ound position ORAN Cp 223BBEBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB da 20 2 25 O Center Double B68 7 8 10 11 i if id is W iv i 13 20 21 22 22 24 z6 2 Round destination Delta PPM range Delta offset i FEFEFE FEEF EFEE 57654721 1274567 Oa OE jaa yea 691 692 Toolbar TrueType Tools Mf awe oe bY HAR A fo L A T D EA Hi F With the Toolbar you can select the hinting direction the current visual instruction tool and the layers that appear in the editing field of the Glyph Window You can also open and close the Preview and Program panels Here is a detailed description of the Toolbar buttons Y Set vertical direction Sets visual instruction tools to work in the vertical direction I e create vertical links alignment interpolation and deltas Instructions in different directions are independent of each other X Set horizontal direction r Select Align command Open the Options menu If you click on the HS button you will see the Options menu A i Hinted Gutline E F Grid Lines Pixel Centers Resulting Image ee Point Numbers Sh Alt F Z Pro
435. mand select the cells and use the Glyph gt Create Glyphs command Changing the View in the Glyph Window Use the zoom level and scroll bars to change the view in the editing field of the Glyph Window By using the scroll bars you can scroll the viewing field of a symbol With the zoom level you can define how the glyph unit coordinates are converted to screen coordinates and vice versa If you choose a higher zoom level you will see more details of the glyph and you can do the editing operations more precisely However in the larger zoom levels only part of the glyph will be visible so you will have to use the scroll bars to see the different parts of the glyph There are fixed zoom levels and custom zoom levels You can select one of the fixed zoom levels in the Zoom combo box located in the upper part of the Glyph Window 4 102 When you choose a fixed zoom level FontLab Studio will return to this glyph mode on every Zoom Out command or when you press CTRL 0 You can also use the Zoom menu in the bottom of the window it will show the same selection of the zoom levels and is very useful when the Zoom toolbar is hidden To magnify part of the glyph select the Zoom tool 4 button on the toolbar the key or CrrL space on the keyboard and declare a custom zoom level using a marquee This zoom level is temporary and you can always return to the previously selected fixed zoom level by clicking on the Z button or by clicking
436. maps make sure that this option Export embedded bitmaps is active in the Tools gt Options gt Generate OpenType amp TrueType gt TrueType OpenType TT ttf dialog box Please note that the operating system will display embedded bitmaps only when a font is rendered in black white mode If font smoothing is activated in the system and allowed for the point size in the font bitmaps will not appear Hinting Strategies This section will give some examples of visual hinting strategies that are applicable in different situations Middle Delta or Final Delta The final delta command is the very last command of the instruction sequence This command moves only the point to which it is attached and only on PPMs for which it is set We recommend using this command in situations where only one pixel needs to be switched on or off ae e Ta de I T mhi d a i ar ram Final delta instruction The middle delta instruction is much more flexible You can use it to slightly modify the interpretation of the hinting program because it is automatically inserted between commands and is interpreted after the command that sets the position of a point and before any command that uses that position as a basis like link and interpolation instructions ice con carmen 751 752 But even if the middle delta command is set on an untouched point it is applied to the point before final interpolation of t
437. may use this Non English or special font names page Please refer to the OpenType specification to get full information about TrueType and OpenType names http www microsoft com typography otspec name htm Most of the page is covered by the names list FontLab Ltd lne FreeFontPro 2003 FreeFontPro Version 1 002 2003 LIT The Columns of the list are NID Name ID code of the name this is what we put in the name x comment on x place Text Content of the name table record May include Unicode characters after the oS Click on the caption of the column to sort name records by one of the values Below the list is a set of controls that let you define records Above the list there is a toolbar that you can use to modify the names table add or remove name records or import custom name records from the English data Import names from the basic set of names defined in other pages of the Names section Remove all custom name records 229 230 To add a new name record click on the button on a toolbar select name record options using the controls below the list and type in the name record content To enter non ANSI characters use unicode index or code notation where unicode index is the Unicode index of the character if the name record is for the Unicode 0 or 1 platform and code is the character code in the Mac Roman codepage if the name record is for the Macintosh p
438. mber that all points of your letters should snap to the grid otherwise FontLab will round their position When you finished drawing your glyph in Illustrator choose Select gt All Edit gt Copy if you want to copy the outlines via clipboard or File gt Export gt Illustrator Legacy EPS or File gt Save As and select Illustrator 8 EPS as your file format if you want to save the artwork as an EPS file Importing Glyphs To paste an outline from a vector editing program into FontLab Studio select the outline object that you want to copy and choose the Copy command from the Edit menu in the source application To place the copied outline in FontLab Studio switch to FontLab Studio Glyph Window and select the Paste command from the Edit menu To import an Illustrator 8 compatible EPS file into FontLab Studio open a Glyph window make a new glyph if necessary and choose Edit gt Paste if you re pasting from clipboard or File gt Import gt EPS if you re importing from a file 521 Manual and Automatic Scaling If the imported drawings end up being too large or too small go back to your outline drawing application and scale the artwork accordingly Remember that if the option Fit EPS files to Ascender Descender height in Options gt General gt EPS and bitmap background is disabled 1 pt in Illustrator EPS corresponds to 1 font unit in FontLab Studio and artwork is imported without any scaling Alternatively instead of
439. metrics C Global mask C Glyph metrics Fi Components C Anchors and carets C Alignment zones Shape groups Neighbors Background Transformation Center Center of selection JA Ga gt solaio 4 t A Bi C DE FIGHT TKT LM NO P Q 7 E T v R s T U To prevent the panel from docking hold down the CTRL key while dragging the panel s caption Multiple panels can be docked on the same side Use separator lines to adjust their positions With this button you can quickly enlarge a panel Click the button again to return the panel to its original size 61 62 All panels that are not dockable stick to the edge of the FontLab Studio window and to each other so you can easily arrange them to create the most comfortable environment Every time you exit FontLab Studio the positions of all toolbars and panels are stored in Windows registry so when you run FontLab Studio the next time the environment will be restored You can save the current workspace the user interface layout into a file Window gt Workspace gt Export Workspace Save the file into the Workspaces folder within your Application user data folder the one specified in Tools gt Options gt General Options gt Folders and paths gt FontLab Studio 5 Files When you restart FontLab Studio the workspace will appear in the Window gt Workspace menu You can save several workspaces and quickly
440. mment i a e as ae rE ee ett en eae a eee z ss een ie MO eee ne Geen ee a a en ee ee ee ee eee Tem a a aeee single quote Marks a glyph or glyph class for contextual substitution or positioning double quote Marks a glyph or glyph class for contextual substitution or positioning parentheses Enclose the file name to be included Number A lt number gt is a signed decimal integer without leading zeroes For example 150 1000 Glyphs These are represented by the glyph name A glyph name may be up to 31 characters in length must be entirely comprised of characters from the following set A Z a Z 0 9 period _ underscore and must not start with a digit or period The only exception is the special character notdef For an extensive discussion about devising custom glyph names in OpenType fonts refer to the Advanced Glyph Naming and Encoding section of the Editing Fonts chapter twocents al and _ are valid glyph names 2cents and twocents are not An initial backslash serves to differentiate a glyph name from an identical keyword in the feature file language For example a glyph named table must be specified in the feature file as table 825 826 Glyph classes A feature file glyph class lt glyphclass gt represents a single glyph position in a sequence and is denoted by a list of glyphs enclosed in square brackets For example endash emdash figuredash
441. n Font Identification Version Information Basic Font Identification PANOSE Identification Other Identification Systems Metrics and Dimensions Font UPM Value Basic Font Dimensions Advanced Vertical Metrics Superscript and Subscript Encoding and Unicode Supported Codepages Custom cmap encodings Supported Unicode Ranges Hinting Settings Alignment Zones Type 1 Standard Stems Global Hinting Parameters 194 195 196 197 198 202 204 205 206 207 211 212 214 215 216 217 219 222 228 232 233 236 237 237 240 242 244 244 245 246 249 250 251 253 254 255 256 258 260 Format Specific Options 262 Type 1 Export Options 263 TrueType Export Options 264 TrueType Mapping Settings 265 Device Dependent Metrics 266 Font Smoothing Control 268 head Table Settings 270 Basic PCLT options 271 PCLT Identification 272 PCLT Metrics and Font Description 273 PCLT Codepages 274 Binary and custom tables 276 PRINTING AND PROOFING FONTS 277 Printing 278 Printing Font Table 279 Printing Glyph List 281 Printing Font Sample 282 Printing Font Waterfall 284 Printing Glyph Sample 286 Printing Glyph Waterfall 288 Printing Kerning Table 289 Quick Test 291 Other Proofing Methods 293 Preview panel 293 OpenType Features panel 294 Metrics Window 295 Hinting Tools 295 GENERATING FONTS 297 Relevant Font Formats 298 o OpenType PS 299 T o Windows TrueType OpenType TT 300 a Windows Type 1 30
442. n RE ee SERS oe Soe ak hn nee eae eee hae ee Soa Tae eer R EE E E T ET e P E T E ra ee eee E ae or ee nt FT TES ee Multiple Master font A A T E E en Pay ee All panels are described in full detail in the following chapters when we discuss the features that they serve The Fonts Edit Macro OpenType Output Preview and Classes panels can be docked to either side of the FontLab Studio window To dock a panel just drag it close to the window edge DAR 0x 3 FontLab Studio Glyph A from Palatino Linotype G File Edit View Contour Glyph Tools Window Help D Wg A Bio 9 wl av X Curve tool v T Top level Testing Macro x gt K _Cacute KD KE K Eacutel K _Eacute K Etatonos Ala A Aogonek A uni1EA0 1B Tl qos vi amp vA Unic 0041 0104 1EA0 A m 300 1200 2 1400 F 3300 KE 1100 Eth KF p verv 4 5 4 _A A Aogonek unilEAO K Ghreve Kerning v OpenType a 3 g Ial bho gt feature aalt feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature aalt sups ordn sint subs frac c2sc onum pnum hist lact salt 3 glyphs in this BE p100 300 rin Palatino Linotype F Palatino Linotype pala vfb Total Fonts 1 Grouped by Family Name sool 5 700 3001 sA 4 150g ry Editing Layers
443. n to a glyph In FontLab Studio you can do that using the Notes function A Note is a small text box that you can attach to the glyph It is visible in the Font window and in the Glyph window To add a note to a glyph in the Font window left click it press the right mouse button and select the Add Note command in the context menu You will see a Note window Enter the text of the note and click the 1 button in the caption bar to accept changes or to reject the changes and close the window There are also keyboard shortcuts CTRL ENTER to accept changes or Esc to exit If you have entered something in the note box you will see the note icon appear in the glyph cell The cell is also marked as changed but not saved To open the note click the right button on the note icon You will see the note window with the text of the note The window will disappear when you release the button To edit a note double click the note icon or select the Add Note command from the context menu To remove the note open it for editing and remove the text You can make the note icons invisible in the Font Window gt Glyph Cell section of the Options dialog 195 196 Sorting Glyphs Sometimes you may want to sort the glyphs in a font file in some order other than their current order There are two common reasons to do this 1 You may need to sort glyphs to optimize a font s performance if you place glyphs that are used mo
444. n Illustrator 72 pt 1 inch so 700 pt 9 72 inch Exporting Glyphs To copy part of the glyph s outline to a vector editing program use the usual copy procedure The selected portion of the outline will be copied to the Clipboard Then switch to your vector editing program using the Task Bar and select the Paste command from the Edit menu To export a glyph to an Adobe Illustrator 8 compatible EPS file 1 Select the EPS command from the File gt Export menu 2 Select the export directory and enter the name of the EPS AI file in the standard File Save dialog box 3 Press the OK button in the dialog box and the EPS AI file will be exported to the designated directory You can also export several glyphs at once Switch to the Font Window select the glyphs that you want to export and select the EPS command from the File gt Export menu You will see a Save File dialog box where you enter a prefix file name for the exported glyphs Each glyph will be exported to its own file with the file name consisting of the prefix plus the sequential number of the exported glyph 519 520 Preparing Artwork in Adobe Illustrator If you intend to use Adobe Illustrator to draw the glyph outlines In Illustrator go to Edit gt Preferences gt Units amp Undo or Units amp Display Performance Change all units to points 1 point is equal to 1 unit in FontLab Go to Preferences gt Files amp Clipboard Disable PDF enable AICB a
445. n a symmetrical shape To set the precise position of the reference point you can just Ctrl click on it You will see the reference point properties dialog box and will be able to enter the horizontal and vertical position of the reference point By default the reference point is located on the position of the zero point 339 340 Contours The most important and most complex information in a font is the glyph s shape All glyphs are defined as a series of contours All contours consist of a series of segments straight lines and curves Nodes that is outline points define all segments Open and Closed Contours Contours may be open or closed Da C rd a All known font formats require contours to be closed but during outline editing it may be useful to have some contours in an open form and later connect them to each other to build final closed contours In FontLab Studio it is very easy to open closed contours or to close open contours It is also possible to customize the appearance of the open contours they may be automatically filled they are automatically closed by an invisible straight line that connects their starting and ending points or not and their starting and finishing point may be optionally highlighted Filled and Unfilled Contours Contours can be of two types black or white They can also be of two directions clockwise or counterclockwise The basic rule that applies to Type 1 fonts is
446. n data in a format supported by Microsoft VOLT Visual OpenType Layout Tool Not all features can be exported Refer to the next section for more information On the Kerning page of the Options dialog one setting is relevant to the OpenType font generation Kerning Export kern table Expand dass kerning while building kern table Generate only pairs with glyphs in following codepage MacOS Roman w Limit total number of pairs in the table to LEETEEELELELETELELETELETEE E s LLELELELETEEELELELETELELETELETELELETEEELELELETTEELLLLLELTEELLLLELLEELLI It is the setting Generate kern feature if itis not defined If the font contains a pair kerning table but no GPOS kerning in an OpenType kern feature and this option is switched on FontLab Studio will automatically generate the kern feature based on the kerning information in Metrics Window and the Classes panel so applications that need this feature to make kerning will work correctly After all options are set correctly use the File gt Generate Font command to save the OpenType font file Select TrueType OpenType TT ttf to generate an OpenType TT TrueType flavored font or OpenType PS otf to generate an OpenType PS CFF flavored font 879 880 FontLab Studio and VOLT Microsoft VOLT Visual OpenType Layout Tool is an OpenType feature editor program developed and supported by the Microsoft Typography group The big benefit of this program is that it can sup
447. n outline by moving guidelines You switch this feature on in the Glyph Window page of the Options dialog box choose the Options command in the Tools menu to open the dialog box Tracking Hints tracking Tracking offset o OF UPMI Guidelines tracking Track global guidelines When guidelines tracking is active and you move a guideline a distance not greater than the Tracking offset parameter all outline nodes that were on the guideline will be moved with it Original outline Same outline after topmost guideline moved up If you move a global guideline and the Track global guidelines option is on then all glyphs of the font that have nodes on this guideline will be modified Be careful with this feature because the results of global guideline tracking are not undoable 433 434 Guidelines Properties Panel To open the guideline properties panel Crri Click the guideline or right click it and choose the Properties command from the popup menu Guide Properties Horizontal quideline Default color E In this properties panel you can change the position and slant angle of a guideline You also can name the guideline or global guideline and change its color This will help you to distinguish different guidelines To name the guideline just enter some text in the Name field and press ENTER The guideline will get a label 5 l Se ee To change the guidel
448. n select a layer for editing just click on the layer name and control layers appearance using the check boxes to the layer names LI oi Z mi T J in Hinks Mask Grid Vertical metrics Global mask Glyph metrics Components 4nchors and carets ligament zones Shape groups Neighbors Background C i C i l al Cie ie a LI a a d Fi a LI a KOOKI The left column of checkboxes controls the layers appearance in the Glyph Window The middle column controls the snap to feature and is equivalent to the View gt Snap to Layers menu The right column lets you lock layers and is equivalent to the View gt Lock Layers menu Please note that you must open the Glyph Window to make it possible to open the Editing Layers panel With the panel you can easily control all the layers at once using the check boxes in the top row m m m All apers If you frequently need to switch some layers on and off you can drag the View gt Show Layers menu and convert it to a toolbar VIEW Shi Cal L 4 Y ers Lock Layers F fem LE Snap to layers F EF Hints Ctrl Sh H Toolbars E Mask e p E Background Ctrl 5h 6 Zoom Alignment Zones Ctrl Sh 2 Zoom In o FontAudit Chrl Sh F Zoom Cut gg Fill Outline Ctrl Sh P i Edit Mask Ctrl H The same operation is possible with the View gt Lock Layers menu Lock Layers DA ta a fa a fa bi A te Bi In the following s
449. n the white space to accept the changes and exit the operation You can also press the RETURN or ENTER key on the keyboard 461 462 Moving Nodes This operation lets you set the position of the nodes very precisely Of course you can use the nodes property panel but this operation may simplify the job 1 Activate the Move Node operation by selecting the Move Node command in the Contour menu 2 Click anywhere in the editing field to set up a reference point If you click close to any of the guiding elements or close to one of the nodes the reference point will stick to that object The reference point will be highlighted 3 Position the cursor on the node you want to move and click the left button again The destination node will also be highlighted and a dialog box appears Relative Offset i CE a uh 1447 g 4 71 03 g Absolute Position 33 A nje A C In this dialog box FontLab Studio shows the relative position of the reference point and the destination node in rectangular and polar coordinates as well as the absolute position of the destination node You can change any value and all the other values will automatically be recalculated After you press the OK button the destination node will be moved to the new location and you can repeat steps 1 3 to move other nodes Interpolation With this operation you can move a few points and all other points of the glyph outline between the moved poi
450. nal OpenType names page will be empty English names will be presented in the friendly manner With the setting Read all OpenType name records recommended for non Western or multilingual fonts the Additional OpenType names page will contain all names found in the original font s name table In addition the English names will be also presented in the friendly manner Read OpenType Please refer to the OpenType Fonts chapter for detailed layout tables description of this and the subsequent options 93 TrueType OpenType TT These settings only apply when you open a TrueType OpenType TT ttf font but not an OpenType PS otf font F Convert TrueType curves into PostScript curves Store TrueType native hinting Import embedded bitmaps Autohint Font Convert TrueType In FontLab Studio you can work with PostScript Bezier curves curves into or TrueType quadratic curves If you open a TrueType PostScript curves OpenType TT font and plan to generate the font in the same format disable this option to keep the original outlines to avoid conversion errors But if you plan to generate your font as a Type 1 or OpenType PS font you can enable this option to convert the outlines on import In any case you can always convert the outlines in either direction at any time during editing Store TrueType Leave this option on if you want to store the original TrueType native hinting instructions and outlines FontLa
451. nd of new kerning pairs vk Cee oN pars Te AE in See codepages encodings Surrel one in the Font T o 4 Codepages Encodings J keep existing pairs Limit total number of pairs in the table to 2045 i Cancel Expanding class kerning may generate a lot of new kerning pairs if you have two classes kerned and each has 10 glyphs expanding will create 99 new kerning pairs To let you control this process we introduced filtering options The first option Create only pairs with glyphs in these codepages encodings lets you select the languages that you want to support by the new expanded pairs Select one or more codepages or encodings and Fontlab Studio will generate only those pairs that have both glyphs in one of the selected codepages or encodings The second option Keep existing pairs allows you to control the preference of existing kerning pairs over the new automatically generated pairs The third option Limit total number of pairs allows you to limit the total number of newly generated pairs Filtering is based on the absolute value of the pair pairs with bigger values positive or negative have a better chance of being generated 603 604 After you select your options and click the Expand button Fontlab Studio will calculate the number of new and modified pairs and issue a warning Click Yes to continue and No to cancel Compressing Kerning Fontlab Studio can perform an operation that is the opposite
452. nd select Preserve Paths In Preferences gt Guides amp Grid set Gridline every 10 pt and Subdivisions 10 Still in Illustrator select File gt New Set the width of the document in points to be the double of the UPM size of your font e g 2000 pt for a 1000 UPM font Set the height of the document to be the same as UPM size Descender e g 1000 263 1263 pt Select Window gt Info View gt Show Rulers View gt Snap to Grid Disable View gt Guides gt Lock Guides Optionally select View gt Show Grid Now click on the top ruler of the Illustrator document window and drag out a guideline Position it at the height that has the same positive value as the negative descender of your font e g 263 in our example From the left ruler drag a guideline and position it at 0 Click at the top left corner of the Illustrator document window where the top ruler and the left ruler meet and drag out the origin point to where the two guidelines you have just drawn cross Finally click on the top ruler and drag guidelines to the positions of your ascender x height and caps height You can draw your letters Remember to assign some kind of fill to all your Illustrator drawings and avoid drawing letters that exceed the bottom or the top of the document size If you have already drawn some letters before copy them to the newly created document place and re scale so that they fit between the guidelines you ve drawn Reme
453. ne of two ways click on each contour that you want to reverse with the right mouse button and select the Reverse Contour command in the popup menu or activate the Reverse Path operation To activate the operation select the Reverse Path command in the Contour gt Path menu When you activate the Reverse Path operation you will see that all the contours now have arrows that show their direction You can reverse any path by clicking on it with the left mouse button By double clicking you can finish the operation and accept all the changes that you just made By pressing Esc you finish the operation and reject all the changes 4 Tip We recommend that you switch to the Fill Outline mode when you use this operation The direction of a contour changes the contour s colors and in the Fill Outline Preview mode you will see the changes immediately 459 Rearranging Contours Sometimes you need to change a contour s sequence to simplify the programming of hint substitution An easiest way to do this is to use the Set Startpoints operation Select the Set Startpoints operation in the Contour gt Path menu When you activate this operation you will see the yellow marks that show the sequence number of each contour To change a contour s startpoints just click on a new startpoint position To change a contour s sequence 1 Place the mouse cursor on the contour whose sequence you want to change 2 Press the ri
454. nection is smooth the direction of the adjacent curve control vectors or of the curve control vector and line is collinear and the contour is smooth at the connection To change the type of connection 1 Make the node visible 2 1 Double click the node with the left button 2 2 Right click the node and select the connection type in the popup menu Connection Deleting Nodes To delete nodes using the Edit tool 1 Begin moving the node by dragging it 2 While holding down the left mouse button click the right button The node will be removed 1 Move the mouse cursor onto the node and press the right mouse button 2 Inthe popup menu choose the Delete node command Note If you click the right mouse button while editing the curve using the non node editing method or while you are moving the control points of a curve the curve will not be removed Instead it will change to a straight line Deleting Lines and Curves You can delete a whole line or curve with the Knife tool Activate the Knife tool with the amp button on the Tools toolbar or click 3 on the keyboard Press the ALT key and click on the line you want to delete Note that with this method you will break the outline a a _ Fi aae l Another way to delete a line or a curve is to left click on it with the Edit tool and then select the Delete command in the Edit menu This method works differently depending on the following option in the Gly
455. nel To customize a command with the context menu right click the round icon in the middle of the link Cancel Delete Command w Round Distance Distance Alignment Do Not Link to Stern 4lign Destination Position d Idee ier Amei Xi Fe w x92 Use the Delete command to remove the command and the other options to customize it The Distance alignment sub menu lets you link the command to one of the stems The Align destination position submenu is the same that you can see in the Align command s context menu and defines the rounding of the destination position In the Program panel the Single link options looks like From T 4lign Do not align w You can change the indexes of the starting and destination points and change the distance rounding and destination alignment options Single Link Examples Here are some examples of single link hinting Vertical hinting of the Times F character 715 716 Double Links Double links let you set the distance between two untouched points Both points will be moved by this command and both points will be touched afterward The distance between points can be connected to one of the standard stem widths using the usual procedure described above If the distance is connected to the stem width it will scale with the stem lt 4 Original stem lt Resulting stem Double link instruction You can t predict where points will m
456. ng Anchors Removing Anchors Renaming Anchors Changing Anchor Color Anchor Properties Using Anchors to Build Composites Using the Anchors Panel Creating Composites and Ligatures Aliases Table Using the Smart Shapes Panel Importing and Exporting Glyphs Exporting Glyphs Preparing Artwork in Adobe Illustrator Importing Glyphs Manual and Automatic Scaling Printing a Glyph 475 522 523 10 EDITING METRICS What are Font Metrics Horizontal Glyph Metrics Kerning Vertical Glyph Metrics Metrics Files Metrics Window Editing Modes Metrics Ruler Metrics Panel Metrics Table Context Menu Metrics Window Toolbar Selecting a String for Previewing or Editing Selecting a Predefined Sample String Editing a Sample String Entering Text in Text Mode Using Drag Drop Navigating in the Sample String Activating and Browsing Glyphs Selecting Preview Size Right to Left Mode Flipped Mode Previewing Outline and Nodes Customizing Colors Editing Underline and Strikethrough Editing Metrics Manual Metrics Editing Using the Keyboard Using the Metrics Panel Using the Metrics Table The Measurement Line Automatic Metrics Generation Quick Save and Quick Open Editing Kerning Manual Kerning Editing Using the Keyboard Using the Metrics Panel Using the Metrics Table Using the Kerning Dialog Adding Kerning Pairs Automatic Kerning Generation Resetting Kerning Adjusting Metrics and Kerning Class Based Kerning Class Based Kernin
457. ng that is explicitly specified in the font If the primary character set of your Type is not Western Roman but Central European Cyrillic Greek or Arabic you need to select the appropriate encoding in the Names mode encoding selector in Font Window and generate the font with custom encoding How Windows ATM Interprets a StandardEncoding When a Type 1 font has StandardEncoding ATM assumes that this font includes all the glyphs from the first 128 glyph range digits alohabet and basic punctuation and the European glyphs 128 255 range The first 128 glyphs are called the top zone The 128 255 range is called the bottom zone The Adobe StandardEncoding includes very few glyphs from the bottom zone compared to the number of glyphs in the WinANSI actual Windows encoding encoding When a Type 1 font in StandardEncoding is installed with ATM ATM uses a special encoding instead of the real StandardEncoding as it is documented in the Type 1 format specification This special Windows encoding is called the Default Encoding in FontLab So if you create a StandardEncoding font and want to see how it will work in Windows select the Default Encoding in FontLab Here is an explanation of the possible encoding export options Select encoding This is the recommended setting Generates the font automatically with Standard Encoding if the Font Window is in Names mode and the encoding selector shows one of the following Adobe Standa
458. nnna 173 174 Copying Composite Glyphs If you copy composite glyphs instead of having their own outlines composite glyphs are built from references to other glyph outlines to another font FontLab Studio will try to not decompose replace references to glyph with actual glyph copies them Instead it will try to find matching components in the glyph set that was copied or if some components are not present there in the destination font If FontLab Studio can completely restore composites in the destination font it will even keep TrueType hinting programs for these glyphs Drag Drop of the Composite Glyphs If you prefer to use the drag drop method to copy composite glyphs you have one additional option when you drop a composite glyph and FontLab Studio finds that one or more of its components were not selected to copy and do not present in the destination font it shows a message asking you if you want to copy all the missing components If your answer is Copy then FontLab Studio will automatically append all the necessary components to the destination font so that all the composites stay unchanged Otherwise FontLab Studio will decompose glyphs Note The described behavior is possible only when both the source and destination fonts have the same Font UPM value Duplicating Unicode codepoints In FontLab Studio you may assign more than one up to 63 actually Unicode codepoints to a glyph Visually this means that
459. nodes to compatible contours leave the Do not interpolate compatible outlines option switched on Switch on the Remember source and destination fonts option if you have more than one font open and are going to repeat the operation later Click OK and wait while FontLab Studio blends the fonts After the process is finished you will find the new glyphs in the new font or in the destination font The outlines of the two source glyphs will be stored in the Mask layer of each glyph and the blending result in the outline layer Those glyphs that had compatible outlines and do not get additional nodes during the blend operation will be marked with green color in the font window Those glyphs that had no their own outlines composite glyphs will be marked with blue color In some cases it is not possible to blend two outlines This happens when two source glyphs have different numbers of contours like O and 8 If some glyphs were not blended FontLab Studio will show a warning message and those glyphs will have an empty outline layer and will be marked with red color 209 The Font Header Perhaps the most important information you need to define for a font is its header or font info data This information is mainly used to properly register the font in the operating system and in any program that uses it It is very important to carefully define all font parameters Even the best designed font is useless if it cannot be installed 212 F
460. nose identification settings Font BBox 239 319 0162 1025 The page has several editing fields with numbers and a sample window where an appropriate character is displayed to help set correct values Other fields on this page mean Ascender Position of the font s ascender line Usually this is the height of the lowercase b character Descender Position of the font s descender line Usually this is the position of the bottom line of the p character Caps height Height of the font s uppercase characters Usually the height of the H character x height Height of the lowercase characters Usually the height of the x character Italic angle Actual italic or oblique angle for the font The italic angle is measured in the counterclockwise direction so the default value is 12 Slant angle Type 1 fonts can be artificially slanted to get an oblique appearance while keeping the actual outlines upright Enter a slant angle value in degrees here and check the result in the Preview panel Thickness This is the thickness of the underline line If you press the Recalculate dimensions button FontLab Studio will automatically recalculate all the dimension values Ascender Descender and Type 1 fonts If you are making a Type 1 font you should set the Ascender and Descender values very carefully In Type 1 fonts these values are used very directly to calculate interline spacing It is usually necessary
461. nother type of coordinate called blend coordinates Blend coordinates are normalized to the given dynamic range of the axis If an axis has a 50 400 dynamic range then the design coordinate 50 equals the blend coordinate 0 0 The design coordinate 400 equals the 1 0 blend coordinate Intermediate design coordinates are converted to the blend coordinates using linear calculation by default or a non linear axis graph described in the next section When we know the design coordinates we can calculate what proportion of each master we need to build the intermediate font This process is called blending Simple formulas are used to make these calculations and as a result we get an array of values that define the weight of each master in the final interpolation that produces an intermediate font 0 13 0 77 for a one axis font two masters are blended 0 02 0 24 0 11 0 63 for a two axis font four masters are blended Note that the sum of all weights is always equal to 1 This array of masters weights is called the weight vector and is used internally by the font interpreter to build the intermediate font Note that while blend coordinates are used internally externally design coordinates are used A special weight vector called the default weight vector should be set in the font header to define a standard intermediate design of the MM font A MM font is seen as a typical Type 1 font by a PostScript device o
462. nothing is selected to the Global Mask layer Copy Mask to Global Mask Copies the Mask layer of the current glyph to the Global Mask layer In other words converts a local template into a global font wide template Paste Global Mask to Mask Copies the contents of the Global Mask layer to the Mask layer of the current glyph Clear Global Mask Clears the contents of the font Global Mask layer You can customize the color that is used to render the Global Mask layer using the Colors page accessible from the Tools gt Options dialog box Refer to the FontLab Studio Options section for description of this dialog box Note In previous versions of FontLab this layer was called the Template layer Background Layer When other methods are not adequate you can use a background bitmap template A bitmap template is a black white bitmap image that appears on the screen underneath all the other layers You can use it as a template for a glyph outline it is especially useful when working with the VectorPaint tools and you can automatically convert it into an outline To see the background layer switch it on in the View gt Show Layers menu Create a background layer using any of the three following methods 1 Open a bitmap image file Gn BMP or TIFF format 2 Paste an image from the Clipboard 3 Rasterize the current outline to make an image in the bitmap background layer You can also copy the contents of the background t
463. nt programming The Type 1 hinting system requires that stem hints not overlap each other Because stem widths have no length limits and are applied to the whole character sometimes it is necessary to give special instructions to hints in order to avoid such overlaps Overlapped hints In the left picture we have two vertical overlapping hints and in the right picture two pairs of horizontal overlapping hints Each of these hints should however work only on part of the outline l l l l l l l l l l l l l l Hints set 1 Hints set 2 As you can see we have two hint sets and three outline segments from point 1 to point 4 from point 5 to point 12 and from point 13 to point 15 So we must switch active hint sets as the rasterizer proceeds along the contour to match the part of the outline that the hint sets apply to We need to have some program that will switch off the right hint in segment 2 after the rasterizer has passed point 3 where the right hint applies and before it gets to point 5 where the left hint applies and switch it back on in segment 3 before it gets to point 13 where the right hint applies again The same program should switch on the left hint in segment 2 and switch it off again in segment 3 This way only one of the two hints is active at any one time 671 672 This program is called a hint replacement program and the process that it performs is called hint replacement FontLab Studio will
464. nt set includes the following commands Align Aligns moves the position of the outline point to the designated position on the grid or to the edge of the alignment zone Single Link Sets the position of the point relative to the position of another point Distance can be linked with one of the stem widths Distances also may be rounded or not Double Link Sets the distance between two points to an integer value that may be linked with a stem width Middle Delta Slightly shifts a point at a specific PPM This command works before the final interpolation of untouched points Final Delta Slightly shifts a point at a specific PPM This command works after the final interpolation of untouched points This command is used for the final outline correction All commands are available in horizontal and vertical directions There are no diagonal visual instructions Sequence of commands Visual commands may be set in any sequence but they are interpreted in a very specific order FontLab Studio automatically detects the logic of the hinting program and does intelligent sorting 1 Align commands are always interpreted first 2 Double links are interpreted first also except that middle delta instructions may set points that are linked by double links 3 Single links and interpolate commands are interpreted in logical sequence Middle delta commands are interpreted after commands that set positions of the points for which they are
465. nt that has stored binary OpenType tables and prefer to use these disable Compile feature definitions Tracking 4 Generating OpenType TT TrueType ttf Shape groups and neighbors Para aAA a ae Metrics window Export hinted TrueType fonts FontAudit Write stored TrueType native hinting Opening Type 1 v i pening OneriTyee A TrueType Export visual TrueType hints TrueType OpenType TT ttf Autohint unhinted glyphs Generating Type 1 Export embedded bitmaps Type 1 autohinting Copy HDMY data from base to composite glyph Generating OpenType amp TrueTyp ree Digital signature C Export mort table if possible TrueType OpenType TT ttf 05 2 table version 3 05 2 table version 2 TrueType Autchinting OpenType TT Encoding OpenType PS otf Kerning Location of the CacheTT exe Use CacheTT program to generate device metrics tables in TT Fonts Trace Options 4 Ce You may use the CacheTT program to generate your shipping fonts Options 4 Tracking i Shape groups and neighbors Metrics window FontAudit Opening Type 1 Opening OpenType amp TrueType TrueType OpenType TT ttf Generating Type 1 Type 1 autohinting Generating OpenType amp TrueTyp Digital signature TrueType OpenType TT ttf TrueType Autohinting OpenType TT Encoding OpenType PS otf Kerning Trace Options A Options 4 Tracking
466. nt to append glyphs 5 Set the desired action for the cases when glyphs have names that already exist in the destination font You may choose to overwrite existing glyphs or rename source or destination glyphs or to not copy duplicate glyphs at all 6 Click on the OK button to merge fonts 203 204 Saving and Opening a Project To keep your font project intact FontLab Studio offers some project management functions A Project is a set of fonts opened in FontLab Studio and information about the position and size of their font windows To save a project use the ld button in the Fonts panel toolbar FontLab Studio will open a standard File Save dialog box where you can select a name and path for the project file FontLab Studio project files have the extension flw FontLab Studio project files are automatically generated macro programs in the Python scripting language They are text files that you can edit with any text editor if you wish Recommended only for the knowledgeable and brave To open a project file use the button in the Fonts panel toolbar or simply drag drop the flw file onto the FontLab Studio window Note that FontLab Studio project files won t open if Python is not installed on the System Saving and Opening a Workspace A Workspace is the information about visual interface items customizable in FontLab Studio panels menus toolbars and keyboard shortcuts To save a workspace u
467. nt will contain two masters so to say two layers of information about the glyph shapes First master will define light version of the font and second master bold or extra bold version With FontLab Studio 5 you can apply TrueType hinting to Multiple Master fonts So instead of hinting these two masters separately and also provide TrueType hinting to all generated intermediate designs you can do it only once There are some limitations l pA You can apply hints to only one master the first one TrueType alignment zones and standard stems are not compatible with MM fonts and will be simply copied to the generated intermediate designs from the first master Which means that you will have to update stems and zones values However Type 1 zones and standard stems are compatible with Multiple Master font structure and they can be used to create intermediate values There is one requirement their ordering and value must be exactly the same as ordering and values of the zones and stems of the first master of the MM font Delta hints usually will not work well Make basic hinting with the MM font but apply delta hints after generating the intermediate font Hinting for ClearType ClearType is atext rendering technology developed by Microsoft and introduced in Windows XP It works with LCD screens and uses colored green blue and red subpixels to increase visible screen resolution in one direction On LCD sc
468. nt window double click the cell If you want to create a group of new glyphs with a single command select the cells and use the Glyph gt Create Glyphs command If the selected cells are occupied by existing glyphs a warning dialog box appears as when you paste from the Clipboard If you are creating glyphs in the yellow zone names and Unicode codepoints are assigned to the newly created glyphs according to the selected encoding table You also can use the Glyph gt Create Glyphs If Empty command to create new glyphs only in the cells that are not occupied by existing glyphs This command is available only for the encoded glyph cells By default the newly created glyphs will be blank and will have a default advance width If Tools gt Options gt Font window gt Create Glyphs command generates them if possible is enabled FontLab Studio will attempt to generate the glyphs that are being created For example if your font includes the basic English letters and some diacritic marks and you try to create some Western or Central European accented glyphs they will be automatically generated so the appropriate components will be placed into the glyph See the section on Generate Glyphs command If Tools gt Options gt Font Window gt Templates gt Put glyph template images in Background layer when creating new glyphs is enabled FontLab Studio will automatically place the grey glyph template images into the bitmap Background
469. ntPro Cond Black freefontoro condblack wb Long OpenType family naming FreeFontPro F FreeFontPro freefontoro reqular vtb F FreeFontPro Black freefontpro black vib F FreeFontPro Black Italic freefontoro blackitalic vtb F FreeFontPro Bold freefontpro bold vtb F FreeFontPro Bold Italic freefontoro bolditalic vib F FreeFontPro Cond freetontoro cond vib F FreeFontPro Cond Black freefontore condblack tE F FreeFontPro Cond Bold freefontpro condbold vib F FreeFontPro Italic freefontpro italic vib 223 224 You can use the flyout menu of the Fonts panel to switch the views between these two sets of naming Fonts vuaj FreeFontPro Black F FreeFontPro Black fi F FreeFontPro Black It CennCnntiren In FontLab Studio s Font Info dialog from the File menu there are two pages that are relevant for font family naming Basic set of font names the first page of the Names and Copyright section and OpenType specific font names In an OpenType font the brief Windows family naming should be devised on the Basic set of font names page Basic set of font names Brief family naming Family Name FreeFontPro Cond Eont FreeFontPro Cond Weight Bold M 700 Fontis italic O FreeFontPro Black z More Styles Style Name Bod Build Style Name PS Font Name FreeFontPro CondBold FreeFontPro Cond Bold O FreeFontPro Cond Blac Bold Italic whil
470. ntlab com python for more examples and information about macro programs You may also examine the source code of the sample programs that are supplied with FontLab Studio Index 3 3D Extrusion 636 3D Rotate 637 A AAT 106 tables 276 Acrobat 148 Add Corner 331 Add Curve 331 Add Nodes 640 Add Tangent 331 Adjust Metrics 632 Adjusting Metrics 579 Adobe 17 95 109 150 Adobe Glyph List 189 Adobe Illustrator 518 Adobe InDesign 132 135 Adobe Type Manager 95 238 AFM 20 95 531 566 610 612 AGLFN 151 Al 68 Aliases Table 514 Align 706 AlignBottom 704 Alignment Zones 256 333 485 658 701 804 family 257 662 AlignTop 704 Alternate Substitution 859 anchor name 77 Anchors 333 438 499 501 Anchors Panel 508 Anisotropic Interpolation 777 787 ANSI 122 138 Append 173 appending glyphs 173 Apple 17 Arabic 145 252 Arc 516 Ascender 245 247 AsiaFont Studio 155 167 Assign Master 793 ATM 95 ATypl 17 Autohint 628 autohinting 99 Automatic Kerning Generation 576 Automatic Metrics Generation 564 Autoreplace 629 Autoreplacing 679 Autosave 67 169 Autospacing 632 autotracer 111 axes 769 Axis Defining 781 Editing Settings 802 graph 778 map 778 Removing 803 axis graph editing 807 Axis Panel 60 785 B Background 333 445 456 layer 74 backup 67 167 baseline 467 470 555 property panel 470 BCPs 79 BDF 19 Bezier curves 94 343
471. nts The designer should rather duplicate the glyphs assigning no more than one Unicode index to each of them note that one of the glyphs can refer to the other one as a component Another case is that one glyph represents several Unicode characters at a time For example the glyph P represents an accented character LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH ACUTE AND DOT BELOW used in African languages such as Yoruba This character does not have its own codepoint in the Unicode Standard so it needs to be encoded as a series of characters It is encoded as E followed by dot below followed by acute U 0045 U 0323 U 0301 Another example is the glyph which is a ligature of f followed by f followed by k U 0066 U 0066 U 006B In such cases again the appropriate OpenType Layout features must be used to produce the glyphs The glyph name should be constructed accordingly and the glyph may have a pua Unicode codepoint assigned The following sections present a summary of the Adobe FontLab glyph naming guidelines These guidelines unify recommendations by Adobe Systems and those by Fontlab Ltd Glyph name limitations A glyph name must not be longer than 31 characters The glyph name consists of a base name optionally followed by a period which is then followed by a suffix Both the base name and the suffix may only include uppercase English letters A Z lowercase English letters a z European digits 0 9 and underscore _ Other char
472. nts it begins to make TrueType hints automatically If this glyph has Type 1 hinting information then FontLab converts this information to visual TrueType instructions and converts the instructions to the TrueType hinting code If Type 1 hints are not present then FontLab automatically generates Type 1 hints as the first step then converts the Type 1 hints into TrueType visual instructions and converts the visual instructions into TrueType native instructions 105 Export embedded If this option is on FontLab Studio will export embedded bitmaps bitmaps if they are present If you don t want to save bitmaps in the font switch this option off Copy HDMX data If this option is active FontLab Studio will copy HDMX data from base to device and point size specific font metrics from the base composite glyph component of the composite glyph to the composite glyph if their metrics are the same Export mort FontLab Studio will attempt to generate the AAT mort table table if possible and include it in the generated font OS 2 table Allows you to select the version of the OS 2 table in the generated font Select table version 2 for maximum compatibility of your font with older systems Use CacheTT Please refer to section about Device Dependent Metrics of the program to Font Header chapter for information generate device metrics tables TrueType Autohinting This section controls the way FontLab Studio performs TrueType
473. nts from all selected glyphs 191 The Font Map Panel When you work with really big Unicode encoded fonts you may need to have an overview of your whole font FontLab Studio has a special panel called the Font Map which can represent the entire Unicode code space as a set of 256 x 256 pictures where every pixel represents a double byte code and every picture is a plain Every pixel row in this picture represents a Unicode page 256 Unicode codepoints which begin with the same code For example codes A700 A7FF will form one row Every pixel in the row represents an individual code To open the Font Map panel use the Font Map command in the Window gt Panels menu You will see a panel that consists of the code picture toolbar and status bar The picture represents Plain 0 of the whole Unicode codespace codes 0000 FFFF 192 The buttons on the toolbar mean Turns on zoom mode Changes the Font Map to double byte codepage mode TL Updates the contents of the Font Map By clicking the 4 button on the toolbar you can zoom in on part of the Font Map In this mode it is much easier to manage individual codes To scroll a zoomed Font Map press the left mouse button and drag the cursor beyond the Map borders If you click the Font Map you will see the current Unicode codepoint appear on the status bar below the Map picture The current code is highlighted with a cross hair Double click any code in
474. nts will be interpolated Original glyph Glyph after interpolation As you can see this operation can save a lot of time when you want to proportionally modify your glyph but want to save some important values like stem widths Interpolation is extremely useful when you are making Multiple Master fonts Refer to the Multiple Master Fonts chapter for more information When the Interpolate Nodes operation the Contour menu is activated a small panel appears consisting only of two buttons OK and Cancel Press the OK button to accept any changes that you made with the interpolation operation you can also press the RETURN or ENTER key on the keyboard or press the Cancel button to reject the changes the Esc key is the equivalent of this button How interpolation works 1 You set the new position of several glyph points We call these points reference points 463 2 All points on contours that are between two reference points are interpolated All contours are processed independently 4 Points 2 and 5 are reference points Points 3 and 4 are between these points and will be interpolated Note that points 1 and 6 are also between reference points because all contours in FontLab Studio are closed 3 All non reference points are interpolated between two reference points according to the following rules a Ifthe contour has only one reference point it is shifted with that point b Ifa point is between two re
475. ny other tools Crri hold and Crru Click Click First mode is active by default and means that you can press and hold CTRL key while using most tools to temporary activate the Edit tool To switch to the Click Click mode us the Glyph Window page of the Tools gt Options dialog box Editing behavior Tap on Ctrl key boggles Edit tool When this option is active you can temporary activate the Edit tool from any other tool Just click on the CTRL key on the keyboard Second click on the CTRL key will return the tool you were using before Snap to Distance In the following sections we will discuss how to use the Edit tools to modify the outline and other editing layers All other tools will be explicitly named When you need to select a node or any other object on any of the layers you need to click it with the mouse You don t need to click the object precisely but you must be within a certain distance which is called the snap to distance Snap to is used when you select an object for which the feature is allowed By default the snap to distance is set to 3 screen pixels but you can change it on the Glyph Window gt Dimensions page of the Options dialog box Snap to distance Snap to zone around a node Editing Layers In FontLab Studio every glyph contains several editing layers Some of them are used when the font is exported others are FontLab Studio only and are used to help you work with the glyph Below
476. o FontLab Studio select the image in the program using its selection tools copy the image onto the Clipboard the image may be color black white or grayscale switch to the FontLab Studio window and select the Paste command from the Edit menu To rasterize a glyph s outline and make a background layer from it select the Create command from the Tools gt Background menu Below is a table containing all the commands from the Background menu related to background bitmap layer Create Rasterizes the outline and makes a background layer Copy Copies the contents of the background layer to the Windows Clipboard You can also use the Paste command from the Edit menu to paste the bitmap contents of the Clipboard to the background layer Remove Removes the contents of the background layer Move and Scale Activates the Bitmap Positioning operation described in the next section Trace Pixels Automatically traces the background layer on the pixel basis and adds the tracing results to the outline This operation doesn t create curves but makes a pixel font outline each pixel results in a square staircase element Trace Automatically traces the background layer and adds the tracing results to the outline You can customize the autotracing options on the Trace Options page of the Options dialog box described in the FontLab Studio Options section Note that if you apply the File gt Export gt Background command to the glyphs s
477. o apply an envelope to a glyph 1 Activate an Envelope operation Select the Envelope command in the Contour gt Transform menu or press the E2 button on the Transform toolbar 2 You will see a control box surrounding your glyph The control box consists of 8 curves with control vectors and control points 457 458 3 Position the mouse cursor on any of the handles of the control box press the left mouse button and drag the handle to a new location You will immediately see the results of the transformation 4 Double click in the free space of the Glyph Window to accept the changes or press the Esc key to reject the changes You can select one of the predefined envelopes Press the right mouse button in the free space of the Glyph Window and choose Select predefined command in the popup menu You will see a dialog box with several predefined envelopes Choose the envelope in the Effect list that you want to apply and fill in a Force option A force of 100 will make the envelope look as it is in the selection list A value of 0 will make a plain rectangle Check on the Randomize option to apply the envelope with random force When you select one of the predefined envelopes you can still modify it using envelope handles Reversing a Contour s Direction Sometimes you need to reverse the direction of a contour In FontLab Studio you can do this in o
478. o just by dragging them and modifying their width Because hints in FontLab Studio are very intelligent they automatically snap to the contour minimising your work In most cases the autohinting algorithm that is included in FontLab Studio produces good results usually not any worse than the results of manual hinting There is a special feature called Hints Tracking that can be used with hints It will be described later when we discuss editing hints Links Stem hints are not connected to the outline they exist in a different layer This allows you to use hints as pairs of guidelines while you work on an outline But if you change the outline after hints are set you have to set all the hints again to reflect the outline changes Another kind of stem hint called a link may help in this case Links connect two outline nodes using the position of the nodes and the distance between them to define a stem hint If you move one of the nodes connected by a link the link will automatically reflect the changes Links can also be either vertical or horizontal Vertical links Horizontal link Links are extremely useful when you are working with Multiple Master fonts In these fonts each point has several layers called masters which represent different styles of the font If you try to set hints in Multiple Master fonts you will have to manually define the hints positions in each master But with links you can just conn
479. o make OpenType fonts TT or PS cross platform compatible you have two choices Either create only families with up to 4 styles as described above or maintain two sets of naming within the font family a set of brief families for Windows with no more than 4 styles per family and one long family for Mac OS and OpenType applications Brief families on Windows with no more than 4 styles per family Fant FreeFontPra FreeFontPra O FreeFontPro Black O FreeFontPra Cond O FreeFontPro Cond Blac Bold Italic style Fort FreeFontPro Cond O FreeFontPro O FreeFontProa Black FreeFontPro Cond O FreeFontPro Cond Blac Bald Italic The same family viewed as a long family on Mac OS and in OpenType Savvy applications Paragraph Character oO FreeFontPro Regular Fegular In FontLab Studio the Fonts panel Window gt Panels gt Fonts can be used to preview both sorts of naming Brief family naming FreeFontPro Black F FreeFontPro Black freefontpro black vib F FreeFontPro Black Italic freefontoro blackitalic vtb FreeFontProa F FreeFontPro Bold freefontpro bold vtb F FreeFontPro Bold Italic freefontoro bolditalic wb F FreeFontPro Italic freefontoro italic vib F FreeFontPro freefontoro reqular vib FreeFontPro Cond F FreeFontPro Cond freetontoro cond vib F FreeFontPro Cond Bold freefontoro condbold vib FreeFontPro Cond Black F FreeFo
480. o the clipboard to paste it into any Windows image editing program save it to the image file and set its size and position on the screen To open a bitmap image select the Background command from the File gt Import menu Import d E Background Export Bitmap Font ae EPS a Metrics Mac Font File You will see the standard Windows Open File dialog box where you can select the bitmap file that you want to put into the background layer Use the format selection combo box to choose the format of the bitmap file FontLab Studio supports two formats BMP standard Windows bitmap format and TIFF standard image interchange format Bitmap files that you import into FontLab Studio must be black and white line art images Neither color nor grayscale images can be imported into FontLab Studio Your image editing application can usually make this change 445 446 To export a bitmap image select the Background command from the File gt Export menu Import d AFH f W Metrics You will see the standard Windows Save File dialog box where you can name the bitmap file that you want to save from the background layer Use the format selection combo box to choose the format of the bitmap file FontLab Studio supports two formats BMP standard Windows bitmap format and TIFF standard image interchange format Select the destination for the file and click Save To copy a bitmap image from another Windows program int
481. ocated in the Program Files Common Files FontLab Mapping folder that has the following structure FONTLAB STUDIO NAMETABLE Database_name 0x0000 notdef 0x0002 nonmarkingreturn 0x0020 visiblespace 0x0020 space The first line of this file is a signature that is used to show that this file is a properly defined database file This line may contain the database name like in agl nam FONTLAB STUDIO NAMETABLE Adobe Glyph List The lines that follow the signature have a very simple structure lt Unicode codepoint gt lt name gt The Unicode codepoint may be in decimal or hex started with Ox form The name should not have any spaces Names are case sensitive One Unicode codepoint may be linked with more than one name and several Unicode codepoints may be linked with one name If the name is preceded with the it means that Unicode may be generated from the name but none of the marked names may be generated when the Unicode codepoint is known This is necessary when none of the glyph s names is included in the list of standard names supported by Adobe Adobe Glyph List This feature makes it possible to generate correct Unicode codepoints for incorrectly named glyphs but will never assign incorrect names You can extend these files in any text editor but we strongly recommend not changing them 189 190 Generating Names This operation is the opposite of the one described in the previous section If you sele
482. of expanding class based kerning It is called kerning compression If you have some plain kerning in your font and have defined some kerning classes manually or automatically you can convert plain kerning to class kerning Click on the Compress button You will see a warning message and if you press on the Compress kerning table button Fontlab Studio will analyze the kerning table and classes and try to remove plain kerning pairs that are unnecessary if class kerning is correctly defined for the font Updating the kern Feature If you change some properties of the kerning classes in the Metrics window Classes panel or Kerning assistance dialog box this updated information will be stored in the font and saved in the VFB file but will have no effect on the exported OpenType font To put class kerning into effect you need to store it in the form of a kern feature that is compiled into a binary glyph positioning table To update the kern feature click on this button Update kern Feature You may open the OpenType panel Window gt Panels gt OpenType to see the new kern feature OpenType Al 66 Tl 70 U 70 a ae aacute acircumflex aogor c d e o qg oslash oe eth cced i dotlessi iacute icircumfle eo 35 r 36 u 34 Asmall Aacutesmall AEsmall w Bsmall Dsmall Esmall Fsmall H gt If you want to understand what this means please refer to the OpenType Fonts chapter on page 815 60
483. oint to one of the links Try to automatically generate delta instructions Our research shows that it is useful to include small middle delta commands at the end of links that connect round parts of the glyph Use this option to control this feature 739 740 Add link to the right sidebearing point FontLab Studio can generate a single distance rounded link that will go from the rightmost hinted point to the right sidebearing point This feature guarantees at least one pixel distance between glyphs on all PPMs Interpolate positions of the double links In glyphs like B which have overlapping stems FontLab Studio may hint them independently or hint the first stem and then interpolate the position of the second stem using the interpolation command with the final point aligned to the grid Whether this is appropriate for your font has to be decided on a case by case basis Single link attachment precision If an outline is not very precise you can enter a value in this field so FontLab Studio will have a threshold to decide when several points are located along a line For precise fonts set this value to 1 or 0 Generally speaking autohinting is a trial and error process You can get very good autohinting results if you select the correct options for your font and define correct stem and alignment zone behaviour at the critical PPMs Processing Multiple Glyphs You can convert Type hints to TrueType instru
484. om commands 1 Select the Align tool r 2 Position the cursor over the point that you want to align and click the left mouse button 3 Ifthe selected point was in one of the alignment zones an AlignTop or AlignBottom command will be added to the hinting program If the selected point is not in the zone the free Align command will be added The AlignTop command appears as a a an Align top command Alignment zone A g The Align Bottom command is similar to the AlignTop command How AlignTop and AlignBottom Commands Work 1 Inthe prep program this program interprets every time the PPM is changed all alignment zones stored in the cvt table are aligned to the closest integer position 2 When the glyph program interprets the position of the point aligned to the zone by the AlignTop or AlignBottom command is set equal to the aligned position of the zone if the scaled distance between it and the zone is no more than 16 17 pixels The AlignTop and AlignBottom commands have two arguments the index of the point that is aligned by the command and the index of the zone In the Program panel these commands appear as AlignBottom 12 1 AlignTop 5 0 where 12 and 5 are point indexes and 1 and 0 are indexes of the bottom and top zone respectively Hinting Alignment Zones By default the position of the alignment zones is scaled linearly Sometimes this may not be satisfactory and you may need to exactly specify the pos
485. oman encoding to use the Latin characters In FontLab Studio you can include up to 6 400 glyphs in a font If you need a font editor that supports more glyphs up to 65 535 Fontlab Ltd offers AsiaFont Studioa multibyte font editor that is the bigger brother of FontLab Studio All encodings are stored in text files that can be edited in any text processor To create a custom encoding file 1 Copy the enc file located in the Common Files FontLab Encoding T1 non Western folder to use as the basis for your new encoding file 2 Open the copied file in any text editor Windows Notepad will do and then edit it following the same structure that you find in the original file 3 Change the name of the encoding and the encoding index in the first line of the file The first line should have the following structure FONTLAB STUDIO ENCODING 7 Adobe Symbol Encoding FONTLAB STUDIO ENCODING is the prefix of the file used to detect properly made encoding files and must not be changed Note the space between and the encoding index 7 is the index of the encoding vector You must not change the encoding vector indexes of any of the encoding vectors or they will become unusable If you make your own encodings the indexes of your files should not be used in any of the other files The actual value of the index is not important so you can assign indexes like 1001 or 10001 The last part of the first line Adobe Sym
486. ommand in the File menu or click on the button in the Standard toolbar and select the Glyph List item at the left of the Printing dialog box Glyph list Print all glyphs in the font Print only selected glyphs Glyph List At the right choose whether to print all font glyphs or only the selected glyphs and click OK You will see the standard Windows Print dialog box Note that some information is colored so printing on a color printer will have some benefits Printout of the glyph list FONTLAB FONT PRINTOUT NeoGothic 10 28 01 20 08 25 Page 1 1 a D Index 66 Unicode 0061 Index 67 Unicode 0062 Nodes 18 Contours 2 Nodes 16 Contours 2 BBox 46 13 403 485 BBox 81 12 488 670 LSB 46 RSB 47 Width 450 LSB 81 RSB 41 Width 529 Isb 337 rsb 53 width 60 Isb 90 rsb 48 width 391 Nodes 11 Contours 1 BBox 49 13 427 485 d Index 69 Unicode 0064 Nodes 15 Contours 2 BBox 61 15 470 666 Index 68 Unicode 0063 i LSB 49 RSB 40 Width 467 LSB 61 RSB 56 Width 526 Isb 56 rsb 345 width 66 Isb 67 rsb 65 width 394 Index 70 Unicode 0065 Nodes 12 Contours 2 BBox 49 17 459 481 LSB 49 RSB 34 Width 493 Isb 56 rsb 44 width 393 As you can see this is the same information that is displayed in the Glyph properties panel 281 Printing Font Sample To print the current font sample
487. ommands described below Open Glyph Creates a new Glyph window and opens the current glyph in it Window Properties Opens the glyph properties panel for the current glyph or selected glyphs 163 Contents of the More submenu Select Encoding Selects the current encoding the yellow zone at the top of the font chart Select Modified Selects all glyphs which were modified since the last font save Glyphs Add Suffix to Opens the Glyphname Suffix dialog box allowing to rename Name selected glyphs by adding suffixes or replace existing suffixes Glyphname suffixes are useful when working with OpenType Layout features Current Glyph is Selects and marks the current glyph as the default glyph that Default is used in Type fonts to represent glyphs that are not present in the font Save Encoding Saves the currently selected encoding to an enc file 164 Moving Glyphs You can change the positions of glyphs in the font chart just by moving them to a new place Note that moving glyphs is an undoable operation To move glyphs in the font chart 1 Select the glyphs that you want to move 2 Position the mouse cursor on the selected glyphs 3 Press the left mouse button 4 Drag the glyphs to the new position Release the button to finish moving If you move glyphs over the cells of existing glyphs you will see a dialog box prompting you to choose whether to replace the existing glyphs or save them by moving them to the
488. ompletely customizable and from this chapter you will learn how to change the FontLab Studio interface so it will best fit your needs Please note that further in the book we will refer to menu commands toolbar buttons and keyboard shortcuts as they appear in the default FontLab Studio environment prior to any modifications you may make 26 Basic Terms We cannot go any further without defining a few terms that are critical to understanding FontLab Studio and fonts in general Character The minimal unit of the written language a part of the alphabet a symbol Any picture that can be recognized as having the same meaning represents the same character AAGAF All the pictures above mean the character A Please note that sometimes pictures that look the same represent different characters A Latin A A Cyrillic A A Greek Alpha Characters have codes that are used to store text data on a computer Glyph The basic element of the font literally an image that is printed All glyphs are unique even if they represent the same character Glyphs are used to represent characters Please note that many different glyphs may be used to represent the same character even in the same font ttt Font An organized collection of glyphs and font header information Usually glyphs that are united in a font have some similarities in design and other properties In the past a font was defined as
489. omposite glyph as a combination of all components as if it is decomposed 743 744 Automatic TrueType Hinting There is no special command TrueType autohinting in FontLab Studio There is Type 1 autohinting and automatic conversion of Type fonts to TrueType instructions This is a more flexible solution to the TrueType autohinting problem because it allows you to use all the correct Type 1 hints that you have or to build both hints at once To automatically generate visual TrueType hints for the whole font 1 Select the Action Set command from the Tools menu 2 Ifyou have a Type 1 font outlines of 3 order curves with a Type 1 hints set select Convert Type 1 font to TrueType from the program selection combo box Saved action sets Convert Type 1 font to TrueType Select a set to load Convert Type 1 Font to TrueType Sample program TrueType Sutohintina 3 Ifthe font has no hints at all select Generate TrueType hints from the program selection combo box 4 Choose an application range for the selected program Apply action set to All glyphs in the Font w Current glyph only Selected glyphs All glyphs in the Font All glyphs in the glyph list All glyphs which are not in the list All opened Fonts Fonts in the Fonts List 5 Press the OK button to start the process Working With Bitmaps Setting complex instructions program and multiple delta instructions may take a lot of time An altern
490. on Forums old News more Help Contact Us search r Need some arrows Type arrows Helvetica Inserat account family page character map Login Account Home Point size 43 gt My Orders My Library Enter your sample Your Text Here text Your Text Here Customize displa Free Updates _display Note The sample above may be cropp webpage widt Get the latest news and special offers f h ped to the aD Internet There is also a Buy Me button click it if you want to buy the font OpenType Specific Names Opentl ype zpecific font names e The OpenType format adds several new name records that are needed to use OpenType fonts on PC and Mac Family Name Preferred Family Name name 16 This name is used to create a family containing more than 4 styles You need to use the same Preferred Family Name in all fonts that you want to put into a big family and make the Preferred Style Name different for each of these fonts The Preferred Family name appears in the font menu as the font name Please note that this information is used only by new applications that can handle OpenType fonts Adobe InDesign or other new Adobe programs are good examples Style Name Preferred Style Name name 17 Used to complement Preferred Family Name and defines a font style in a big font family This is the name that appears in the submenu of the fonts list Ado
491. on between the first and second glyphs in the pair After you activate a glyph you can browse the glyph collection in the current font Use the previous glyph and next glyph shortcuts By default they are CTRL and CTRL respectively In Metrics and Kerning modes you can change a glyph in the string just by clicking the related key on the keyboards or by quickly entering its name Selecting Preview Size If the local command area is in the top part of the Metrics window type the desired point size in the String Size combo box m w or select one of the predefined sizes from the list If the local command area is at the bottom you will get a size menu and two buttons to the right of it aa Lad Use these buttons to decrease or increase the size of the sample string Both the combo box and the Size menu contain an Auto command Select it and the size of the sample text will be automatically selected to fit one line of text or two lines if the second sample string is not empty into the current vertical size of the editing area The Size menu available when the local command area is at the bottom also has the Custom command Select it and you will see the following dialog box String Size Type in the desired point size in the text field at the right or use the slider to adjust the size You will see the result immediately in the Metrics window If the sample text becomes too large to fit in the window a
492. on in the top position controls the saving of custom encoding file and can be also reached via Glyph gt Glyph Names gt Save Encoding That s all about the Font window for now so let s open the Glyph window 49 50 Glyph Window To open a Glyph window for editing individual glyphs you need to create one Remember we started with a new font that doesn t have any glyphs To create a glyph double click on any cell in the Font window You will see that the gray cell which means there is no glyph defined is replaced by a white one which represents a glyph that is defined but contains no image When you draw or paste something into it the white cell will show a small picture of the glyph After the glyph cell is created we are ready to open the Glyph window Select the glyph cell just click on it with the left button and double click it to open the Glyph window It will immediately appear on screen amp Glyph 65 A from FreeFontPro Sel Ecart Instead of double clicking you can also use several other methods to open the Glyph window 1 Right click the glyph cell and select the Edit command in the context menu 2 Select the glyph and choose New Edit window in the Window menu 3 Select the glyph and press on the Panels toolbar 4 And finally select the glyph cell and just press the ENTER key on the keyboard If you have more than one glyph in your font which is normal when you open an existing f
493. on of the command bar and is discussed later The current glyph name and Unicode codepoint as well as the total quantity of glyphs are shown in the right part of the command bar in the bottom position Glyph Naming and Character Encoding Support for almost all known character indexing methods is one of the key FontLab Studio features Here s how it works A font is just a big collection of glyphs that are used to represent many characters more about that in the following section On an average screen the Font Window can show just a few hundred character cells so we need to have some method to browse the font through the Font Window And on the other hand different font formats use different methods to encode characters In FontLab Studio you can choose one of four so called Encoding modes that allow you to select a subset of the glyph collection and show it in the top part of the Font Window for easier access Four buttons in the Font window top command bar or the Mode popup menu in the bottom command bar are used for the encoding modes selection in FontLab Studio In the following sections you will find more information about encoding modes Unicode and name based identification and the character glyph model 127 128 Characters Codes and Glyphs A font is a collection of glyphs that usually have a common design In addition to storing each glyph a font has some header information that stores general information ab
494. on set in the Programs folder within your FontLab Studio user data folder the action set will automatically appear in the Saved action sets list box the next time you open the Action Set dialog box After you press Save in the Save File dialog box a new dialog box will ask you to enter a name for the action set This name will be used to identify the action set and it will appear in the Saved action sets list box To open a previously saved action set press the button and select one of the programs in the standard Open File dialog box A faster way to open action sets is to use the Saved action sets list box The names of all action sets saved in the FontLab Studio directory will appear in this list Saved action sets Just select the set that you want to open You will see the set appear in the Action set list box 647 648 Transforming Fonts With the Action Set dialog box you can apply a set of actions to multiple fonts at once The easiest way is to apply it to all fonts that are open in FontLab Studio If that is not enough you can run the transformation program in batch mode processing multiple fonts that are not open in FontLab Studio To select fonts for transformation 1 Select Fonts in the Fonts List as the range all glyphs in the glyph list we Current glyph only Selected glyphs All glyphs in the Font All glyphs in the glyph list All glyphs which are not in the list All opened Fonts
495. on set will affect 1 glyph Controls in this area let you select which glyphs you want to transform Open the combo box and you will see the available options Current glyph only Selected glyphs All glyphs in the Font All glyphs in the glyph list All glyphs which are not in the list All opened Fonts Fonts in the Fonts List Current glyph only Actions will be applied only to one current glyph the blue glyph in the Font window or the current glyphs in the Metrics or Glyph windows Selected glyphs Actions will be applied to all the glyphs that are selected in the Font window All glyphs in the glyph Only glyphs that are enumerated in the glyphs list will be list transformed see below All glyphs that are not Only those glyphs that are not in the list will be in the list transformed Thus if the list includes all the digits and you select this option all glyphs except the digits would be transformed All opened fonts Action set will be applied to all glyphs in all opened fonts Fonts in the Fonts List Action set will be applied to all glyphs in all fonts that are added to the fonts list see below If you are editing a Multiple Master font the master selection combo box will appear below the range list and you can select the master that will be transformed Note that only transformation actions that have the red MM mark in the right top corner may transform a selected master All other actions always transform all maste
496. on the Font Window command bar top position or choose the Names mode from the Mode popup menu bottom position The Encoding combo box top position or Encoding popup menu bottom position shows the encoding table currently assigned to the font When you open the combo box popup menu you will see many encodings that are installed and available in FontLab Studio In the bottom position of the Font Window command bar the encodings are shown in groups An encoding table performs one of two functions e Type encoding table e glyph arrangement table As a Type 1 encoding table an encoding table is used as the source of the character encoding in Type 1 fonts or in some rare cases TrueType fonts As a glyph arrangement table type designers use an encoding table to visually arrange glyphs in a particular order during the design process of a font Type 1 TrueType or OpenType Such a glyph arrangement table can be used as a visual map for the font family so the designer knows what glyphs need to be designed in all members of the family this way you will not miss an important glyph There is no visual distinction in the Encodings list between Type 1 encoding tables and glyph arrangement tables Any encoding table can theoretically serve either function In order in FontLab Studio the same user interface element the encoding tables serve two different purposes An encoding table is either just a sequential list of glyph name
497. on the mouse cursor on the left or right glyph margin click the right mouse button and select the Properties command Properties or CTRL Click the left mouse button on one of the margins Glyph metrics z r serm oaa Wedl E a m In this panel you can modify a glyph s sidebearings and or width 471 472 Vertical Metrics Every font has several vertical font metrics for alignment of text Ascender Descender The Ascender line defines the position of the top of lowercase characters usually the topmost point of the Latin b The Descender line defines the position of the bottom of the lowercase characters usually the bottom point of p The Caps height defines the height of the uppercase characters without overshoot Usually it is the height of the FR The x Height is the height of most lowercase characters like x or v In FontLab Studio you can modify the vertical metrics values in the Font Info dialog box but you can also preview and change them visually in the Glyph Window Make sure that the Vertical metrics layer is active and not locked In the Editing field vertical metrics appear as gray lines with a label at the right fa Ascender Descender Caps height fa x Height To change a metric just drag its line with the Edit tool or Ctrl click the metric line to open its properties panel and enter a numer
498. onal Vietnamese A codepage selected in the Codepages mode can be used as the source of encoding of a Type 1 font or as the source of encoding of a Mac TrueType mapping table but generally the selection does not influence the encoding of an OpenType or TrueType font A codepage can only reference encoded glyphs i e those with at least one Unicode codepoint assigned Unicode Ranges mode This mode lists Unicode Ranges Since the Unicode Standard is a huge code space it is divided into a number of blocks so called ranges to help users navigate between the codepoints Usually a range is designed to cover a single writing system script such as Cyrillic Armenian or Thai The selection in this mode does not in any way influence the actual encoding of an OpenType or TrueType font A Unicode range can only reference encoded glyphs i e those with at least one Unicode codepoint assigned Index mode This is the simplest glyph identification mode all glyphs are shown in the exact physical sequence as they are stored in the font file Glyph indexes are used to reference glyphs in Python scripting they are used internally in TrueType and OpenType tables to reference glyphs and they are sometimes exposed to the users e g in the glyph palette in Adobe InDesign The Index mode shows all glyphs in the font both encoded and unencoded 135 136 Names Mode To switch the Font window to the Names mode click the Hane button
499. ons changing from Very tight to Very loose When you select one of these easy options in the popup menu FontLab Studio will automatically adjust all the tracing parameters The tighter the option you choose the more accurate the tracing will be In other words the outline will be closer to the original bitmap image This is the first law of autotracing The second law is that the tighter the option you choose the more nodes you will get on the outline More nodes mean more time and larger font files Usually the Normal option will be the best If you find that the Normal autotracing option does not work for you you can try the other tracing options listed in the popup menu Advanced Trace Options You can customize the autotracer parameters with the more detailed options in the advanced options section Trace tolerance Allows you to change the distance between the generated outline and the edge of the original bitmap Curve fit quality Allows you to change the accuracy of curve fitting in the generated outline Straighten angle Defines the angle between two lines less than which the autotracer will replace several lines with one line Tracer may generate This option active by default allows the autotracer to curves generate curves Tracer should This option active by default forces the autotracer to generate extreme insert nodes at the extreme points of curves points on curves The algorithm of smooth tracing used by FontLab Stu
500. ons for the double link command are simple From o To There are controls to select the indexes of the linked points and the list of stem names to which the distance must be aligned Double Link Examples Some examples of double link command usage Horizontal hinting of the Times H character There are two double links and two single links in this example The double links set the width and position of the two vertical stems and the single links align other points that are on the same stem Horizontal hinting of the Times o character Double links are usually used to hint characters in the horizontal directions in cases where stem position is not important As you saw in the Single Links section we used single links to set horizontal instructions in the m character because we wanted to keep the distances between vertical stems the same 719 720 Interpolation Most of the time the align and linking commands are enough to hint most characters but in some cases a very different kind of command is necessary Look at the enlarged middle right region of the character B in the vertical direction j Resulting outline an J Original outline Without interpolation With interpolation You can see that point 11 in the original outline in the vertical direction is set exactly between points 34 and 38 But because these points are connected by a double link and point 11 is not controlled it becomes too
501. ons to browse fonts n or click this button E to select a font from the list w FreeFontPra OFFicinaSansC Book OFFicinaSansC Bold To the right you find four buttons Copy Allows you to copy font header information between fonts Apply Accepts changes but lets you continue so you can see the results of your changes in the Font Glyph or Metrics windows 214 Copying Font Info If you want to copy font info from one font to another you can do it with the Font Info dialog box 1 Open both fonts 2 Activate the font to which you want to copy information 3 Open the Font Info dialog box 4 Click on the Copy button 5 Inthe dialog box select the font from which you want to copy information E Copy Font Info Select the font to copy Font Info data from OfficinaS ansl Bold OfficinaS ansCl B ook Copy only the current page O Copy all Font Info data i Cancel Using the options below the list you can copy only the information from the current page or the whole font info Make a selection and click OK to complete 215 216 Font Names OpenT ppe specific names z Additional OpenType names Copyright information Embedding z Designer information n License information The names section includes the most important font registration information All programs use the information on this page to refer to a font Be sure to enter all the values very carefully and use the automatic fe
502. ont and have a glyph window already open when you double click another glyph in the Font window or use any other method of opening a glyph window except the New Edit window command or a button on the toolbar a new glyph will appear in the original glyph window If you need to open many glyph windows simultaneously just hold down the CTRL key when you double click the new glyph cell or otherwise open a new Glyph window You may have as many open glyph windows as you want just close those you don t need so as not have all your workspace covered with glyph windows Glyph Window Contents All windows in FontLab Studio have a similar layout control panel on the top and main area covering most of the window The glyph window is no exception the top docked control area which of course can be docked to the bottom location also contains zoom selection tools a combo box and a few toolbar buttons qlm a a Actually there are two toolbars here the left one is used only to select the zoom mode of the Glyph window and to choose the Zoom in and Zoom out commands The second toolbar is there to select the properties of the editing tool af A rrr ao rE To get more screen space for the editing field you may hide the zoom toolbar if you click on this button in the top right area of the glyph window am The main area of the window has scroll bars to change the view of the glyph and vertical and horizontal ruler bars 51 52
503. ont Allows you to choose a custom font for use in the Output panel Folders and Paths Please refer to the FontLab User Interface chapter for information about these settings Open and Save If you want to protect yourself from system or program crashes you can use the Autosave function that will periodically save the current font Autosave Fonts every minutes Create backup files Use the check box to activate Autosave and enter the time interval in minutes at which you want to save the font The font will be saved into the Autosave folder within the Application user data folder and will be named using the following structure flsX save vfb where fls are the first 3 letters of Font Name and the X is some unique value If Autosave was active and you have a system or program crash you can open your last saved font from the Autosave directory When you manually save your font and the Create backup files option is enabled FontLab Studio will save the previous version of your font in the same folder as the currently saved vfb file but will use the bak file extension instead If you would like to go back and open the previous backup version of your vfb file use File gt Open navigate to the folder in that you saved your file and type in bak in the File name field then press ENTER You will then see the backup file and will be able to open it 67 68 EPS and Bitmap Background Fit EPS files to Ascender D
504. ont Info Dialog Box The control center where you define font parameters is called the Font Info Dialog box and is accessible from the File menu Font Info Ctrl F or with the button on any Font window The Font Info dialog box consists of three parts Font Info FreeFontPro N ames and Copyright Basic set of font names 4 gt Version and Identification ll Se a oa n Weight Noma 400 Corie a Tel ype speciic settings Style Name puid Spe Nane L Font note gt Build Names Ad Check at MyFonts com e oom At the left there is a page selection control where you can choose one of the sections in order to edit part of the Font Info information BBA ames and Copyright Open ype speciic names Additional OpenT ype names Copyright information Embedding Designer information When you select one of the pages it immediately appears to the right of the list Basic set of font names e Font is bold Width Medium normal z L Font is bo Use the arrow buttons in the top right area of the page to browse all available pages JLH Alternately you may use the CTRL TAB and CTRL SHIFT TAB key combinations to browse pages 213 Command Bar In the bottom area of the dialog box you find the command bar Apply and change font lt gt JEI gt The Left part of the bar allows you to select a font for header information editing without closing the Font Info dialog box Use the arrow butt
505. oom toolbar is not visible We will return to a more detailed description of the glyph window properties in the Glyph Window chapter Finally let s quickly preview the last window in FontLab Studio the Metrics window 53 54 Metrics Window The Metrics window is used to adjust glyph metrics glyph sidebearings and kerning To open the Metrics window select some glyphs in the Font window and click on the New Metrics Window command in the Window menu You will see a new window 0 Preview Metrics Arial ea g Ho Glyphs that are currently selected in the Font window or the glyph that is in the active glyph window will appear in the Metrics window The Metrics window has a main editing field a command area and two local toolbars To choose a string of characters to preview or modify use the string selection control HAMBURGEVONS w To the right of the button there is an options L button Click it to get access to the list of strings where you can customize it One powerful option in this dialog box is support for a second preview string The second string appears below the main preview string and can be used to compare different characters The second string is not directly editable in the Metrics window Metrics Window Toolbars The Metrics window contains two local toolbars and a command area A Metrics window toolbar with controls for importing and exporting metrics files automating
506. oose the options of the printout The Pairs filter selector is similar to the one in the Kerning Table in Metrics Window You can choose to print all pairs or only those where one or both glyphs are either selected or in encoding i e in the yellow zone 3 Choose how to Sort pairs by in the printout by the glyph name of the first or second glyph in the pair or by the kerning value 4 Enable Print glyph shapes to print the actual glyphs If disabled only glyph names and values will be printed 5 Print right to left allows you to print the pairs so that the first glyph in the pair is always on the left of the second glyph 6 If your font uses class kerning Print class information and Print class content allow to include basic or full information about the classes 7 Click OK You will see the standard Windows Print dialog box 289 290 Printout of the kerning table with default printing options FONTLAB KERNING TABLE Adobe Systems Incorporated Font BellMT SemiBoldltalic si als Total pairs to print 411 Page 1 11 AC A c 25 B B Udieresis 25 AG A G 25 C Cc period 13 AO A Oo 12 i D comma 13 AQ A Q 12 D D period 25 AV A V 13 DA D A 75 Quick Test FontLab Studio has a new feature allowing you to test your fonts quickly You can generate and temporarily install your font with one command and then see how it works in real text editing environment To test the open font just select the OpenType TT or Open
507. option to control how FontLab Studio does the replacement Use the Unicode edit field to change a glyph s Unicode codepoints You may enter more than one Unicode codepoint separated by a space Use the Auto button to find the Unicode codepoints mapped to a glyph s name in FontLab Studio s database Rename glyph in all classes this option will automatically change the glyph name in all classes that contain the glyph being renamed Rename glyph in OpenType code this option will automatically change the glyph name in all OpenType features that contain the glyph being renamed Press the OK button to assign a new name to the glyph You will see that the glyph moves to a new place in the Font window depending on the currently selected encoding vector Unicode range or codepage If you want to rename more glyphs press the Rename Next Glyph button A new name will be assigned to the current glyph as if you had pressed the OK button and data from the next glyph will appear for editing To just change the existing glyph name suffix choose More gt Add Suffix to Name from the Font Window context menu choose a new suffix and enable Replace existing new suffix To rename glyph names in an OpenType Layout feature definition code click on the Rename glyph in OT code button on the OpenType panel 183 Reencoding the Font In FontLab Studio you can assign names from the encoding vector to glyphs that are sorted in the Font Window a
508. ords Export only OpenType When this option is selected only additional name name records ignore records are exported all other names from other default names pages in the Names section are ignored Final note please use this page carefully FontLab Studio doesn t verify information that you put into additional name records Be sure that you read and understand the name table specification 231 232 Copyright Information Font copyright information e Created by FontLab Ltd Inc Creation year 2003 Copyright Copyright c Fontlab Ltd Inc 2003 All nights reserved Trademark FreeFontPro is a trademark of FontLab Ltd Ince gt Build Copyright and Trademark records Notice Description On the copyright page you can enter information about the creators of the font If you have created a new font you should enter your copyright notice here If you have edited an existing font that was not your creation you must not remove the information contained on this page or you may violate copyright laws Created by Name of the company or person that created the font If you are creating a new font enter your name or the name of your company here Creation year Year when the font was created This is used by FontLab Studio to automatically fill in the Copyright field and is exported in TrueType fonts as the Creation year entry Copyright name 0 Copyright message Must include the sign or the word
509. ortant to understand that there is not necessarily a one to one relationship between character and glyph it is possible to have a single glyph used as the image for more than one character Latin A and Cyrillic A for instance are different characters but use the same glyph and sometimes you may have more than one glyph serving a single character 817 818 Please remember this key OpenType principle OpenType layout engine doesn t know anything about characters All the features that OpenType can have are defined for glyphs This is the process of OpenType text processing 0 As a source we have a sequence of characters 1 Character codes are mapped to default glyphs using the Unicode mapping table In FontLab Studio this is what you see in the Font window when you select one of the codepages Here we have a sequence of characters replaced by a sequence of glyphs No character information is available beyond this point 2 The source sequence of glyphs is passed to the OpenType processing module which then applies the font features in a pre defined sequence The list of the features to apply is determined by the application for example in Adobe InDesign you can explicitly select features to apply or operating system e g the rendering of Arabic text with an OpenType font 3 The resulting sequence of glyphs is passed to the second stage of feature processing which can shift the positions of glyphs Kerning is applied
510. osition the cursor on the object press the left mouse button and move the mouse to move the object Release the mouse button when you re done Context Menu Most windows and panels in FontLab Studio have attached context menus To open the context menu right click an empty area in the window or panel 31 32 Getting Started When you run FontLab Studio 5 for the first time to run FontLab Studio double click on its icon SI you will see a welcome screen for a few seconds and then the FontLab Studio window gt FontLab Studio Eile Edit Yiew Contour Glyph Tools Window Help Osa seOBloo S Fe BR BAAas eae rasel t rr OO sav7e e FontLab Studio 5 Python is installed ek Center Center of selection Jf 22 apply Like almost all Windows programs FontLab Studio has a menu a few toolbars and a status bar at the bottom There is nothing special about the FontLab Studio menu except that you can position it any place on the screen The usual location is at the top of the screen but if you want to put it somewhere else just drag it there Menu Bar File Edit wiew Contour Glyph Tools Window Help The same thing can be done with any toolbar you can leave them at the top or drag them anywhere You can easily choose which toolbars you want to see use the Toolbars command in the View menu or simply click the right mouse button on a menu toolbar or toolbar docking panel and you ll
511. ot suppression is applied If it is equal to or exceeds BlueScale overshoot suppression works only if the distance from the aligned point to the base line of the alignment zone is less than the BlueShift value and the scaled distance is less than half of a pixel 667 668 The BlueScale value is stored in Type fonts in a very strange format but in the Alignment page you can set it using one of three different ways directly in the form that the Type 1 specification describes i e it looks like a floating point number as a PPM size or as a point size on a device with 300 DPI resolution Use the BlueScale combo box to select the BlueScale editing method and edit it in the is equal to edit field BlueScale Formulas The actual value of the BlueScale value is calculated as PPM 1 63333 800 0 The BlueShift is also used to control Flex hints Shallow curves that are compatible with other flex requirements see below will be hinted by Flex hints only if height of the Flex composition is less than BlueShift BlueScale The BlueFuzz value allows you to expand the action range of the alignment zones in both directions Thus if you have defined a zone like 700 715 and BlueFuzz is equal to 2 then the actual zone used will be 698 717 This is usually used when you are not sure that you correctly set all the alignment zones or when the characters are not all precisely aligned The normal value of this parameter is 0 but by de
512. ou can see in the preview that the glyphs from Wt1 are thin while the glyphs from Wto are thick This means the direction of the weight axis is not correct Just drag the Wt1 Wd0O master and drop it above the Wt0 Wd0 master The order of the masters will change Then drag and drop the Wt1 Wd1 font above the Wt0 Wd1 font Click OK to apply changes and the masters in the font will be rearranged according to the selected order The weight axis will get its normal direction Multiple Master Metrics You can set metrics for Multiple Master fonts as easily as you can for a single master font Of course you can use the Edit tool to adjust sidebearings but it is much easier to do it with the Metrics window When a MM font is opened in the Metrics window its four modes text preview metrics and kerning work slightly differently The text and preview modes show the intermediate font in the sample window Use the Axis panel to select the design coordinates of this intermediate font In metrics and kerning modes only a master can be previewed in the Metrics window You can use the Masters panel to select the master to preview and edit So to edit metrics and kerning information select the master that you want and edit it as a single master font FontLab Studio will automatically track all changes and complete the Multiple Master data for the font Another difference is the save format for the metrics file If a MM font is open then a bin
513. ou select one of the values FontLab Studio will select the a similar value in the other combo box For example if you select Helvetica in the PCL ID combo box Swiss will be selected in the VP ID combo box If you want you may enter PCLID and VP ID indexes manually using the edit fields at the left of the combo boxes Please refer to the technical specifications for detailed descriptions of these identification systems Microsoft Identification This is the simplest identification system Just select one of the common font categories Roman Swiss Modern Script and Decorative and you are done This is the only identification system that is implemented in the PFM files that are used by Windows to work with Type 1 fonts so we strongly recommend selecting the proper value in this list box Note If you are building a Type 1 font for Windows take this field very seriously Do not leave Decorative in this option if the font is not decorative this will affect the font spacing 243 244 Metrics and Dimensions Metrics and Dimensions gt kep dimensions TrueT ype specitic metrics Subscript and Superscript This page is used to set font dimensions that are used mostly to properly align text lines Font UPM Value Font UPM value gt Font s UPM size 1000 w Scale all glyphs according to UPM size change The most important field on this page is the Font UPM Let s explain what UPM is and why it
514. ounded by brackets zero one two three four five six seven eight nine To enter a class name defined in the Classes panel drag the class name from the list of classes If you drop the class name it will be inserted into the feature definition text preceded by the smcp2 To insert the actual contents of the class rather than its name hold the CTRL key when you release the mouse button perthousand perthousand percent threeeighths threequarters threeeighths fiveeighths fiveeighths seveneighths seveneighths 845 846 Renaming Glyphs and Classes When a glyph name is entered into feature definition text the link with this glyph in the font is lost so if you rename the glyph using the FontLab Studio glyph rename command the feature definition will not be updated To rename a glyph in the feature definitions position the cursor on the glyph name in the feature editing field and click the amp button on the toolbar You will see a dialog box Replace Name Source string Idoaccent Replacement string _ Replace name in Classes panel _ Rename glyph in the Font ox cere In the top field you can enter the name of the glyph you want to rename and in the bottom field you enter new name for the glyph Check the Replace name in the Classes panel checkbox to rename the glyph in the FontLab Studio Classes panel Check the Rename glyph in the font checkbox to rename the glyph in the font Af
515. ours It is especially useful when your sketch contains multiple overlapping outlines 1 Activate the Magic Wand tool A 2 Click anywhere near the contour you want to select The closest contour to the point where you clicked will be selected 3 Hold down the Suirr key to reverse the selection state of the contour Moving the Selection When multiple points are selected you can move the entire selection with the Edit tool just click on any selected point or selected part of the outline and drag the mouse Hold down the Suirtr key to constrain movement to the vertical or horizontal direction only Transforming the Selection You may rotate scale and slant a selection with the Rotate Scale 21 and Slant EF tools on the Tools toolbar 1 Select the part of outline you want to transform or remove all selections to transform the whole outline 2 Choose the tool to perform the transformation 3 Click the left mouse button on the center of transformation and drag the mouse to rotate scale or slant Hold down the Suirt key to constrain the transformation Note that the Free Transform operation and the Transformation panel don t work with sketch outlines Selection Operations You may copy paste delete and duplicate a selected part of the sketch outline Use the following commands from the Edit menu Copy Copy the selection to the Clipboard Paste Add the clipboard contents to the current sketch Delete Remove
516. out the font such as the family name the style name the copyright string the ascender and descender values and others For more discussion about the font header information see the Font Header chapter Simply speaking text in digital form is a collection of character codes or codepoints integer numbers When you enter text into a computer the computer turns the keystrokes that you press on the keyboard into integer number and assigns a number character code to each character that you enter When the computer needs to show some text on screen or print it it accesses a font and turns the character codes into visual shapes A character encoding standard is simply speaking a table that defines the relation between characters and the codes that are used to represent these characters in the computer Character Encodings Standards There are many other character encoding standards sometimes called codepages used in the world to help use different languages in fact the huge amount makes the use of the word standard questionable The main difference between the encoding standards is the size of the code There are one byte double byte and multi byte mapping standards With a one byte mapping standard each character in the text is encoded using exactly one byte 8 bits of information This means that only 256 different characters can be encoded in a particular one byte encoding standard A double byte mapping
517. out your having to do a tough lengthy analysis On the other hand some errors are in fact warnings and do not necessarily impair the glyph s outline quality 355 356 Moving Nodes The most important editing operation is the modification of the contours that build each glyph You can modify contours in three ways moving nodes editing segments using non node editing and selecting several nodes and moving them together To move individual nodes 1 If nodes are hidden make the node that you want to edit visible switch nodes on with the View gt Show Layers gt Nodes command or click near the node to make it visible If you missed and an incorrect node is highlighted use the PAGE Down and Pace UP keys to move to the correct node 446 211 Drag the node to the new place It will stick to the objects in other layers if they are visible and snap to those layers was activated View gt Snap to Layers menu Hold down the Suirr key to constrain the direction of the node s movement in 45 degree increments and to snap the cursor to the original node s position Options If you are moving a node that is connecting two Bezier PostScript curves you have the following options 1 If the connection of the curves is smooth press the SHirt key before clicking the node to constrain movement to a line between the curves control points a Ve If the connection is sharp press the ALT key at any time while draggin
518. outline quality in Bezier drawing less outline points On the other hand OpenType TT fonts may theoretically be delta hinted and therefore have excellent screen quality Please note that the differences are minor and the most important thing to choose is the source format in which you have your fonts If you have TrueType fonts that you want to convert to OpenType format by adding features then OpenType TT is your choice If you have Type 1 fonts it will be easier to convert them to OpenType PS OpenType Tables OpenType fonts consist of multiple tables Every table is identified by a tag which is a combination of up to 4 characters 3 tables are responsible for the OpenType features GDEF Glyph definition table Contains information about font glyphs including their type simple mark or ligature cursive attachment points and position of the caret inside the ligature character GPOS Glyph positioning features Other tables may exist in OpenType fonts for example the BASE table that defines different baseline positions for non Latin scripts but FontLab Studio cannot work with these tables yet Please note that the presence of any one of these tables makes a TrueType font an OpenType font 822 Feature Definition Language Information about OpenType features is stored in a binary form inside the font file This is not easy to modify and not easy to handle with visual tools like the tools that FontLab Studio provides
519. ove that are connected by a double link so we recommend that you use this command only for stems for which the position is not very important or for stems that will be used as the basis for hinting The double link command does not have base points but it sets the position of points To set a double link 1 Select the double link tool 4 2 Position the cursor over one of the points you want to link Press the left mouse button 3 Drag the cursor to the point you want to link to the first point A circle will highlight any point over which you move the cursor Release the mouse button when the desired point is highlighted Hold the Suirr key down if you do not want to connect the double link to a standard stem width If you hold down the Suirtr key the stem settings in the Options panel will not work In the Glyph Window the Double link command appears as a line with two arrows and a mark in the middle The mark is blue if the link is connected to the stem and gray if it is not connected If the link is connected the stem width will appear near the mark First linked point d E T N Second linked point r A Stem name In the Program panel a double link command appears as DoubleLinkV 12 lt gt 36 0 where 12 and 36 are points that are linked and 0 is the number of the stem to which this link is connected or ns if it is not connected to the stem How the Double Link Command Works 1 The origina
520. ow where the guidelines cross the rulers There are local and global guidelines Local guidelines appear only in the glyph where they were set Global guidelines appear in all glyphs of the font Global guidelines are very useful to mark important levels in the font by using horizontal global guidelines or to set the base direction of an italic or oblique font using slanted guidelines 429 430 Editing Guidelines Be sure that the Edit tool is active and the guidelines layer is visible use the View gt Show Layers gt Guidelines command to switch it on Note that the Guidelines layer will automatically switch on if you add a new guideline To add a new local guideline 1 Position the mouse cursor on the horizontal ruler bar for a horizontal guideline or on the vertical bar for a vertical guideline 2 Press the left mouse button The bar will appear pressed and the new guideline will appear 3 Holding the left mouse button down drag the guideline to the desired place and release the button To add a new global guideline 1 Create a local guideline as described above 2 Position the cursor on the guideline and click the right mouse button 3 Inthe menu select the Convert to Global command To move the guideline 1 Move the mouse cursor onto the guideline that you want to move Be sure that no other objects such as nodes or hints are near the cursor 2 Press the left mouse button and drag the
521. p of the dialog box you will find two editing fields where you can enter the list of PPMs to preview in the horizontal waterfall line top control and in which to preview the sample string in the expanded mode bottom line Enter the PPMs separated by commas or define ranges of PPMs using the 12 13 15 16 24 Click on the Reset button to the right of the editing fields to reset the list of PPMs to the default values 683 684 Below the PPM selection controls there are two check boxes Use font smoothing if allowed by the system Uncheck this control to force the system rasterizer to preview your font in black white mode without any smoothing Lock preview text box When this option is switched on FontLab Studio will not allow you to change the contents of the sample string edit box You can however select pre defined strings in the list Below the options there is a list of pre defined sample stings You can freely edit it as text or click the Open button to open a text file that will be used as a source of sample strings The last option in the dialog box is the Font to use in the preview combo box Enter the font name or click on the Select button to choose one of the fonts The font will be used in the sample selection control this is very useful when you are working with non Latin fonts Some Examples Here we want to show you some typical hinting situations and recommended hinting sequences for them
522. pe OpenType TT ttf format Export hinted TrueType Fonts Write stored TrueType native hinting Export visual TrueType hints Gubohink unhinted glyphs Export embedded bitmaps _ Copy HOM data From base to composite glyph Export mort table if possible O5 2 table version 3 05 2 table version 2 Use CacheTT program to generate device metrics tables in TT fonts Location of the CacheTT exe PO Export hinted FontLab will export TrueType instructions of any type TrueType fonts original manually edited or automatically generated only if this option is on To create a completely unhinted TrueType font switch off this option may be useful for pixel fonts Write stored If this option is on and the original TrueType instructions TrueType native were stored when the font was opened then FontLab will try hinting to restore the original instructions where possible If you want to discard all the original TrueType instructions switch this option off Export visual FontLab Studio will compile the visual TrueType instructions TrueType hints only if this option is on Autohint unhinted If this option is on FontLab will try to automatically generate glyphs TrueType instructions for all unhinted glyphs How FontLab Autohints TrueType Fonts on Export When autohinting is allowed and FontLab finds a glyph that has no TrueType hints of any kind original hints imported from the TrueType font file or manually edited visual hi
523. pe TT ttF C Export only encoded glyphs eB Generating Type 1 Font Window must be in Names mode Type 1 autohinting Generating OpenType amp TrueTyp Automatically sort glyphs Digital signature TrueType OpenType TT ttf TrueType Autohinting Cluse Windscent and WinDescent as font vertical size OpenType TT Encoding Autohint unhinted glyphs OpenType P5 otf _ Export FSType font embedding parameter Kerning Trace Options Encoding options CO Open Type 1 Export Terminal 4 B If you plan to create a Type 1 and an OpenType TT font from the same source you may enable Use WinAscent and WinDescent as font vertical size 307 OpenType PS Options Tracking Shape groups and neighbors Metrics window C Automatically reorder glyphs FontAudit Opening Type 1 Opening OpenType amp TrueType Ignore Unicode indexes in the font TrueType OpenType TT ttf Use the OpenType names as menu names on Macintosh Generating Type 1 Type 1 autohinting Append OpenType name records to the names exported by default v Write stored custom TrueType OpenType tables Digtal signature Export OpenType Layout tables TrueType OpenType TT ttf Compile feature definitions TrueType Autohinting C Contextual substitutions in invalid legacy Format OpenType TT Encoding Use this option only if you know what you are doing OpenType PS otf Kerning Generate GDEF table Trace
524. ped Inflated cberatadc 27 Options This is an example of different brush strokes 389 390 VectorPaint Options You can also change the brush properties in the Paint Options dialog box To open the Paint Options dialog box choose the Options command in the Brush options menu or Brush style menu 4 You will see following dialog box Paint Options Brush options Width 40 Angle 50 Roundness 30 cap O amp nn amp O04 OBR Body S wl Polygon tool options Normal contour polygon Brush trace Other options Automatically activate Transform operation after any paint action C Reverse auto color In the Paint Options dialog box you can enter the width of the brush and change the slant angle of a calligraphic brush Additionally you can select how the brush strokes are started and finished Choose the brush s starting and finishing shape by activating one of the radio buttons You can also select the style of the connection between two sequential segments of brush strokes It can be sharp smooth or flat Select one in the dialog box Icons near the radio buttons give an explanation of the styles of connections Last field in the Brush options area lets you to select the shape of the brush stroke Other options relate to the Polygon tool described later and the options for automatic activation of the Free Transform operation and reversing of the auto co
525. ped by Hewlett Packard and is used in their printers This table is recommended for TrueType fonts but only if you understand all the options and parameters The first page includes only one option Export the PCLT table which controls table export Note that you can define table parameters but not export the table all values will be saved to your FontLab Studio font file VFB Extra information on many of PCLT fields can be found in the HP PCL 5 Printer Language Technical Reference Manual available from Hewlett Packard Boise Printer Division Our description of various PCLT fields is partially copied from the PCLT table specification available online at http www microsoft com typography otspec pclt htm 271 272 PCLT Identification PCLT identification 4 gt Native format O Converted format Vendor code M Unique code 180002 Copy T1 UID Typeface family code 418 TypeF amily vendor code Monotype Typography Lie Native Converted Only original font vendors can select Native format If you are format modifying an imported font select Converted format Vendor code Single character code of the font vendor assigned by Hewlett Packard Boise Printer Division to major font vendors Below is a list of registered font vendors A Adobe Systems B Bitstream Inc C Agfa Corporation H Bigelow amp Holmes L Linotype Company M Monotype Typography Ltd Unique code Font s unique cod
526. pfb Ed Fts95__c pfb E fty45_c pfb E Ftx45__c pfb ed Ftx55__c pFb E Ftx56__c pfb Ei Ftx85__c pfb 3 Ftx86__c pfb Ed Ftx87__c pb E ftx95_c pfb E Ftx97__c pfb E FxsO1z_c pfb Cancel If you want to quickly open a font from the list of the most recently opened fonts select that font in the File name combo box If you want to list only fonts in a particular format select that format in the Files of type combo box FontLab vfb FontLab 2 5 vfa Type 1 ptb pal TrueType Opent ype TT tt OpenType PS otf Ikarus Files ik Fontlab Studia Project flv When you select a font file in the files area you will see the font name and preview below Switch off the Show Font Preview option to not see the font preview 115 116 You can open many fonts with a single operation just select all of them in the list with a selection rectangle or using Crri click You can set the opening options here by clicking on the Options button Please refer to the FontLab Studio Options section for a detailed discussion of the opening options You cannot use File gt Open to open fonts located in the system font folder typically C Windows Fonts To open any of these fonts use File gt Open Installed This will show a dialog box that displays all fonts installed on your system choose one and click on OK to open the font Open Installed Font Select the Font Font Name File Name T Ambiance BT tt2094m_
527. ph M Generated metrics should depend on glyph shape This action analyses the glyph s outline and automatically calculates its sidebearings It uses the same algorithm that is used to automatically calculate metrics in the Metrics window Refer to the Automatic Metrics Generation section in the Editing Metrics chapter for more information about the autospacing algorithm and options Adjust Metrics Left sidebearing Adjust by o Units we Right sidebearing ShIFE the Mask layer Use the measurement line l AFferk comnnsites This action lets you to change metrics or kerning by some given value or percentage of the original value In the options area select the metrics that you want to change C Left sidebearing Right sidebearing We Width Enter the amount by which you want to adjust the values and select the units which can be font units or a percentage of the source value Enter a positive number to increase metrics distances or kerning or a negative value to decrease them Normally metrics are measured from the bounding box You can change this however if you want to measure from a measurement line by using the check box A measurement line is horizontal line defined in the Glyph Window that defines a slice which is used to measure the distance from outline to sidebearings Please refer to page 469 in the Glyph Window chapter Effects Increase your
528. ph Window page Edit Delete command breaks contour 363 364 Eraser Tool The eraser tool can be used to quickly remove nodes Sometimes this is necessary for example with contours from an auto tracing program The eraser tool can work in two modes like a standard eraser or as a rectangle eraser In the first mode all nodes that are inside the eraser mouse cursor are deleted In the second mode you define a rectangle by clicking and dragging as when you select nodes with the Edit tool or change the zoom of a Glyph Window and all the nodes inside the rectangle are removed stecccesccccsccscsscscceccscsscssescscescssosscssescescesoscscescssoees The first eraser like mode is the default for the Erase tool To switch to the rectangle mode hold down the CTRL key Inserting Nodes To insert a new node on a segment with the Edit tool 1 Activate the Edit tool 2 Position the mouse cursor on the segment where you want to insert the node 3 Press and hold the right mouse button You will see a mark that shows you the current position of the mouse cursor This mark will stick to all objects in the editing field including nodes and glyph contours 4 Position the mark on the point where you want to insert the node and click the left mouse button The new node will appear in that place Using the Knife tool to insert nodes 1 Activate the Knife tool s 2 Click on the point on the contour where you want to inse
529. ph glyphclass gt lt valuerecord format A gt This format is provided since it closely parallels the way kerning is expressed in a plain pair kerning table Here the lt valuerecord gt must be of value record format A only and corresponds to the first lt glyph glyphclass gt Kerning can most easily be expressed with this format This will result in adjusting the first glyph s X advance except when in the vrkn feature in which case it will adjust the first glyph s Y advance Some examples pos T a 100 specific pair no glyph class present pos T a 100 class pair singleton glyph class present pos T a 100 class pair glyph class present even if singleton pos T ao u 80 class pair Note that if at least one glyph class is present even if it is a singleton glyph class then the rule is interpreted as a class pair otherwise the rule is interpreted as a specific pair In the kern feature the specific glyph pairs will typically precede the glyph class pairs in the feature file mirroring the way that they will be stored in the font feature kern specific pairs for all scripts class pairs for all scripts kern Enumerating Pairs If some specific pairs are more conveniently represented as a class pair but the editor does not want the pairs to be in a class kerning subtable then the class pair must be preceded by the keyword enumerate which can be abbreviated as enum The implementation
530. ph names without exclamation marks are considered Note 4 The default mapping file can be changed using Options gt General Options gt Unicode and OpenType gt Default Unicode Name mapping table Generate basic When enabled and the user opens a Type font that is OpenType encoded using the Adobe StandardEncoding FontLab Studio features will generate a basic set of pre defined OpenType Layout features This can be useful for quick conversions of Type 1 fonts into OpenType or as a starting point for writing your own OpenType Layout feature definitions Find matching When enabled FontLab Studio will try to match one of the encoding table if encodings available from the combo box in the Names mode possible to the encoding that the font uses If FontLab Studio cannot match the encoding the opened Type font will show the encoding Imported 91 Opening OpenType amp TrueType These settings control what happens when you open a TrueType OpenType TT ttf or an OpenType PS otf font in FontLab Studio Scale the Font to 1000 UPM F Decompose composites Store custom TrueType OpenType tables Read only non English name records Ww Read OpenType layout tables GPOS GSUB GDEF Store binary OpenType layout tables Interpret OpenType layout tables Import kerning From the kern Feature Generate missing glyph names using layout tables Interpret GAAT mort amp mors tables Scale the font to Typically Tru
531. pid change in the appearance of the typeface at smaller optical sizes than at larger The value of the leftmost and rightmost design coordinates of the axis graph 6 and 72 in our example are always mapped to 0 and 1 blend coordinates and are used by the font interpreter to get information about the dynamic range of the axis So an axis graph is always present for each axis but in most cases it is just a single straight line We again recommend you read the Designing Multiple Master Typefaces book to get more information about the axis map Multiple Master Fonts in Studio As we said before in FontLab Studio you can make Multiple Master fonts that will be completely compatible with the Multiple Master specification You can edit every aspect of the MM fonts from master outlines to metrics to kerning and font header data You can make up to four axes which means that the font will need 16 masters And at any time you can view an intermediate font made from the designed MM font in its current state In the following sections we will discuss MM specific FontLab Studio features We presume that you have read the previous chapters of this book and know all the single master features of FontLab Studio 779 780 Creation of MM Fonts in FontLab Studio In FontLab Studio you can do the following MM specific things 1 Open any existing MM font for editing 2 Convert a single master font to a MM font 3 Define additional axis in a
532. point of a character s outline How FontLab Studio Implements Commands that Move Sidebearing Points The TrueType font format has a special table that can contain the widths of characters that are rendered at specific PPM sizes This helps the rasterizer to preview lines of text on screen very quickly FontLab Studio builds this table when it exports a font in TrueType format To do this it interprets instructions that are applied to the sidebearing points at every PMM size from 9 to 24 Hinting Composite Glyphs FontLab Studio allows you to set TrueType hints for the composite glyphs There is not much visible difference between hinting plain and composite glyphs Glyph window and tools look as if you are hinting decomposed glyph The principle difference is that components of a composite glyph appear already hinted It means that if you have hinted glyph E and hinted glyph caron and if you want to check hinting in glyph Ecaron you will see that both components look exactly as they look in respective glyphs and the only thing you need to do is to hint their relative position Usually all you need to do to hint a composite glyph is to put a few middle delta instructions on the contours of accent components so they will get a correct and symmetric position in the composite glyph You can however completely override hinting of components and provide new hinting program for a composite glyph In this case you may take a c
533. port all the features of OpenType including those that FontLab Studio cannot handle VOLT is based on a completely different user interface and provides visual tools to define substitution and positioning lookups You can get more information about VOLT at this location http www microsoft com typography developers volt default htm VOLT stores OpenType features and lookups information in a text based format which during work on a font is saved in special tables in a TrueType font When work on the font is done these tables are compiled to GPOS GDEF and GSUB tables and intermediate tables are stripped from the font file If this option in the Tools gt Options gt Opening OpenType amp TrueType Store custom TrueType OpenType tables is switched on you can open the saved font in VOLT and it will contain the special tables that VOLT uses to store intermediate data and on export these tables will be restored unchanged This means that even if you start work on a font in VOLT but then realize that some glyphs must be modified you can save the font in VOLT open it in FontLab Studio modify the glyphs and return to VOLT to continue your work on OpenType features Another FontLab Studio feature is its ability to save simple lookups and some glyph information in VOLT format so you can start working on a font in FontLab Studio then continue in VOLT FontLab Studio can export OpenType Layout feature definitions to VOLT in two ways 1
534. pply selected action to the 1203 glyphs This operation is Do you want to continue and transform glyphs Click Yes and FontLab Studio will apply the command to all selected glyphs You can find descriptions of all modification commands in the chapter Glyph Window Please also refer to the Actions chapter for related information Blending Fonts With FontLab Studio you can automatically blend two fonts and generate an intermediate version of them ABCabc123 First font ABCabci23 Second Font ABCabcl123 Resulting font 50 blend The font blending process is completely automatic it analyses the shapes of glyphs and tries to find the best way to morph one to another Best example of blend feature is to make a font that has weight intermediate to two existing weights 207 208 You must have at least two fonts open to use the Blend fonts operation To activate the Blend feature select the Blend fonts command from the Tools menu A dialog box appears Blend Fonts benee OfficinaS ansC Book ABCabc123 select the second font OlficinaS ansC Bold ABCabc123 Blend fonts Build the Multiple Master font Destination font FreeFontPra l e All existing source glyphs Blend amount 50 O Selected destination glyphs Uniform Do not interpolate compatible outlines Cx The dialog box is divided
535. provides layout features GX is the older name AAT is the current name In principle the technology is similar to OpenType Layout but it uses a different implementation and different tables You can find comparisons between AAT and OpenType Layout at http developer apple com fonts WhitePapers GXvsOTLayout html http fontforge sourceforge net gposgsub html An OpenType font TT or PS can include layout features in AAT format and in OpenType Layout format although it is more common that one font only contains one format of layout features Mac OS X includes several AAT fonts e g Skia Hoefler Text Zapfino or Apple Chancery With this option enabled FontLab Studio will attempt to convert the AAT features included in the font into the OpenType feature definition language Apple provides free command line tools for Mac OS X that you can use to add AAT features to your font http developer apple com fonts OSXTools html After you have added your AAT features open the font in FontLab Studio with this option enabled make sure to also enable Store custom TrueType OpenType tables and you will receive an approximation of your AAT features in the OpenType feature definition language Now edit and compile the feature definitions and generate the font you will receive a hybrid OpenType AAT font with both AAT and OpenType Layout features included You can also generate two fonts one with OpenType layout features
536. pter provides a detailed description of how to print from the Font Glyph and Metrics windows Other font proofing methods are also described in this chapter Generating Fonts This chapter explains how to export fonts in different formats what export options must be set The Glyph Window FontLab Studio includes powerful outline editing tools that are described in this chapter 21 22 Editing Metrics If you want to create a professional looking font you have to edit the font s metric data The glyphs widths sidebearings and kerning can be edited in FontLab Studio automatically or manually This chapter shows you how Actions From scale to drop shadow from autohinting to autospacing more than 25 transformation filters can help you instantly expand your font collection This chapter gives detailed descriptions of all the actions and their usage in FontLab Studio Hinting To make your Type 1 or TrueType fonts look great everywhere you have to set hints FontLab Studio includes hinting tools that were previously available only in high end proprietary font editing systems Hinting can be a complicated process so read this chapter carefully to get the best results Multiple Master Fonts Opening editing and exporting Multiple Master fonts adding and removing design axes editing the Design Map Graph everything you ever wanted to know about multiple master fonts is in this chapter OpenType Fonts This chap
537. ptimize Outline simplification level Process normally ka 4Guto alignment level Process normally Ww With the Optimize action FontLab Studio tries to automatically adjust the outline to remove unnecessary elements and correct others With the action options you can control the optimization process Outline Controls the curve removal feature from do not simplify Simplification outline to extreme The bigger value you choose the more level curves FontLab Studio will try to remove smooth Auto alignment Controls the auto alignment feature in a range from do not level align to extreme Auto alignment automatically corrects relative position of lines and curves for example if two adjacent curves are almost smoothly connected but not precisely auto alignment will correct that 626 Blend Blend amount This transformation blends the mask and outline layers and replaces the outline layer with the result A single parameter lets you choose the position of the intermediate design between the mask and outline layers Outline and mask layers On the example above outline layer is black weight and mask layer is regular Below are samples of the Blend transformation with different values of the parameter 10 50 80 627 Hints and Guidelines Transformation Hints transformation actions let you automate some hinting actions Remove Hints Guides Lets you remove hints and links or guidelines Con
538. ptions gt General Options gt Folders and paths FontLab Studio 5 Files C Documents and Settings Alex My Documents FontLaby Studios Restart program to apply changes to location of the FontLab Files Please refer to the Macro Programming chapter for information about placing macros and modules in the appropriate folders When we refer to one of the folders we will use the following syntax main folder subfolder name Where main folder can be one of the following Shared default data folder Shared user data folder Application default data folder Application user data folder and subfolder name is the name of the particular subfolder within that folder For reasons of brevity we will sometimes write Shared which will mean either Shared default data folder or Shared user data folder Application which will mean either Application default data folder or Application user data folder This means that a particular file can be stored in either of the two locations default or user Remember that user locations always override default locations Mouse Click the mouse on some Position the mouse cursor on the object and click the object left mouse button Right click some object Position the cursor on the object and click the right mouse button Ctrl click something Position the cursor over something hold down the CTRL key on the keyboard and click the left mouse button Drag some object P
539. ptions for them To merge two ranges select a range and press the Merge button The selected range will be merged with the range that is above it To reset the font smoothing settings press the Auto button and they will be calculated as advised by the TrueType specification You can see the results of these settings in the TrueType hinting Preview window when the TrueType hinting tool is active Refer to the Hinting chapter for more information 269 270 head Table Settings head table settings e LowestAecPFeM aso fontDirectionH int These entries are specific for TrueType rendering We do not recommend you modify them if you are not sure of what you are doing LowestRecPPem This parameter controls the lowest PPM at which the TrueType rasterizer is allowed to apply instructions FontDirectionHint This head table parameter defines font direction which may have the following values 0 Fully mixed directional glyphs 1 Only strongly left to right 2 Like 1 but also contains neutrals 1 Only strongly right to left 2 Like 1 but also contains neutrals A neutral character has no inherent directionality Spaces and punctuation are examples of neutral characters Basic PCLT options Basic PCLT options EDIT Export the PCLT table The PCLT table is used when a TrueType font is printing on a PCL printer PCL Printer Control Language is a page definition and printer control language develo
540. r Select a master which you wank to replace by different Font Do not insert points Do not interpolate compatible outlines Choose Font that you want to put into the master of the current Font ArialMT Corpid Bold Corpid Light CorpidMmM Timez emR nman P SMT You have selected Font ArialMT ABCabc123 There is a list of masters in the popup menu in the top of the dialog box Select one of the masters to be assigned here There is a list of all open fonts below the masters popup menu Select the font whose glyphs you want to put into the selected master of the current font If you select a Multiple Master font scroll bars and edit controls will appear allowing you to select an intermediate design of the font 793 794 If you switch on the Do not insert points option then FontLab Studio will copy outlines as they were in the source font regardless their compatibility with the outlines in the destination font Use this option only if you are sure the outlines in the source and destination fonts are completely compatible To prevent FontLab Studio from adding nodes to compatible contours leave the Do not interpolate compatible outlines option switched on Mask to Master Action The Mask to Master operation from the Tools gt Multiple Master menu just replaces the outlines of the current master with the contents of its mask layer Each master can have its own mask on the Mask layer Suppose
541. r program and this Type 1 font is an intermediate instance of the MM font with the default weight vector 775 776 Extrapolation The Multiple Master font specification allows only interpolation of the master designs to define an intermediate font In addition to that basic feature however the Multiple Master font structure allows linear extrapolation of the designs also This feature allows us to artificially extend the design range of the MM font which sometimes produces interesting results AS AGREES RUNAS AS AGREES R Standard dynamic range for the Width axis AS AGREES RUNAS AS AGREES Extrapolated range for the Width axis AS AGREES I Extrapolated Weight In real life this feature lets you extend font families with very little effort for instance build an MM font using the normal and bold styles and then add light and extra bold using the extrapolation feature Anisotropic Interpolation Standard MM fonts have the same interpolation values for both the X and Y directions In FontLab Studio it is possible to define a different interpolation weight for directions With this you can make interesting form variations AS AGREES R Standard proportional interpolation AS AGREES R Anisotropic interpolation As with the extrapolation this feature is not a part of the MM specification and anisotropic interpolation or extrapolation will work only inside FontLab Studio You can use it to generate single ma
542. r bottom grid line lt x lt x viv 2 Aligns to the right or top grid line A A a x gt lt gt K py 3 Aligns to the closest center of pixel xP Y4 Per K pay Aligns to closest edge of pixel or center of pixel x gt e v To set an alignment command on the outline 1 Press the align button on the toolbar 2 Position the mouse cursor on the point that you want to align 3 Click the left mouse button Hold the Suirr key if you are setting vertical commands and the point is inside an alignment zone In the Program panel the Align command appears as AlignV 12 1 AlignH 22 0 where 12 and 22 are point indices and 1 and 0 are the codes of the alignment rounding method as shown in the table above 707 708 Align commands are the very first commands in any hinting program They do not have base points and affect only one point Customizing the Align Instructions You can customize Align instructions with the context menu Right click the point to which the align command is to be applied and you will see the menu Cancel Delete Command Attach to Zone Alignment Type F ia Closest Pixel Edge Left Botkom Edge Right Top Edge Center of Pixel Double Grid You may delete the command attach or detach it from the alignment zone this option is available only if the point is in the zone and change the alignment type Another way to customize the command is to use the Pro
543. rag the mouse cursor to the right to define a cutting line Release the mouse button 7 r r ae Select the bottom half of the T Temporarily activate the Edit tool click on the CTRL key on the keyboard and Crrti click near the bottom area of the glyph oo ee i Copy it to the Clipboard with the Edit gt Copy command Go to the F character Use the Glyph gt Create Glyphs command to remove the contents of all editing layers Open the Options gt Glyph Window gt Dimensions dialog box and set the Copy gt Paste offset to zero and Duplicate offset to 400 x 0 Duplicate offset 400 x fl Copy Paste offset E E Click OK to close the Options dialog box and use the Edit gt Paste command to place a copy of the T bottom vai a4 a ee oe Use the Edit gt Duplicate command to make a second copy 413 10 Duplicate it again and drag it to a place above the first segment Use the contour snap function to position the segment Activate the contour snap with the View gt Snap to Layers gt Outline We also recommend that you activate the feature that will snap a point which you are moving to all outline nodes by X and Y direction independently Use the Tools gt Options gt Glyph Window dialog box Align to all contour points if snap to contour i on 11 Use the Contour gt Transform gt Flip Vertical command to flip the selected segment E Ee oe
544. ransform 404 Transformation Panel 60 404 Transformation Program 645 TransType 18 29 118 TrueType 17 20 90 92 101 115 222 237 238 612 autohinting 105 autohinting options 106 automatic hinting 744 curves 343 export options 100 264 hinting 261 Hinting Tool 690 Instructions 686 mapping 265 Options Panel 695 Preview Panel 696 Visual Hints 689 TrueType GX AAT 19 TTF 115 300 Type 1 20 90 115 136 222 237 238 474 531 612 curves 343 Encoding Tables 138 export options 263 generating 95 Hinting Tool 673 hints 656 TypeTool 18 118 Typo Ascender 247 Typo Descender 247 Typo Line Gap 247 U UI 62 Underline 245 551 Unicode 66 108 130 250 codepoint 133 Consortium 130 duplicating 175 generate 188 index 47 72 90 91 182 187 indexes 144 ranges 142 157 254 remove 191 Standard 17 129 149 Unicode mode 70 Unicode Ranges mode 49 135 Unique ID 238 UPM 92 244 303 337 user interface 25 34 V Value Record 866 VDMxX 266 vector 27 VectorPaint 79 329 384 390 Brush 388 Contour 387 Ellipse 394 Line 392 Polygon 393 Rectangle 394 Select 386 Text 395 VectorPaint Mode 329 Vendor Code 238 Ventura Publisher 243 Vertical Metrics 246 472 Vertical Preview 380 vfb 167 VFB 115 Visual Ascender 328 Visual Descender 328 Visual TrueType Hints 689 VOLT 92 879 880 881 W Waterfall 381 Weight 771 weight vector 775 We
545. rd Encoding Default Encoding MS Windows 1252 Western ANSI or Mac OS Roman Otherwise a custom encoding will be generated Always write FontLab Studio will always generate a custom encoding custom encoding even for Western Roman fonts with the encoding currently selected in the Font window Names mode Note Western Roman Type fonts generated with custom encoding may not work as expected Always write Always generates the font with the Standard Encoding Standard Encoding regardless of what is selected in the Font window Names mode Export Unicode Exports a custom encoding based on the currently selected codepage if codepage codepage if the Font window is in Codepages mode mode is active We recommend setting the Select encoding automatically option as the default because it covers most exporting situations very well Export only When enabled all glyphs that are outside of the encoded encoded glyphs yellow area will not be included in the generated font Tip This can be used to quickly generate a series of Type 1 fonts from a large multilingual vfb file that includes an extensive character set Automatically sort This option allows FontLab to sort glyphs accordingly to the glyphs selected encoding on export It is recommended to leave this option enabled 97 98 If the Open Type 1 Export Terminal option is switched on and you generate a Type or Multiple Master font the following dialog
546. rea of the glyph window to create the first point of a new contour Drag the mouse to put new node into correct position Release the mouse button 3 Click again in the empty area to add a corner line curve or smoothly connected curve with Add Corner Add Curve or Add Tangent tools respectively 4 Continue the procedure until your newly defined contour is complete To close contour drag the last node onto the first node 5 You can switch to the Drawing tool at any time and use it to add new points to a contour you are creating 4 Note A new node is added to the contour if the last node of the contour is highlighted If it is not highlighted a new contour is started To highlight a node click it To deselect it press the Esc key on the keyboard You can move outline nodes with the Add tools Note that if you click on the contour not on the node a new node is inserted The type of node depends on the tool you are using To prevent adding a new node hold down the Arr key when you click on the contour Converting Segments Sometimes you may want to convert a curve to a straight segment or vice versa To convert a curve to a straight segment delete drag right mouse button one of the control points of the curve or delete drag right mouse button the curve while you are in the non node editing mode To convert a straight segment normal or closing to a curve drag an inside point of the straight segm
547. ree Islands Press 918 RavenType As you can see it is just a vendor code followed by vendor name A single space is used as a separator If you want to change the file or add a new entry just open it in any text editor such as Notepad or WordPad and make changes 239 240 PANOSE Identification PANOSE font identification e Record Value PANOSE numbers 2 15 4 4 2 2 0 2 4 4 In the PANOSE identification system 10 numbers describe a font Each number represents one identification category The most important category represented by the first number defines the kind of font is it a normal Roman font a hand written font a decorative or symbol font The meaning of all the other categories depends on this setting In all categories the first two values 0 and 1 mean Any and No Fit Any means that the value of this category is not important No Fit means that the category value for this font is not among the available values To set the PANOSE identification numbers first select the font family kind After that select the category in the Record combo box and the value in the Value combo box Here is a table of the categories and possible values for the Latin Text family Serif Style Cove Obtuse Cove Square Cove Obtuse Square Cove Square Thin Oval Exaggerated Triangle Normal Sans Obtuse Sans Perpendicular Sans Flared Rounded Weight Very Light Light Thin Book Medium Demi Bold Heavy
548. reens each full color pixel actually consist of three smaller subpixels colored with basic colors These colors mix with each other so by applying different brightness to each subpixel we can get a practically unlimited number of color combinations By changing color values for each pixel it is possible to simulate the effect of changing the brightness of each subpixel For example rendering a fully blue pixel effectively means that the red and green subpixels are turned off and the blue subpixel is on The human eye reacts differently to brightness changes of different colors so the color combinations are chosen very carefully If the pixels are sufficiently small the human eye does not notice the individual colors but instead perceives the color pixels as combinations of subpixels resulting in an increased resolution hamham Pure black and white rendering gives sharp Grayscale rendering helps smoothing pixels but does not render well fine elements diagonals but usually either blurs the stems or such as serifs Also italics are problematic makes them too black so the type either unsharp or unevenly colored hamkam hamham When enlarged left ClearType rendering looks like a mosaic of color pixels However in very small sizes the user perceives each colored pixel as a combination of subpixels The result is type that has smooth edges and yet appears sharp Particularly helps italics hamham 763 764 TrueType
549. remove all actions from the action set press the button To move an action one step up in the program select it and press the button or press the _ button to move an action one step down 645 646 Using the Preview Window When you make a program that includes several actions you can see an instant preview of the transformation program that you have made Press the Show Preview button to open a preview window Action Set Preview Glyph to preview e o y F Show details j i ig j s ss k E a Original Rotate Bold Outline gt You see that this panel includes a sample glyph that is incrementally transformed You can see the results of each action so it s very easy to control how your action set works With the Glyph to preview list box you can select the glyph that is used to preview the transformations If you switch on the Show details option then the nodes metrics and hints will be visible in preview Use the scroll bar at the bottom of the window to see further samples of the transformation actions program Press the Close button to close this window Saving and Opening an Action Set You can save the set of actions that you created and you can open and use previously saved sets To save the action set press the button You will see a standard dialog box where you can select a directory and enter a file name for the program If you save an acti
550. retation is an application centric system so it may vary in different applications Use the buttons on the top of the panel to get access to options z Click on this button to set the size of the preview shown in the OpenType Features Sample panel select a point size or choose Auto to make the preview automatically fit the size of the panel KERN Click on this button to convert the GPOS kerning from the OpenType kern feature into the plain pair kerning table This operation is described in the following section Ifthis button is pressed FontLab Studio will preview the glyph metrics so you can see how the positioning features work FTL If this button is pressed both source and resulting preview windows work in right to left mode This is good for working with Arabic or Hebrew fonts Note FontLab Studio 5 does not support automatic glyph reordering or special shaping rules for complex scripts when displaying OpenType features in the Features Sample panel If you develop complex script fonts such as Arabic you should test the final font in the Tools gt Quick Test window which uses the system OpenType Layout renderer on Windows XP SP 2 it is Uniscribe if complex script support is enabled in Control Panel gt Regional and Language Options gt Languages 851 852 Converting the Kerning If you have defined a kern feature you can convert it into the plain pair Convert OpenType Kerning Do you really want to convert
551. rimary way to refer to glyphs for example the Classes panel or the Metrics Table in the Metrics Window Therefore you should get used to thinking about glyphs in terms of glyph names Certain conventions must be obeyed when devising glyph names for custom and non standard glyphs e g swashes or ligatures and they will be discussed later in this chapter The Unicode codepoint is a hexadecimal number associated with a glyph Hexadecimal short hex numbers are written using the digits 0 9 and the letters A F usually uppercase A Unicode codepoint can have 4 to 6 hex digits Typically each glyph has one Unicode codepoint However fonts may include glyphs with no Unicode codepoint assigned so called unencoded glyphs or glyphs with more than one Unicode codepoints assigned so called double encoded glyphs The glyph Properties panel Edit gt Properties displays the glyphname and the Unicode codepoint of the glyph that is currently active in FontLab Studio either selected in the Font Window or opened in a Glyph Window Glyph Properties Font BellMTStd Ikalic ne Aring X oocs In addition to the Unicode codepoint each glyph usually has an additional local character code that is depending on the encoding or codepage currently selected in the Font Window The rule of thumb is the encoding of OpenType fonts depends on the Unicode codepoints assigned to the glyphs The encoding of Type 1 fonts depends on the local c
552. ript Superscript and subscript positions e pos Y pos Ize Y size TrueType and OpenType font format allows you to specify position and size of the superscript and subscript characters 4 Subscript Position and size of the subscript characters in font units Superscript Position and size of the superscript characters in font units 249 250 Encoding and Unicode El Encoding and Unicode n Unicode ranges As we mentioned earlier fonts may have very many characters and support a lot of different languages To tell the operating system what codepages the current font can support you set the codepages information TrueType and Type 1 fonts use different methods to identify what codepages a font supports In TrueType fonts you can identify all the supported codepages by setting bits in a special field of the font header In Type 1 fonts you select only one codepage actually encoding vector and it must be compatible with the actual font encoding Supported Codepages Supported codepages and default character set e Available codepages Supported codepages 1255 Hebrew A 1252 Latin 1 ps 1256 Arabic 1250 Latin 2 Eastern Europe a74 Thai 1251 Cyrillic J32 JlS apan 1253 Greek 936 Simplified Chinese x 1254 Turkish 9349 Korean Wansung 1257 Windows Baltic 950 Traditional Chinese 1258 Windows Vietnamese 1361 Korean Johab Macintosh Character Set U OEM Character Set 869 IBM Greek Symbol Character Set 65 IBM Tu
553. rkish B66 MS DOS Russian s 855 IBM Cyrillic primarily Russiar Character Set Information Microsoft Character Set Westem Latin 1 CP1252 ANSI PFM Default character Mac script and FOND ID Roman v 5282 The operating system needs to know which codepages a TrueType font can support To set this information you select all the codepages that this font can cover from the list of standard codepages that are available to the operating system To select the supported codepages automatically press the Auto button FontLab Studio will analyse the Unicode information available in the font and will automatically detect which codepages this font can support To add a codepage to the list of supported codepages select a codepage in the left list and press the Add button To remove a codepage from the list of supported codepages select a codepage in the right list and press the Del button To reset the list of supported codepages press the Reset button The Meaning of Supported Codepages in Windows In Windows 3 1x this information is not used In Windows 95 and Windows NT a font that has more than one standard 1252 Latin 1 codepage supported will appear as a font available for different scripts So if for example you set Latin 1 and Cyrillic codepages for a font with the name MyFont in Windows 95 and NT it will appear as MyFont Western and MyFont Cyrillic 251 252 Type 1 Character Set Type 1
554. rom the key glyph of the class to the rest of the glyphs It could be L for the left sidebearing R for the right sidebearing and W for the advance width 4 Ifyou want you can use the Adjust field at the right of the control area to change the metrics when they are copied from the key glyph of the class Enter a positive or negative value and select the units font units or percent of the original value Of course you can generate some metrics classes automatically using the Generate Classes feature described on page 593 Optionally you can measure sidebearings along the measurement line which may be very useful if you are working with a serif font Use the preview panel to see the effect of your actions To apply the new metrics click the Apply and Save button Click on the Save button to store the metrics assistance information without actually changing the glyph metrics 607 608 The editing field below the preview panel lets you change the class definition Click on the button to accept changes To create a new class press the El button Use the toolbar buttons to perform additional operations in the Metrics Assistance dialog box rH Open data file Opens the data file with the metrics assistance information FontLab Studio can open data files saved by itself and metrics assistance files saved from Fontographer In the latter case FontLab will automatically generate classes and import all information that is compatibl
555. rop Font Formats Creating a New Font The Font Window Glyph Naming and Character Encoding Characters Codes and Glyphs Names Mode Unicode Ranges Codepages Advanced Glyph Naming and Encoding Using the Font Window Navigating Selecting Context Menu Moving Glyphs Saving the Font Autosave Copying and Pasting Glyphs The Paste Special Command Copying Glyphs to Another Font Appending Glyphs to the Font Copying Composite Glyphs Duplicating Unicode codepoints Deleting Glyphs Creating New Glyphs Marking Glyphs Searching for Glyphs Renaming Glyphs Reencoding the Font Unicode Related Operations Generating Unicode codepoints Generating Names Removing Unicode Information The Font Map Panel 100 111 113 114 117 117 118 119 120 127 128 142 144 148 159 160 161 162 165 167 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 180 182 184 187 187 190 191 192 Managing Double Byte Codepages Notes Sorting Glyphs Working with Multiple Fonts Windows List Fonts Panel Merging Fonts Saving and Opening a Project Saving and Opening a Workspace Applying Modifications Blending Fonts THE FONT HEADER Font Info Dialog Box Command Bar Copying Font Info Font Names Basic Identification and Names Accessing MyFonts com Database OpenType Specific Names How to Make a Font Family Non English and Special Names Copyright Information Font Embedding Designer Information License Informatio
556. roughly the same shape on the right side so they can work as the first glyph in a pair Dv Ov Qy v Some glyphs may have the same shape on both sides which may mean that they can be used as first or second glyphs in a pair To specify the side of a kerning class you may use the Kerning Assistance panel or the checkboxes in the class list EA cL Je KB ek c mL E D PLE ER Wwe BOS el ET BLIT U ee A check box to the right of the central dot means that a glyph in this class may act as a second glyph of a pair as in our first example above A check box to the left means that the class contains first glyphs of pairs 592 Generating Kerning Classes Automatically Fontlab Studio 5 has a very smart algorithm that can automatically generate kerning and metrics classes Click on the command menu button in the Metrics window toolbar to open the menu Auto Add Pairs Edit kerning mee F AV W Reset Kerning AN Assistance Select the Generate Classes command You will see a dialog box Automatic Classes Generation Perform analysis between Baseline w and Caps Height w Adjust for smallcaps and lowercase Generate metrics classes Generate kerning classes Compress flat kerning to class kerning after classes are generated Do nok mix characters From different scripts in the class only combine glyphs compatible on both sides Cancel To generate m
557. rpolate the same point in the horizontal direction too 4 Note When testing your hinted fonts test a range of sizes View sample text at what you consider to be normal viewing size and test at 3 4 sizes above and below Keep in mind that you may run your machine at much higher or lower resolution than others Someone with a 1024 x 768 17 monitor will likely choose a smaller size than someone using the same resolution on a 12 laptop Tip You can use the zoom feature of Microsoft Word or a web browser such as Opera to simulate different DPI settings The default DPI setting of Mac OS is 72 DPI and of Windows is 96 DPI When you test your font on Mac OS at 12 pt the 12 PPM size will be used When you zoom Word or Opera to 133 you will see the 16 PPM size which is the size used for 12 pt type on Windows Conversely in Word or Opera on Windows set your zoom to 75 This way your 12 pt type will be displayed using 12 PPM rather than the usual 16 PPM 761 762 Hinting Multiple Master Fonts Multiple Master or MM for short fonts contain more than one layer of outlines making possible to create indefinite number of intermediate font variations You can get more information about MM fonts in Multiple Master Fonts chapter in this book page 765 Usually MM fonts are used to create font families and in most cases they contain one or two axis weight and width In the case of one let s say weight axis fo
558. rrent glyph is composite only so if doesn t have any normal outlines use the PAGE Up and PaGE Down keys to select a component for editing You will see a control box surrounding the component with four corner handles a cross in the center a centerline and the number of the component in the components list To select another component use the PAGE Up and PaGE Down keys or the Tas key I To select several components click on each of them with the Suirr key pressed To move the component position the mouse cursor inside the control box press the left mouse button and drag the control box to a new location If you position the cursor on the cross in the middle of the control box you can set the position of the component more precisely because the cross will snap to the guiding elements while moving You can also use the keyboard to move the component Arrow keys move the component in one font unit increments the SHirr arrow keys increase movement to 10 units and the Crri arrow keys increase movement to 100 units To scale a component position the mouse cursor on one of the handles press the left mouse button and drag the mouse to change the size of the component Hold the Suirr key down to constrain the proportions of the component Hold the CTRL key down to scale around the component s center Some other useful commands are available in the popup menu that appears if you right click the editing area whi
559. rs Glyph List You may select which glyphs will be transformed by entering a list of glyphs This is handy for repetitive or recurrent transformations To create a glyph list select the All glyphs in the glyph list or All glyphs that are not in the list options in the ranges selection list and press the button which will be enabled You will see a dialog box Glyph List Use glyphs in the glyph list above Enter all the glyphs that you want to transform into the Glyph list editing field You can use special character commands to enter characters that are not included in the standard Latin 1 character set used in Windows by default Use a prefix to enter a glyph s name or use a decimal code and a prefix to enter a glyph s Unicode index Use the Open button to open any text file and use it as a glyph list and the Save button to save the current glyph list in a text file Note that if you open the Action Set dialog box while the Metrics window is active the glyph list will be copied from the Metrics window s sample string and the All glyphs in the glyphs list option will be automatically selected so you can instantly apply transformations to the set of glyphs that are previewed in the Metrics window 643 If the font contains glyph classes defined then you can select one of the classes in the list Use glyphs in the glyph list above t Use
560. rs Each element is of Anchor type hlinks vlinks List of horizontal or vertical links Each element is an object of the Link type width Advance width for the first master if glyph is Multiple Master ae EET e a a eaEGiiRGiRGinewnRaeamEureaeHdarsuRanRSNEN a a fe eee ae es ee ee eae Hee re ete meena erento Bere z Seer ee le ee coat ee ee ee You can get a list of operations defined for the Glyph class if you run the following line print Glyph __doc__ You can replace Glyph with the name of any class mentioned above to get a description of its members and operations Here are some examples Marking all glyphs with a different color depending on the number of components Non composite glyphs are not marked Glyphs that have exactly 2 components are marked green and glyphs that have some other number of components or have outline and components are marked red for g in fl font glyphs for every glyph in the current font c_len len g components store the number of components length of the components array n_len len g store the number of nodes length of the nodes array if c_len 0 if number of components is 0 g mark 0 unmark the glyph elseif c_len 2 and n_len 0 if number of components is 2 and number of nodes is 0 g mark 100 Mark the glyph with green else if all conditions above are false g mark 1 Mark the glyph with red fl UpdateFont finally update the font so the Font window will refresh
561. rs Operation Sometimes you may need to change contours of the master so that they become compatible with contours of the other master For example the startpoints in two masters do not match Master Wt0 Master Wt To fix the startpoints or correct the order of contours for two masters in the Glyph window select the Match Masters command in the Tools gt Multiple Master menu FontLab Studio will check contours and correct them if needed For example the startpoint of the contour in one of two masters will be changed Master Wt0 Master Wt1 If FontLab Studio cannot check contours for some reason it will present the warning message Attention Masters in this glyph do mot match each other Operation is not complete Cancel Rearranging Masters Very rarely you may need to change the position of a master on the design axis Look at the picture Width axis Weight axis Increasing of the width value does increase the width of a glyph That s OK But sometimes you can meet a font with the messed up masters where increasing of the values actually decreases the design 799 800 To fix the coordinates in a MM font FontLab Studio has the Rearrange Masters feature Rearrange Masters Rearrange Font masters in the list below ABRaeg123 Vt Ydi ABRaeg 123 ABRaeg123 ABRaeg1 23 Wit Yd The dialog box contains a list of masters Y
562. rs the font can be used to represent In TrueType format this information is stored as the ulCodePageRangel and ulUnicodeRange fields in the OS 2 table The Supported Unicode ranges dialog is relatively simple you can see a list of all Unicode ranges with a check box to the left of each name If the check box is checked it means that range is supported Buttons to the right of the list mean Uncheck all ranges Automatically check ranges using information about Unicode indexes assigned to fonts characters Hinting Settings El Hinting Settings Standard stems T1 hinting n Additional hinting parameters Information in this section is related to hinting which is described in full detail in the Hinting chapter The information below is copied there also so if you re not interested in hinting right now you can skip this section 255 256 Alignment Zones There are two list boxes where alignment zones can be set the Primary zones list and the Secondary zones list Type 1 and TrueType hinting alignment zones 4 gt Set alignment for the master Set local alignment zones Set family alignment zones Primary zones Secondary zones J gt BA In Type terminology primary zones are called Blue Values and secondary zones Other Blues BlueValues include one bottom alignment zone the so called baseline zone and up to 6 top alignment zones The baseline zone is used to control bottom
563. rt a node 3 Press the left mouse button anywhere on the empty area of the editing field and drag the mouse to form a knife line After you release the mouse button new nodes will be inserted at all points where this line crossed the outline Hold down the Suirr key to constrain the direction of the knife line to 45 degree increments If the knife line will cross two lines you may find a part of the glyph to cut off Hold the Arr key to limit Knife tool to insert new nodes only Using the Add Corner Add Curve and Add Tangent tools 1 Activate one of the tools 2 Click on any outline point The Corner tool will add a straight line the Curve tool will add a smooth connection and curve and the Tangent tool will add a sharp connection and curve Note You can insert nodes on the closing straight segment that automatically connects the first and last nodes of a contour If you insert nodes on the first half of a closing straight segment closer to the ending node of a contour then the new node will be added to the contour If you insert the node on the last half of the closing straight segment then it will be inserted before the startpoint and become a startpoint 365 366 Using the Drawing Tool The easiest way to create a new contour is to use the Drawing tool 4 You can create a new contour or you can continue any existing contour If you want to add new nodes to the existing contour just activate it
564. rt of the alias dat file FONTLAB ALIASES nbspace space hyphen minus periodcentered middot onesuperior one ordmasculine o onequarter one_slash_four onehalf one_slash_two As you can see every line of the file contains the real name of the component glyph is followed with a single space as the separator by the decomposition name onequarter one_slash_four This means that when you request the glyph named onequarter in the Generate Glyphs dialog box FontLab Studio will create a new glyph named onequarter but built as a ligature using the one slash and four components as if you had entered the name one_slash_four You can modify this table to include glyph names you often need to create Using the Smart Shapes Panel In FontLab Studio you can add predefined customisable graphical shapes to glyphs There are seven shapes included with FontLab Studio and it is possible to add more You can select a shape from the Smart Shapes panel To open the Smart Shapes panel select the Smart Shapes command in the Window gt Panel menu E Font Map Smart Shapes The panel consists of a shapes list and a Place button that you click to add a shape to the outline Smart Shapes Place Ga Arc Rectangle Ellipse Free Rectangle Star Polygon L 515 Here is a brief description of each shape Grid Simple grid a customizable set of rectangles or squares
565. rtant that all characters have a consistent appearance some font level information is necessary for hinting There are two kinds of such information alignment zones and stem widths Alignment zones set the positions of the most important vertical positions such as the sizes of uppercase characters the position of middle lines and the top and bottom overshoot positions To minimize rounding error and to make better baseline alignment you have to suppress overshoots and maintain the same size of overshoot and regular characters at small PPMs This is very easy to do if you position and size the bottoms and tops of these characters and stick the bottom and top points to these values Stem widths define the most important stems in the font and control the rounding of these stems Here you must control the PPM at which the stem width changes from one to two pixels and from two to three pixels Refer to page 662 for more information about alignment zones and standard stem widths Visual TrueType Hints In FontLab Studio we use a small set of high level hinting instructions that are automatically compiled to TrueType instructions during font export Because these instructions can be set and edited visually we call them visual TrueType hints or just visual hints Visual hints are enough to define TrueType hints even in very complex situations and they are compiled in very compact and effective TrueType instruction code The visual hi
566. rties Opens the Selection properties panel There are some differences between the Cut and Delete commands First of all Delete doesn t put anything on the Clipboard But the main difference is that the Delete command removes nodes with their adjacent curves o o K N ey nr a Selection Result of Cut Result of Delete If you switch on the option Edit Delete command breaks contour on the Glyph Window page of the Options dialog box the result of the Delete command will be the following o n IN Selection Properties Panel To make the Selection Properties panel visible choose the Properties command Properties in the selection context popup menu or use the OPTION RETURN keyboard shortcut The Selection Properties panel is very simple Selection Properties x E nodes selected Contours selected 1 ui 66 383 va 275 697 It contains the following information about the selection the number of selected nodes the number of selected contours and the selection bounding box s bottom left and top right corner coordinates You can click on the Deselect button to discard the selection and get the Glyph Properties panel instead 401 402 Copying the Selection Sometimes you need to copy glyphs or parts of glyphs to another place in the font or even into a different font With FontLab Studio you can put any part of a glyph or an entire glyph with hints gu
567. ruler line in the left and top parts of the Glyph Window and position it where you want the hint to be To add a new Link select the Add new vertical horizontal link command from the Tools gt Hints amp guides menu or from the popup menu that appears if you press the right mouse button on an empty area of the Glyph Window Click the mouse cursor on the first node of the pair you want to link and drag it to the second node and then release it To edit a hint or link position the mouse cursor on the hint s or link s line press the left mouse button and move it to the new position Refer to the description of the Edit tool on page 476for more information about hint editing To remove a hint or link position the mouse cursor on one of the hint s or link s lines and press the right mouse button Select the Delete command in the popup menu Select the Reverse command from the same menu to reverse the hint s direction Correct direction of hints is left to right and bottom to top Incorrectly directed Type 1 hints may cause the problems with some older font rasterizers so FontLab Studio will correct the hint direction automatically during the Type 1 font generation Select the Properties command to open the hint or link properties panel There is a faster way to open the properties panel hold the CTRL key and click on one of the hint lines with the left mouse button Note that if you delete a hint you will remove it completely
568. rve removal feature from do not simplify outline Simplification to extreme The bigger value you choose the more curves level FontLab Studio will try to remove Auto alignment Controls auto alignment feature in a range from do not align level to extreme Note You can select multiple glyphs or all glyphs in the Font Window and apply the command to many glyphs at a time You can also use Actions or Action Sets to apply the command in batch mode 427 428 Grid Layer This layer is very simple if the Grid is on you will see a grid of vertical and horizontal lines in the edit Window If View gt Layers gt Snap to Layers gt Grid is enabled which it is by default any node that you move will snap to the gridlines You can adjust the grid frequency on the Glyph Window gt Dimensions page of the Options dialog box Tools gt Options Grid step 100 Hi 100 Guidelines Layer Guidelines are straight lines that are used to guide the drawing of specific elements of a glyph Guidelines can be vertical horizontal or slanted Guidelines can be slanted at any angle from 45 to 45 from the vertical or horizontal direction Slanted guidelines can help to mark italic characters or specific slanted elements in normal characters like the inner bar in the letter N You can see little numbers giving the position and slanting angle of each guideline near the edges of the editing field of the Glyph Wind
569. s e g replace Condensed with Cond The style name must be unique within the family so if FontLab builds the same style name for two different fonts revise one of them Basic set of font names gt Family Name LabFont Pro Weight Bod 70 Fontis italic Width Condessa o Font is bold More Styles Style Name Condensed Bod Bulld Style Name PS Font Name LabFontPro CondensecBold Full Name LabFont Pro Condensed Bold Menu Name LabFont Pro FOND Name LabFont Pro Condensed Bold W MyFonts com 6 Click on the Verify names button to check the technical correctness of your names 7 Switch between styles and repeat the previous steps analogically for all styles in your family Apply and change font N 8 Go to the OpenType specific font names page and click on Build OpenType Names Repeat for all styles in the family OpenType specific font names gt Family Name FreeFontPro Style Name Cond Bold Mac Name FreeFontPro Cond Bold x Remove names 226 9 Go back to the Basic set of font names page and apply the brief family naming Enter the brief family name into the Family Name field and into the Menu Name field Enable Font is bold whenever a font is supposed to be bold style within the brief family Revise the Style Name field so it only contains one of the following Regular Italic
570. s gt Hints amp Guides menu Options of this command include Both to remove all guidelines Horizontal to remove only horizontal guidelines The same command is available in the rulers popup menu that appears if you right click the vertical or horizontal ruler 431 432 Guidelines Popup Menu More commands are available in the guideline s popup menu There are two different guideline popup menus one for local and one for global guidelines Both menus include Align Delete and Properties commands The Properties command as usual will open the Property panel for the active guideline The Delete command will remove the active guideline The Align command is available only for slanted guidelines and will align them to the vertical or horizontal axis i e remove their slant and make them vertical or horizontal guidelines Global guidelines have an additional set of commands located in the Guideline Is submenu By selecting the commands in this submenu you can set the font parameters Ascender Descender Caps Height x Height or Visual Ascender and Descender that are used to set 100 zoom in the Glyph Window The Create Local command will create a new local guideline on top of the global one The local guideline menu has one additional command Create Orthogonal which you can use to create a guideline that is orthogonal to the current one ced Guidelines Tracking There is a special feature that lets you modify a
571. s represented as black squares If there is no bitmap defined for the current PPM it looks different 74 7 748 If you want to add a bitmap for the current PPM right click anywhere in the Glyph window and select the Generate bitmap command in the context menu Generate Bitmap Import Bitmaps Highlight Differences You can edit the bitmap with the mouse just click and drag the left mouse button To remove the bitmap for the current PPM use the Remove bitmap command in the menu When there are bitmaps defined for the glyph they are highlighted in the Preview panel eEBBEBBBBB 10 11 i2 1 id 15 16 17 FR is Highlight Differences You may highlight the differences between the result of the rendered and hinted outline and a bitmap Enter the Bitmap mode and select the Highlight differences command in the context menu Generate Bitmap Remove Bitmap Copy to Background Import Bitmaps Highlight Differences When you leave the bitmap mode click on the button or select any other TrueType hinting tool you will see that all pixels that are different in the rendered outline and in the bitmap are highlighted in red You can use this feature to separate the artistic and technical parts of the hinting process make good bitmaps activate the Highlight differences feature go into hinting mode and set hints so there are no red pixels 749 750 Exporting Bitmaps To export embedded bit
572. s are filled This means that it is not necessary to have the glyph outlines always filled while you are working with font metrics For example you may need to switch off the fill and switch on the nodes to visually compare placement of nodes in some glyphs Al aN if ot i fa aX ta H yl ioe TF l i i l e it s Ao it Se L G i os 549 Customizing Colors You are not restricted to black text on a white background Open the Metrics options page Tools gt Options gt Metrics Window Metrics window Automatic line Feed Highlight all key glyphs in kerning and metric classes Highlight all kerning pairs 4oply text template when item is selected in the table Keep existing exceptions when editing class kerning Background Foreground Dependant pairs Font to use in the preview combo box Move Focus to sample string when Metrics window is opened Sort items in the kerning metrics table By encoding Use these controls to customize the foreground and background colors Background Foreground As a result you can get custom colors in the Metrics window 550 Editing Underline and Strikethrough To edit the position and width of the underline and strikethrough line switch the Metrics window to the Preview mode You can do this by clicking on the Preview Mode button E of the Metrics Tools toolbar or by selecting Preview in the mode selection menu of the bottom command area or by selecting t
573. s first or next node a The last node of the open contour is activated 1 To add a point just click the left mouse button 2 Ifyou want to create a line point just release the button If you want to define a curve drag the mouse to set the position of the curve control vector _ a 3 To adjust the position of the curve control vector without moving the control vector of the previous curve hold Arrt and left drag You can press and release the ALT key while you drag the mouse when ALT is released you are defining the positions of the control vector that belongs to the previous curve and the control vector of the next curve When ALT is pressed you are not moving the previous curve s control vector 4 When you are adding a new node you can hold the CTRL key to not move the curve control vector but move the node itself 5 Finally you can use the Suirt key at any time to constrain the direction of the line if you are holding the CTRL key or a curve control vector To close the contour just click on its starting node and drag the mouse to set the direction of the control vectors 367 368 Adding Points to a Contour In addition to the Drawing tool you can use three more tools to create a new contour or to add points to an existing contour These tools are Add Corner Add Curve and Add Tangent To create a new contour 1 Activate one of the tools 2 Click anywhere in the empty a
574. s ignored if you choose to map glyphs by their names 171 172 Copying Glyphs to Another Font You can use two methods to copy glyphs from one font to another 1 Use the Copy and Paste Paste Special commands from the Edit menu as described or 2 Drag them to the other font and drop them there The drag drop method is easier and more visual Appending Glyphs to the Font Instead of the Edit gt Paste command you can use the Append command from the Font window context menu to add glyphs from the Clipboard to the font When FontLab Studio appends glyphs it respects the glyph names and Unicode codepoints so on the first attempt glyphs will be placed in the expected code positions in the font Here is an example Your first font contains Latin glyphs but has no Cyrillic glyphs A second font is a Cyrillic font with the matching style and you want to add Cyrillic support to the first font 1 Select the Cyrillic glyphs in the second font this will be easy if you select the 1251 Cyrillic codepage or the Cyrillic Unicode range and copy them to the Clipboard Return to the first font right click the Font window and click on the Append command in the context menu Width d Copy Chrl c fey Paste Ctrl V The Cyrillic glyphs will be appended to the font with their correct Unicode codepoints and names so you will not have to re map the font slala lalalelelele eelililrkrko minus SLL aT arin am poananannnan
575. s in the main FontLab Studio menu we will use the following notation top menu item gt sub item For example Edit gt Copy means click the word Edit on the menu bar and select the Copy command from the menu Edit w Undo Alt 6ksp Cut Sh Delete Copy Ctre Faste Ctrl Delete Duplicate Ctrl D Select All Ckrl A Deselect Ctrl U Invert Selection Ctrl I Properties Alt Enter Folders and Paths Recent applications from Fontlab Ltd use a new folder structure for storing their data files such as encoding or codepage definitions glyph generation recipes text samples for metrics and kerning mapping tables Python macros etc FontLab Studio 5 looks for data files in four different folders Shared default data folder typically C Program Files Common Files FontLab This folder holds files that are commonly used by all recent Fontlab Ltd applications FontLab Studio 5 TransType SE Pro FogLamp SigMaker 2 with more to come In each respective subfolder codepage definitions encoding definitions glyph to Unicode mapping files and some special data files are stored Only Fontlab Ltd applications and applications from registered Fontlab Ltd developer partners should place their files there This is to rule out conflicts between the user s customized files and default files Shared user data folder typically C Documents and Settings Your Username My Documents FontLab Shared This folder has exactly the same s
576. s or maps local character codes to glyph names FontLab Studio will look up the glyphs in the current font that have glyph names specified in the encoding table and will present the glyphs visually in the sequence specified by the encoding table If the encoding table is used as a Type 1 encoding table the same mapping will be written to the Type 1 font and used as its encoding gt PaCE exclam exclam ps quotedbl quotedbl numbersign numbersign dollar dollar percent A Yy percent B AA B B Source text Encoding table Font as sequence eet ee ee te are Wee ews of codes Identification of characters in the font We will now discuss the most common encoding tables included in FontLab Studio 137 138 Type 1 Encoding Tables Type 1 encoding tables are used as source for the character encoding in Type 1 fonts as well as Multiple Master fonts whenever we speak of Type 1 encoding the same applies to Multiple Master Type fonts have two fundamentally different kinds of encoding Standard Encoding and custom encoding The rule of thumb is that a Western Roman Type 1 font should be encoded using Standard Encoding and a non Western Type 1 font e g Central European Cyrillic Greek should use custom encoding With the default settings of FontLab Studio if any encoding from the Type 1 Western Roman group is active in the Font Window the Type 1 font will be generated using Standard Encoding If a different encoding is ac
577. s or skews the selected portion of the outline ti Interpolate Nodes Manually modify the outline by moving a few nodes i other nodes intelligently follow i Move and Scale Sets the size and position of the bitmap background layer Background 4 Envelope Modifies the outline as if it was stretched on rubber ais Simplify Path Manually approximate a segment of the outline with a curve can be used to remove nodes without much change in the shape of the outlines ie Move Node Precise positioning of outline points wt Reverse Path Manually reverse direction of single contours qj Set Startpoints Manually change the startpoints of contours and rearrange contours TrueType hinting Manual TrueType hinting at 329 330 When the Glyph Window is switched to one of these modes you may see additional toolbars panels and dialogs They are shown and hidden automatically depending on the mode and most of them hide when the Glyph Window is deactivated Use the buttons on the Tools and other toolbars or keyboard shortcuts to switch modes The four most important modes are Alt 1 Edit mode Alt 4 Meter mode Though the Tools toolbar contains a button only for Meter mode you can easily customize it Tools gt Customize or even create the custom special toolbar containing buttons for switching modes Edit Mode The Edit mode is the most important in FontLab Studio In this mode you can modify the contents of all the editing layers A
578. s the X interpolation position on the design axis The Y axis represents the relative Y interpolation Here are some examples of the possible X Y interpolation relationships Isotropic proportional interpolation This is the default setting pm ba ie F in Ti J Gi wh o Fixed Y width axis Width does not change when you move the slider The weight X axis changes linearly along the weight axis m a ba Ca Ca in m J i wh pm m ph h Leu cs 5 6 z E 10 To edit the graph use same mouse commands as when you are editing a glyph s outline Right Left click inserts a point Right click when a point is being moved removes the point Click on the button to reset any changes and return the graph to the linear state Click OK to apply changes and close the dialog box Previewing the Intermediate Design You can use the Preview panel to preview an intermediate design of a MM font in high quality mode Use the Window gt Panels gt Preview command to open the panel OpenType Features Preview Anchors ABCabc123 e Synchronize c WEO wda wei wda n WEO Wedd WEI Wid Please refer to page 376 in the Glyph Window chapter for basic information about the Preview panel Use the Masters panel to change the previewed masters Use sliders in the Axis panel to see intermediate designs in the Preview panel 789 790 Designing Masters In FontLab Studio you c
579. s to the UPM size With the letter H being 700 units high and the font having the UPM size of 1000 the ratio is 700 1000 0 7 or 70 To increase this ratio you have two possibilities you can either increase the size of the letter H in units i e rescale the glyph or you can reduce the UPM size The visual effect will be identical Let s say you wish to visually increase your letterforms so the letter H is 8 pt high rather than 7 pt when the font size is 10 pt Your desired ratio of the height of the letter H to the UPM size will be 0 8 So you can either increase the size of the letter H so it is 800 units high and keep the UPM size of 1000 or you can keep the height of the letter H at 700 units but reduce the UPM size to 875 since 800 1000 700 875 Note that the change of the UPM size is not practical for all font formats You can use an UPM size of 875 or any other with TrueType and OpenType TT fonts safely and to a large extent with OpenType PS fonts However Type 1 fonts work best with the UPM size of 1000 Reference Points By default all coordinates are measured relative to the zero point of the glyph This is located at intersection of the baseline and the left sidebearing line Reference point Zero point As an alternative distances may be measured relative to the reference point which may be positioned by the Edit tool to any point in the glyph space Often a reference point is very useful when you are working o
580. s what is known as font metrics All font and glyph metrics are expressed in font units the same units that are used to measure node coordinates and settings such as UPM size There are four principal types of metric information in fonts 1 Vertical font metrics also known as font family metrics metric values common for the entire font and often shared across a family used to determine the linespacing This includes baseline the ascender and descender lines the caps height the x height and the line gap These are discussed in the Font Header chapter and the Vertical Metrics section of the Glyph Window chapter 2 Horizontal glyph metrics usually referred to as glyph metrics or just metrics metric values of individual glyphs that are used to compute line lengths This includes advance widths and sidebearings These are discussed in this chapter as well as in the Metrics section of the Glyph Window chapter 3 Kerning pair wise adjustment of horizontal glyph metrics 4 Vertical glyph metrics the vertical advance widths called vertical advance vector for Asian glyphs used to type in vertical direction from top to bottom These are discussed below This chapter discusses primarily the horizontal and vertical glyph metrics as well as kerning For vertical font metrics please consult the Font Header chapter Horizontal Glyph Metrics Each glyph in the font has a bounding box a rect
581. s you to choose any vfb file as a new font to initialize new template when the user chooses File gt New When disabled a fonts blank vfb file is created Show glyph When enabled glyph template images are shown in empty template images in glyph cells You can also choose if the default or a custom set empty cells of glyph template images is used You can use any font installed on the system or a bitmap font file For bitmap font files bdf files are supported as well as dat files that can be created with BitFonter Put glyph template When enabled whenever you create a new glyph the images in corresponding glyph template image will be placed as a Background layer bitmap in the Background layer when creating new glyphs Glyph Window This section controls the behavior of the Glyph Window Editing behavior Show meter panel when Meter tool is activated Show crosshair cursor Remove hints and guides by moving out of the window Double click on background to change its properties Mask layer has its own metrics Selection in the Glyph window is undoable Tap on Ctrl key toggles Edit tool i Appearance Outline drawing Advanced Editing behavior Show meter panel If enabled the Meter panel is shown when the user activates when Meter tool is the Meter tool activated Show crosshair If enabled a crosshair cursor is shown whenever the user cursor moves any nodes Remove hints and When enabled the user can
582. se cases the layout features contain mapping rules that are automatically applied by the layout application Note that not all layout applications offer the same level of OpenType support For example Microsoft Word 2003 for Windows supports complex script layout features for Arabic and Devanagari but does not support Western typographic layout features Adobe InDesign CS2 U S English and Apple Keynote on Mac OS X support Western typographic layout features but do not support any complex script layout features Adobe InDesign CS Middle East edition supports Western and Arabic layout features but does not support Devanagari Information about using OpenType fonts can be found at http www myfonts com info opentype http store adobe com type opentype Information about developing OpenType fonts can be found at http www microsoft com typography SpecificationsOverview mspx http www microsoft com typography developers opentype http partners adobe com public developer opentype Probably the best thing about OT features is that they do not change the source string of characters To explain this we need to again talk about the character glyph model The source text that you type on the keyboard or get from another source is a sequence of characters that have strong links to the codes that the computer uses to store data The picture of the text that you see on the screen is a sequence of glyphs or character images It is imp
583. se the Export Workspace command in the Window gt Workspace menu FontLab Studio will open a standard File Save dialog box where you can select a name for the workspace file The default destination for the workspace files is the Application user data folder Workspaces folder typically C Documents and Settings Your Username My Documents FontLab Studio5 Workspace FontLab Studio workspace files have the extension xml To open a workspace file use the same Window gt Workspace menu where all workspaces that were stored in the above mentioned folder are listed Before opening the saved workspace FontLab Studio will ask you whether you want to save the current user interface configuration 205 206 Applying Modifications You can find many modification commands in the Contour Glyph and Tools menus that can be applied to the open glyph in the Glyph window see the Glyph Window chapter but most of them are applicable to the glyph s selected in the Font window To apply a modification command select the glyphs in the Font window and choose the appropriate command in the Contour Tools or Glyph menu For example to convert glyphs from TrueType outlines to Type 1 outlines select the glyphs that you want to convert and choose the Contour gt Convert gt Curves To PostScript command If more than 128 glyphs were selected for transformation you will see the warning message Attention hot undoable A You will a
584. set but before commands that are based on these points 5 Final delta commands are interpreted after final interpolation of the untouched points 689 690 TrueType Hinting Tool With the TrueType hinting tool you can set and modify visual TrueType hints and preview the real resulting TrueType font using the system TrueType rasterizer To activate the TrueType Hinting Tool select the TrueType Hinting command from the Tools gt Hints amp Guides menu or press the el button on the Tools toolbar When you select the TT Hinting Tool you may see the message Attention i Current glyph doesn t match TrueType requirements 3rd order curves are present Contour direction is wrong Do you want to correct problems before continuing Always do correction _ Ignore the direction warning Cancel This message appears if the current character has 3 4 order curves that should be converted to 2 4 order curves to set Visual TrueType hints or if the contour direction is wrong The TrueType specification requires that contours in TrueType fonts to be directed clockwise Most rasterizers will correctly render TrueType fonts with incorrectly directed contours but it is not guaranteed so we recommend directing contours according to the specification If you don t want FontLab Studio to check the contour direction check the Ignore the direction warning option Press the OK button to continue to work with the tool Leave the A
585. set kerning for all Removes kerning in all pairs that include glyphs in the glyphs in the string current string Limit number of Kerns only the given number of pairs with the largest kerning pairs to absolute kerning value Delete all pairs that are Removes all pairs that have a kerning value less than the less than given value The absolute value of kerning is compared Completely reset kerning Removes all the kerning pairs available in the font in the current font Because this is not an undoable operation the warning dialog asks you to save the current metrics and kerning data in the temporary file Adjusting Metrics and Kerning If you want to change metrics or kerning by some fixed value and the manual process will take too much time you can use the Transform dialog box 1 Switch to the Font window 2 Select the glyphs that you want to process 3 Open the Actions dialog box using the Tools gt Actions command 4 Inthe dialog box select the Metrics gt Adjust metrics action Select an action E Metrics e Set width 600 C Set sidebearings 550 550 c Center glyph Aubospacing 5 2 1 2 Adjust metrics 2 by O units c z Current action Adjust metrics and kerning fel FRFecks ial Left sidebearing Adjust by j Units v m Right sidebearing _ Shift the Mask layer m iden C Use the measurement line v Kerning Affect composites 579
586. short are compatible with all PostScript printers MM fonts can be used on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS if Adobe Type Manager ATM is installed Mac OS X doesn t support MM fonts The Multiple Master font format is not very widely used as the final deliverable format However many type designers use Multiple Master fonts during the design process and use them to generate a family of single master fonts that go into distribution Using MM fonts as a design tool can be an excellent way to speed up the design of large font families For technical details and an excellent background in this subject we strongly recommend you read Designing Multiple Master Typefaces a book published electronically by Adobe Systems http partners adobe com asn developer pdfs tn 5091 Design_MM_Fonts pdf A simple picture can describe the main idea of the Multiple Master font format 1 2 4 3 If we have two contours that have the same number of segments of the same type straight or curve we can always make intermediate contours by interpolation The number of these different contours is limited only by the precision that we choose Applied to fonts this idea gives us the following In this picture we used two styles of the same typeface Light and Black as ends and as you can see we have many more styles in the middle Fonts that are used to define end designs are called masters A combination of several masters into one font file is called
587. simple clockwise directed contours are white and counterclockwise contours are black A simpler form of the rule known as the rule of the left hand is if you face along the direction of a contour black fill will be on your left side Directed contour Filled interior zone In the TrueType specification the opposite is the case so a contour is filled on the right hand side However not all TrueType rasterizers require glyphs to follow this rule so it is recommended but not necessarily required that you reverse contour directions when you are converting Type 1 fonts to TrueType 341 342 Startpoint and Closepath All contours have a startpoint start point The startpoint is the first node of the contour The last node of the closed contour is automatically connected to the startpoint with a straight line which is called closepath The color of the startpoint in the Glyph Window is blue Optionally a contour direction mark may appear on a startpoint F i You can switch this direction mark off with the option in the Tools gt Options gt Glyph Window Outline drawing Show contour direction Also you may want to see arrows on all closepath lines Use the following option Appearance Show arrow on closepath If this option is active closepath appears as an arrow _ You can customize the appearance of the color direction mark on the Tools gt Options gt Glyph Window
588. sition of the node see above may appear below or above top of the outline the path Saat 275 bre Highlight first node When this option is on start and end nodes of the open of an open contour contour are highlighted with a small diagonal cross Ee gee AE tn hy a ee Bezier control When this option is on and Show Layers gt Control Vectors is points are visible in off the control points become visible when the curve is selection selected _ a i Show arrow on Activate this option to see small arrows on every closepath closepath line Smooth outline Allows one to select between standard and smoothed rendering of the outline bri Show contour An outline consists of several contours and each contour is direction directional The direction of the contour is marked with a small arrow Pei Se a ue Leave echo while When editing contours the original contours shape position editing is shown gray Fill open contours When this option is off the open contour appears unfilled in fill outline preview mode B m E T 351 352 FontAudit FontAudit is a set of algorithms that analyses a glyph s outline to find errors that may decrease glyph rasterization quality To switch on FontAudit press the button on the Show Layers toolbar If FontAudit finds what it thinks is an error it shows an error mark in the editing field of the Glyph Window FontAudit error mark
589. software will enumerate such pairs as specific pairs Thus these pairs can be thought of as class exceptions to class pairs For example Y_LC y yacute ydieresis SMALL_PUNC comma semicolon period enum pos Y_LC semicolon 80 specific pairs pos f quoteright 30 specific pair pos Y_LC SMALL_PUNC 100 class pair The enum rule above can be replaced by pos y semicolon 80 pos yacute semicolon 80 pos ydieresis semicolon 80 without changing the effect on the font 869 870 Subtable Breaks The implementation software will insert a subtable break within a run of class pair rules if a single subtable cannot be created due to class overlap A warning will be given For example pos Ygrave colon semicolon 55 line 99 In first subtable pos Y Yacute period 50 line 100 In first subtable pos Y Yacute Ygrave period 60 line 101 In second subtable will produce a warning that a new subtable has been started at line 101 and that some kern pairs within this subtable may never be accessed The pair Ygrave period will have a value of 0 if the above example comprised the entire lookup since Ygrave is in the coverage i e union of the first glyphs of the first subtable Sometimes the class kerning subtable may get too large The editor can force subtable breaks at appropriate points by inserting the statement subtable between two class kerning rules The new subtable created will
590. sor on the leftmost point of the line in the graph and click the left mouse button In the Current position editing fields enter the lowest design coordinate for this axis or position the cursor on the leftmost point and drag it Do the same with the rightmost point to define the dynamic range If you want to define a more complex graph you can add points To add a point position the mouse cursor on the line segment where you want to add the point press the right mouse button and click the left button To move a point position the mouse cursor on the point press the left button and drag the point to a new position To enter the position of the point click on the point and enter the position of the point in the Current position editing fields To delete a point select it with a click and press on the x button Or you may just right click the point while dragging it Press the Apply button to accept any changes that you have made or Reset to return to the original design Choosing Dynamic Range When you define a design axis you should choose the proper edge design coordinates and dynamic range for it It is important to make your font compatible with Multiple Master fonts made by other manufacturers Dynamic range is not so important for the Style axis because there is no standard for it and it is relatively easy to set the dynamic range for Optical Size because it is usually known for this axis So we have the Weight and Width
591. sor on the selection press the left mouse button press the CTRL key and drag the selection to the place where you want it to be copied It is important to have the CTRL key pressed when you release the mouse button The Paste Special Command When the common Paste command is used all the glyphs layers are pasted from the Clipboard including guidelines bitmap background mask etc To get more control over the pasting procedure use the Paste Special command in the Edit menu The Paste Special dialog appears Paste special Select one or more glyph layers you want to paste m Outline A EEEE Right sidebearing O Ady width Left Reming Right Bering Mask Guidelines Drawing C Bitmap background C TrueType bitmaps C A staranna kao alhinbk to let you choose what glyph information you are pasting Check the checkboxes in the list for information that you want to be pasted Check Use the measurement line while copying sidebearings to calculate glyphs sidebearings on the basis of the measurement line Read more about this line in the Glyph Window chapter If you want to replace glyphs with the same names just switch the Ignore destination selection map glyphs by name option Click OK to finish pasting glyphs When pasting with this special command the destination selection does not have to be continuous i e you can select cells to be replaced in any order and combination The selection i
592. splay aspects of the Font Window and define how certain commends work Show Unicode indexes in captions in Unicode mode Double click opens Glyph Window Double click opens a new window Enable drag and drop Create Glyphs command generates them if possible All generated ligatures are right to left Sorting glyphs that are out of encoding Unnamed unencoded First w Only show glyph windows From active Font kerning information is copied with the glyph Show Unicode This option sets Unicode indexes in captions as the default indexes in captions choice for the Unicode mode in Unicode mode Double click opens If enabled double click on a glyph cell in the Font Window Glyph Window opens a Glyph Window If disabled double click does not yield any action Double click opens If this option is enabled each double click on a cell on a glyph a new window cell in the Font Window opens a new Glyph Window If disabled and there is already a Glyph Window open the glyph that the user double click on will be displayed in the existing Glyph Window This option works only if the previous option is enabled Enable drag and When enabled drag and drop operations work in the Font drop Window Drag and drop in the Index mode physically rearranges glyphs in your font Drag and drop in other modes of the Font Window is used to assign new code positions to existing glyphs Drag and drop between fonts can be used to append if in Index
593. sses ot_classes String containing OpenType classes text that appears in the bottom control of the OpenType panel features List of OpenType features Each element of the list is an object of the Feature class customdata A string that may contain any data you want to attach to a font This data is saved in the FontLab Studio font file so you can use this member to store information that is not editable by FontLab Studio tools truetypetables List of custom TrueType tables Each element of the list is an object of the TrueTypeTable class ttinfo TrueType information mostly hinting related tables glyphs Array of glyphs Each element of the array is an object of the Glyph class So for example if you want to see the advanced width of the glyph with index 12 you would write print fl font glyphs 12 width Here fl is an object of the FontLab Studio class that represents the FontLab Studio user interface font is the currently active font object of the Font class glyphs is a member of the Font class representing an array of glyphs 12 directs us to the 12 element of the glyphs array width is a member of the Glyph class representing the glyph s advance width A shorter way to access the glyphs of the font is to access the Font object as an array print len fl font print fl font 12 width The first line will print the number of glyphs in the font The second line is a shorter version of the example
594. st often at the beginning of the glyph collection in some cases it may improve performance 2 You may need to sort glyphs according to some logical sequence Some programs for example Adobe InDesign have a glyph insert feature that shows the collection of glyphs sorted exactly as it is in the font file Please note that sorting of the glyphs has no effect on glyph encoding or names To sort the glyphs choose one of the commands in the Sort Glyphs submenu of the Glyph menu Sort glyphs By name By Unicode By encoding This is the list of sorting options By Name Glyphs are sorted alphabetically by their names in ascending order By Unicode Glyphs are sorted by the assigned Unicode codepoints in ascending order Glyphs that don t have Unicode codepoints are stored at the end of the glyph collection By Encoding Glyphs are sorted according to the encoding table currently selected in the Names mode This option allows you to customize the sorting order using the definition encoding tables To preview the result of sorting switch the Font window to the Index mode by clicking this button in the Font Window command bar Working with Multiple Fonts In FontLab Studio you can open many fonts at once Since every font has its own Font window sometimes the FontLab Studio workspace becomes so crowded with windows that finding a particular font is not easy This section will explain how to use FontLab Studio tools that
595. ste Special 171 pasting glyphs 170 Paths 29 PCL 271 PCLT 271 PCLT Codepages 274 PCLT Identification 272 PCLT Metrics 273 PDF 148 PFA 115 PFB 115 PFM 20 95 531 610 612 PID 229 plane 130 142 193 Polish 129 Polygon 516 Positioning Lookups 864 PostScript 17 20 94 148 238 518 531 PPM 268 652 701 745 Preview mode 56 Preview Panel 60 293 376 TrueType 696 Type 1 680 printing 277 Font Sample 282 Font Table 279 Font Waterfall 284 Glyph List 281 Glyph Sample 286 Glyph Waterfall 288 Kerning Table 289 metrics 613 Private Use Area 154 Program Panel 692 project 115 204 Property Panel baseline 470 glyph 875 guideline 432 hint 484 metrics 471 567 node 374 selection 401 Smart Shapes 517 PUA 149 154 Python 29 60 204 883 884 885 886 889 890 891 894 898 899 QuarkXPress 96 Quick Save 566 Quick Test 291 R Random 638 Rearrange Contours 460 Reassign stems 629 Rectangle 516 red marks 343 reencoding 184 reference point 339 reference points 463 registry 62 Remove hints 628 Remove Overlap 625 renaming glyphs 182 Reordering Features 844 Replacement Points 676 Reverse Path 456 459 right to left 71 548 Rotate 408 623 Ruler 52 Rulers 320 S Sample String Navigating 545 save encoding 125 Scale 622 script 820 830 searching glyphs 180 selecting glyphs 181 selection move 407 property panel 401 rotate 408
596. ster fonts from MM fonts Tip If you have a font with one Weight axis that has a Light or Regular master and a Bold or Black master you can use the anisotropic interpolation to quickly create nearly optically correct condensed or extended fonts First create an anisotropic interpolated instance as shown on the picture above and then condense it using a normal scaling transformation This will produce condensed letterforms with visually equal stems that may require very minimal manual work to polish up 777 778 The Axis Graph Usually design coordinates are translated to the weight vector using simple linear calculations It is possible however to define a map for non linear calculations 6 Design coordinates 72 This map sets a series of points that map the design and blend coordinates Between these points linear interpolation is used this is called a piece wise linear function Usually this kind of axis graph or axis map in some literature is used for the Optical Size axis The Optical Size axis usually has a dynamic range of 6 72 The design coordinate 6 means the version of the typeface adjusted for 6 pt type The design coordinate 72 represents the typeface design for 72 pt type Between these values the blend coordinates are mapped using the axis graph as in the picture above This mapping gives better control of the variation of the design for the different design coordinates In this case it causes a more ra
597. still be in the same lookup so the editor must ensure that the coverages of the subtables thus created do not overlap For example pos Y Yacute period 50 In first subtable subtable Force a subtable break here pos A Aacute Agrave quoteright 30 In second subtable If the subtable statement were not present both rules would be represented within the same subtable Known Features OpenType feature processing is an application centric system The application knows which features it needs to apply and then searches the font for these features If a feature is present in the font it is applied To implement this system features must be standardized and registered so everybody will know what is done by a feature with a particular name The Microsoft Typography group performs feature registration http www microsoft com typography The full list of registered features may be found in this document OpenType Layout tag registry http www microsoft com typography otspec ttoreg htm This document contains descriptions of all name tags that can be used in an OpenType font for script language and feature names We will provide brief definitions of the most commonly used features init medi fina and isol Features These features are most commonly used in Arabic scripts and allow one to define four forms of Arabic characters initial final medial and isolated Isolated Final Medial Initial Note that Arabic text is wr
598. strator Saves the current metrics information in AFM Edits font header fields Generates TrueType Type 1 or OpenType font Opens bitmap background from an image file Import bitmap font file Opens EPS Adobe Illustrator file Opens a metrics file Creates a new font Opens existing fort 43 44 Links to External Programs Use the Tools page of the Customize dialog box to assign Windows programs to menu items in FontLab Studio s Tools menu Customize Commands Toolbars Tools Keyboard Menu Options Menu contents Command Arguments Initial director There is a list of the assigned programs in the middle of the page and it is empty by default Click this button El to add a link Enter the name of the program as it will appear in the menu Then use the button at the right of the Command editing field to locate the program to run g Editing fields at the bottom of the Command field allow you to define arguments for the program you want to run from FontLab Studio s menu Use the button at the top of the Tools list to remove the reference to the program and the and buttons to change the order of the commands You may use special parameters to run external programs with the currently opened font as an argument When FontLab Studio recognizes this argument it will replace it with the file name of the currently active font or with some other param
599. surround the nodes with a rectangle Hold down the SHIFT key to reverse the selection state of the nodes To select or deselect individual nodes just shift click them To select the contour segment line or curve shift click on it To select the whole contour double click the contour not the node with the left mouse button or press the CTRL key and click anywhere on the empty area close to the contour Hold down the Suirr key to reverse the selection state of the contour s nodes To select all the contours in a glyph use the Edit gt Select all command To deselect all nodes click the left mouse button somewhere in the free space of the editing field or use the Edit gt Deselect command To reverse the selection state of all nodes in the glyph use the Edit gt Invert Selection command Using the Magic Wand Tool With the Magic Wand you can easily and precisely select contours It is especially useful when you are working with glyphs that have many contours such as Far Eastern ideographs To select the contour with the Magic Wand tool just activate the tool press 4 on the keyboard and click anywhere near the contour You don t need to be precise FontLab Studio will automatically locate the closest contour To reverse the selection state of the contour hold down the Suirr key and click anywhere near it You can also select a contour and all contours that are inside it Just hold the Arr key when you
600. switch between different UI arrangements You can also share your workspaces with different users To reset your current workspace to the default factory state or to launch FontLab Studio with a different workspace hold Crru while starting the application A dialog box will appear Reset Workspace panels IF you wank you can also reset all UI customization to defaults or to one of predefined combinations A with this operation you will reset all settings For windows and C Reset UI to default state Reset UI to the following predefinied state Resetthe wT and you will be able to choose to start FontLab Studio with the current or the default UI or to load one of the workspaces FontLab Studio Options Most of the features behavior import and export algorithms of FontLab Studio are customizable in the Options dialog box In FontLab Studio 5 the Options dialog box has been significantly expanded There are more options so there are more choices We encourage you to experiment with the settings and adapt them to your preferences However note that the authors have carefully chosen the factory settings so if you don t feel like poking around the Options in most cases you will be fine with the defaults To open the Options dialog box select the Options command in the Tools menu Options User interface Font window l Glyph window Allow to enter Unicode strings in dialogs Metrics window Windows 2000 or
601. t decompose Write PFM AFM and INF Generate Unicode files Select encoding automatically Type 1 OT PS Do not decompose Autohinting off do not Generate Unicode reencode Decompose on Generate basic OT Type 1 TrueType Do not decompose All hinting options on OT TT Generate Unicode Generate basic OT Of course you can choose other options but when you just want to convert a font from one format to another these recommended combinations of opening and generating options will usually give you fonts that will work fine in most environments 313 314 Testing Fonts We recommend using available font validation software Many good font validation software packages are available for free or included in the system FontQA A quality assurance application framework written in Python that runs within FontLab Studio for Mac OS or Windows It includes various tests to be run before you generate your font http www fontga com Microsoft Font Validator A free testing application for OpenType PS or TT fonts published by Microsoft Runs on Microsoft Windows http www microsoft com typography FontValidator mspx Apple ftxvalidator A free command line validator for OpenType PS or TT fonts published by Apple Runs on Mac OS X Font Book in Mac OS X 10 4 also validates fonts when installing them http developer apple com fonts OSXTools html Adobe FDK for OpenType A free set of tools that includes several validation
602. t direction to the current hinting direction When this option is deactivated delta offset direction will be fixed and you have to press Suirt key to free it You may click Apply button to immediately see results of the new options in the Preview panel 735 736 Context Menu If you press the right mouse button in the free space of the Glyph Window edit field you will see a popup menu Cancel Reset Program Remove H Commands Remove Y Commands Remove Final Deltas Remove All Deltas Convert Hints to Instructions Reassign Stems 4utohinting Options Macro The commands available in this menu are Cancel Closes the menu Remove H CommandsRemoves all horizontal commands including delta instructions Convert Hints to Tries to convert Type 1 hints and links to visual hints You Instructions can use this command as a kind of TrueType autohinting If a glyph doesn t have any Type 1 hints use the Tools gt Hints amp Guides gt Autohint command to generate them Follow with the Convert Hints command to generate a TrueType hinting program for the glyph Reassign Stems Checks all single and double links that are attached to one of standard stems and tries to automatically select the best stem for the link length Autohinting options Opens the Autohinting options dialog box that lets you customize the process of converting Type 1 hints to TrueType instructions This dialog box is described below
603. t in the current Font Overall metrics compatibility is 41 21 Average width difference is 176 Metrics file includes 0 kerning pairs O of which are new what do you want to do with metrics Replace only metrics that are close to current Allowed difference between ao So what do you want to do with kerning Do nothing what do you want to do with other Do nothing The topmost control contains a legend describing the metrics file that you are importing and its compatibility with the current font 610 The options in the Parameters area let you select various metrics importing options What do you want to do with the metrics data Do nothing Do not import metrics data from this file Replace all metrics Import all metrics data glyphs widths and in the current font sidebearings and replace the metrics data in the current font We recommend that you use this option only if your font is very similar to the metrics file that you are importing Replace all metrics that are Replace only those metrics records that are similar to close to current the imported metrics The Possible difference between metrics option controls the allowed difference Replace metrics that are These options are obvious thinner than in the current font Replace metrics that are wider than in the current font What do you want to do with the kerning data Do nothing Do not import kerning data from the metrics file Comp
604. t of higher level instructions are used to define hints These instructions are compiled to native TrueType hinting language during font export 655 656 Type 1 Hints As you know from the Glyph Window chapter there are two kinds of Type 1 Hints font level hints and character level hints Font level hints define important vertical positions in the font the most commonly used stem widths and some other important data that helps control the hinting process Character level hints are used to declare the position and width of the most important character elements The most common use for hints is to declare the position and width of character stems These hints are scaled with the outline in the rendering stage but due to their independence from the outline they help to maintain the same stem widths for all stems of a certain width independent of how it happens to fall on the discrete raster z vad a WN on COOLE D v aAA XAK A d SS zo A A f C b S b S 4 a a OO A A or ssa 2 i AA A A AA A A AA A Y Y Y IN X A A LA A d A X AA AA y LX _ gt N Unhinted character Hinted character Notice that in the unhinted character the outline falls on the grid such that two rows of pixels would be turned on for the right vertical stem The hint forces the right
605. t of this properties area depends on the current mode of the Metrics window 533 Editing Modes The Metrics window may work in four different modes Text mode Is used to enter and edit text in the main editing area Works very similar to any standard text editor such as Notepad Preview mode This mode is used to preview text with kerning applied and check it at different sizes Also the position and width of the underline and middle stroke line can be adjusted in this mode Metrics mode This mode is used to adjust the metrics of individual glyphs Kerning is not visible in the metrics mode Kerning mode In this mode you can edit pair kerning both flat and class based Other things that appear in the Metrics window are the Ruler Panel and Table 534 Metrics Ruler The Metrics Ruler is a narrow bar located above the editing area ll Its purpose is very simple to provide an overview of metrics and kerning data for the current line of text in the editing area The Metrics Ruler shows the width of the glyphs in the middle of the glyph cell and kerning Kerning data appears on a light blue background if kerning is negative as in the AV pair and on a yellow background when kerning is positive Of course kerning information appears on the ruler only when the Metrics window is in kerning or preview mode The Metrics Ruler also may be used to create new global guidelines but we will talk about that later You can con
606. t sticky So temporary points do not snap to the grid guidelines hints or anything else 2 Ifyou choose a temporary point near one of the ends of a curve you will move that end not just change the curve s shape This is a useful method to locate a curve s endpoints 3 When you press the mouse button to begin non node editing you will see that the endpoints of the curve as well as the control vectors appear simplifying the editing of this segment 4 Ifyou want to highlight the line or curve but don t want to modify it hold down the CTRL key while clicking on the line or curve If you drag a point on a curve its control vectors may change direction To fix the direction of the control vectors hold down the Arr key and double click the node You will see the connection mark turn yellow A tT double click it again to remove the fixed state Alternatively you can right click the node and use the Fixed BCP Direction option to control this feature You can also fix the direction of all control vectors when you edit a curve using non nodes editing Open the Options dialog box the Tools gt Options menu select the Glyph Window page and use the following option oe rrs m mm All BCR s are fixed oe 361 362 Changing Connection Type The type of connection between segments is very important in maintaining the smoothness of contours Connections can be of two types smooth and sharp If a con
607. t that you want to check and open and clear the Edit Macro panel Type in the following simple program for g in fl font glyphs if len g 0 and len g components 0 print g name Run the program and check the results in the output panel Let s talk a little about the code above for g in fl font glyphs This line starts a loop that assigns the variable g to each of the glyphs contained in the current font which is referenced as fl font if len g 0 and len g components 0 This line compares the length of the glyph outline and the length of the components array which contains all components with zero and if there are neither outline nor components it executes the next line print g name If the condition given in the second line is true this line prints the glyph name As you can see with only 3 lines of code we have solved a problem that typically takes about 30 minutes to perform 895 FontLab Studio Python Classes In this section we will discuss a basic set of FontLab Studio classes and variables The full specification is available as a separate document for download from our site www fontlab com and most classes are also self documented For example to print a short reference of the class Font type in the Edit Macro panel print Font __doc__ And check the Output panel for the reference Note the two underscore characters before and after the doc FontLab The hi
608. t the font whose glyphs you want to put into the Mask layer of the current font it may be the same font If you select a Multiple Master font scroll bars and edit controls will appear allowing you to select an intermediate design of the font If you switch on Create new glyphs if they do not exist in the font options then FontLab Studio will create definitions for glyphs that are present in the mask font but absent in the current font The newly defined glyphs will not have an outline but they will have a Mask layer that you can use as a template You can apply the operation only to the glyphs selected in the Font Window Check the Assign mask only to selected glyphs option in this case 443 444 Global Mask Layer A global mask is a kind of mask that is font wide and appears in all Glyph Windows Global Mask features and operations are very similar to those of a Mask you can copy a selected part of any glyph to the Global Mask layer copy a local mask to the Global Mask layer paste the Global Mask layer to the outline layer or clean the Global Mask layer If the snap to global mask function View gt Snap to Layers is on and the Global Mask layer is visible View gt Show Layers all nodes in all glyphs will snap to the template Commands related to the Global Mask layer are concentrated in the Tools gt Mask menu Copy Outline to Global Copies the selected area of the glyph outline or the Mask whole outline if
609. tables that unnecessary increase the size of the font and may hamper the performance of some applications Therefore in OpenType fonts a more sophisticated kerning approach called class based kerning has been developed to help address this problem Class Based Kerning Some glyphs have a very similar appearance on both sides All these glyphs have the same shape on the right side It seems natural to group such similar glyphs into glyph classes and then define kerning between these classes This approach may dramatically decrease the number of individual kerning pairs to declare Class kerning when defined for a font may be used during the design process to decrease the amount of kerning work In Type 1 MM and old style TrueType fonts class based kerning should be converted to plain kerning before the font is generated In OpenType PS and TT fonts class based kerning may be exported directly it will be directly supported by applications that support OpenType Layout features such as Adobe InDesign Adobe Illustrator CS Adobe Photoshop CS TextEdit Pages or Keynote on Mac OS X Mellel on Mac OS X and many others In addition for OpenType PS fonts the Adobe system font rasterizer ATM on Windows and Mac OS X automatically converts the Western European subset of the class based kerning included in the font into plain kerning when the font is installed 529 530 Vertical Glyph Metrics When typing text in some Asian l
610. tance information FontLab can open data files saved by itself and kerning assistance files saved from Fontographer In the latter case FontLab will automatically generate kerning classes and check them in the list similarly to the Fontographer Kerning Assistance dialog box K Save data file Saves current kerning assistance information to a data file so you can apply it to a different font Select all Checks all items in the current list left or right C Deselect Unchecks all items in the current list 601 602 Defining a New Class You can define a new kerning class without leaving the Kerning assistance dialog box Click on the button and enter the class name and list of glyphs in the panel that is below the preview panel Click the accept button to add the new class to the lists Do not forget to mark the key glyph of the class with the single quote character _kerni A Agrave Editing the Class Code Use the class panel located below the preview to change the class remove or add glyphs Click on the accept button to put the changes into effect Expanding Kerning Sometimes you may need to convert class based kerning into a plain kerning table To do so click the Expand Kerning button You will see a dialog box that lets you customize the expanding process Expand Kerning aTa with this Function you can convert class based kerning to some pair if kerning table Mote that this may result in generation of thousa
611. ter covers FontLab Studio tools panels and features that deal with creation and editing of OpenType font features ligatures small caps fractions alternative glyphs etc Macro Programming This chapter includes a short description and demonstration of the Python programming language and its integration into the FontLab Studio user interface Python can be used to create custom tools and operations within FontLab Studio A brief description of the FontLab Studio classes exported to Python is provided System Requirements The Windows version of FontLab Studio requires one of the following hardware and software configurations A PC computer capable of running one of the following versions of Windows Windows 98 Windows ME Windows NT 4 0 Windows 2000 or Windows XP with one of these operating systems installed At least 10Mb of free space on the hard disk drive and at least 64 MB RAM FontLab Studio will start on 32 MB RAM but you will need more RAM to open bigger fonts 23 FontLab Studio User Interface Before we start talking about fonts and the FontLab Studio font editing features let s spend some time learning the FontLab Studio user interface For the most part it is a standard Windows interface so if you know how to navigate in Windows or in Microsoft Office you will feel comfortable with FontLab Studio In other parts it is unique and that is where we will focus Most of the interface elements in FontLab Studio 5 are c
612. ter you click OK in the dialog box FontLab Studio will scan all the feature definitions and replace the old glyph name with the new one Note that you can enter a glyph class definition as a replacement string for instance to replace one by Lone two three Compiling the Feature Definitions When you import or create OpenType features they exist in form of the text based feature definition language To convert them to the usable binary format of the GSUB and GPOS OpenType tables they must undergo a process called compilation During compilation the feature definition language text is checked for errors and glyph reverences are verified When everything is confirmed OK the text is converted to binary form which you can preview or export To compile feature definitions click on the 2 button on the toolbar FontLab Studio will try to compile the features and if there are errors during the compilation they are put into a special Output panel There is one special error message if glyphs are referenced by the feature definition but do not exist in the font FontLab Studio will show the warning message Warning As Some glyphs do not exist in the current font Do you want FontLab to create those glyphs Do you want FontLab to create those glyphs If you click Yes FontLab Studio will try to create the glyphs using their names as the source of information The same algorithm as in the Generate Glyphs operation describe
613. text fields within FontLab Studio e g the Preview panel or the Metrics Window you need to use the glyphname and Unicode notation With this option enabled you will be able to directly enter the subset of extended characters that is supported by the current system codepage You can set your system codepage in Control Panel gt Regional and Language Options gt Advanced gt Language for non Unicode programs E g when you are working on a Cyrillic font and would like to enter Cyrillic characters directly instead of the slash backslash notation enable this option set Russian in Control Panel and restart your machine You may want to disable this option when making changes to Font Info gt Names and Copyright gt Additional OpenType names With this option disabled you will always see the hexadecimal codes for extended characters Automatically open Python macros OpenType compilation operations and some Output panel other elements of FontLab Studio write out text outputs into the Output panel With the option enabled the Output panel will appear every time a new message appears With the option disables the Output panel will stay always hidden if you close it Sample text The font previews in the Open and Generate dialog boxes use the string specified here to preview the font Font used in Python Allows you to choose a custom font for use in the Edit Macro and OpenType panel and the OpenType panel editors Output panel f
614. text menu at the bottom Tools menu or in the menu that appears if you click on the button in the Metrics window toolbar Enter kerning pairs followed by a kerning value in the editing box in the top You will see a preview of the kerning in the panel below Add Kerning Pairs New pairs 1st name znd name value separated by space or comma Y 100 T 70 AV AT You can paste kerning data from a text editor or table application or click on the button to read kerning data from a text file 575 576 Automatic Kerning Generation The easiest way to apply kerning to a font is to use FontLab Studio s autokerning algorithm This algorithm analyzes the shape of the glyphs in the given pairs and automatically kerns them You can control the pairs list that the autokerning algorithm processes as well as other parameters To define kerning automatically press the button on the toolbar or select the Auto Kerning command in the popup menu The Automatic Kerning Generation dialog box appears Automatic Kerning Generation You wank to generate kerning For al pairs in the Following list Pairs list Standard Respect kerning classes How much white space do you want to leave between glyphs Custom g w Custom 40 When do you wank to keep existing kerning Never l y 10 Yo Allow For positive kerning Maximum number of pairs to generate Smallest allowable kern absolube value
615. th and the Height of the stroke The resulting contours will be closed anyway In the latter case you may specify brush size and shape Width is the width of the brush ellipse at its widest part Angle is the degree of the brush ellipse slant and Roundness is the relation in percent of the narrow and wide widths of the brush ellipse Below is a sample of the path expand with different brushes O The next line of options specifies the way the expanding algorithm will process the contour corners and the ends of an open contour Flat contour ends vs round ends The last option lets you specify the shape of the brush stroke When you finish selecting options click OK to expand the selected contours 421 422 Make Parallel Path With this operation you can create a path that is parallel to any existing path The method of selecting contours for processing is simple all contours that have at least one node selected will be taken into account If no nodes are selected the whole glyph outline is processed Select the contours that you want to process and choose the Contour gt Paths gt Make Parallel Path command from the menu You will see a dialog box for specifying the options of the command Parallel Contour Relative position Left Right Both Remove the original Generate closed contour Contour offset 20 0 l E Uniform The relative position section lets you specify the side of the origina
616. that you can add remove move or rename A special property of anchors is that you can use them in macro programs and in the automatic glyph construction feature To add an anchor right click anywhere in the empty space of the editing field and select the Add Anchor command in the popup menu Ey Add Anchor You will see a new anchor by default it is a small red cross and an editing field asking you to enter a name for the anchor 4 Name the anchor and click the ENTER key to complete 501 502 Moving Anchors To move an anchor just drag it with the Edit tool You will see the anchor position highlighted while you are dragging it 338 842 Removing Anchors To remove an anchor right click it and select the Delete command in the popup menu Renaming Anchors To rename an anchor right click it and choose the Rename command Change the anchor name in the editing field Changing Anchor Color You may choose one of five colors to mark the anchor Right click the anchor select the Mark command from the popup menu and choose the color Red Blue Green Magenta Cyan Anchor Properties Crru click the anchor or right click and choose the Properties command in the menu Properties to open the anchor Properties panel Anchors Properties X Anchor top C315 242 _bottom 202 512 lett 101 96 right 270 107 anchor 403 333 Positions 483 iz f
617. the lt metric gt represents an X advance adjustment except when used in the vkrn feature in which case it represents a Y advance adjustment All other adjustments are implicitly set to 0 This is the simplest feature file lt valuerecord gt format and is provided since it represents the most commonly used adjustment i e for kerning For example 3 without lt gt lt 3 gt with lt gt Value record format B lt lt metric gt lt metric gt lt metric gt lt metric gt gt Here the lt metric gt s represent adjustments for X placement Y placement X advance and Y advance in that order For example lt 80 0 160 0 gt X placement adj 80 X advance adj 160 Single Positioning A Single Pos rule is specified as position lt glyph glyphclass gt lt valuerecord gt Here the lt glyph glyphclass gt is adjusted by the lt valuerecord gt 8 2 e iv For example to reduce the left and right sidebearings of a glyph each by 80 design units position one lt 80 0 160 0 gt To shift the glyph up by 100 units position A lt 0 100 0 100 gt Note that we changed the placement by 100 units but compensated for that with a 100 change applied to advance This is needed to shift only the current glyph and not the following glyphs in the string 867 868 Pair Positioning Rules for this lookup type are usually used for kerning and must follow this format position lt glyph glyphclass gt lt gly
618. the Metrics Table Click on this E button on the Metrics Window toolbar or this button on the bottom bar to open the table Mame idth Left Right A T3 1 E ER 31 Eq C T4 45 ao D 513 29 42 E B30 46 24 F 138 J2 12 G 518 45 36 H 553 J9 af l oF z0 4 J Jaz FT 16 K Ti J 10 L EEZ oa 16 ha 931 5 31 H 793 ee 4 E oe 45 45 F BOF 31 13 F a15 45 32 1 R Bay ae 13 5 ade BE I2 T Wz a 10 J 746 5 T if TAC 30 149 All glyphs In metrics editing mode this table has four columns Name contains the glyph name Width Left left sidebearing and Right right sidebearing You can click on the header of each column to sort table rows according to the related value name width left or right sidebearing This is very useful in finding glyphs whose metrics have particular properties 559 560 To edit any of the metrics values click on the table cell and enter the new value Click Enter to accept it or Esc to cancel You can filter the glyphs that are listed in the table To do so use the Filter selector control below the table All glyphs Selected glyphs Glyphs in encoding If you choose Selected glyphs only the glyphs that are selected in the Font window will appear in the table Similarly if you select Glyphs in encoding only glyphs that are in the current yellow zone of the Font window will go into the table Metrics in the table are calculated according to the current state of the measurement
619. the Metrics window Adjust Metrics Changes sidebearings and kerning by the given value in font units or in percentage Set Width Set width to Center character w HM Shift the Mask layer This action lets you set a fixed width for all glyphs that are selected in the Font window It is the fastest way to make a monospaced font select all glyphs open the Actions dialog set the desired width and press the OK button In the parameter panel you can choose what to do with glyphs that are thinner than the requested advanced width A glyph may be aligned to the left or right margins or it may be centered in the advance width Set Sidebearings fs eaa 50 ve D om Affect composites Shift Mask Lirnit Bbox Use this action to change the sidebearings values of the glyphs You can set new values for the left or right sidebearings or change these values by entering the amount in font units So if you think that your font needs some more white space just select this action choose the Increase by option in the list boxes and enter the value by which you want to increase the sidebearings If the Affect composites option is off the action will not be applied to composite glyphs Here is a sample of increased glyph widths Sample text Center glyph This action simply centers the glyph in the advance width Before centering After centering 631 632 Autospacing Leave white space around gly
620. the current character and a preview of a string at the current PPM size TrueType Preview Sample string edit The quick brown fox Preview window 1225 5BBBBEBEBBBBBBD Waterfall preview BF amp 3 10 ii di 1244 15 Bir is is 20 i 22 22 fa 5 To open the Preview panel if it s not already open press the Ll button on the toolbar If you enter any characters in the edit field you will see these characters appear in the top of the preview window Use the usual FontLab Studio rules to enter special characters enter the character name after a slash character or two slashes to enter a slash You may also drag selected characters from the Font Window and drop them in the Preview window With the waterfall preview you can quickly select the current PPM Just move the cursor to the sample PPM you want to select and double click the left mouse button How FontLab Studio Previews TrueType Fonts FontLab Studio uses the real Windows TrueType rasterizer to give an exact preview of the TrueType hinting for the Preview panel the Pixels layer in the Glyph Window and the preview window in the Options panel To get a preview FontLab Studio implements the following steps 1 T FontLab Studio creates a very small TrueType font that includes the empty notdef character current character and all characters from the sample string of the Preview panel All characters in this font are mapped to codes starting from t
621. the editable sample text It s very useful for comparing spacing and kerning to some standard string that is representative for your font 4 T43 T46 2T s04 411 500 500 500 35 660 45 Enter some text close the dialog box and then use the sample string scroll buttons or the CTRL PGUP and CTRL PGDN keyboard shortcuts to see how it works Do not forget to click on the editing area before using any shortcuts 543 544 Entering Text in Text Mode You may edit text in the editing area similarly to how you do it in any text editor Just activate the Text tool on the Metrics Tools toolbar Mi Ay You can also select Text in the mode selection menu in the local command area docked to the bottom Preview Metrics kerning After the tool is activated you will see a caret cursor in the editing area Start typing text You may also drag select text and use the Edit gt Copy and Edit gt Paste commands to move blocks of text inside the Metrics window or from external applications 636 267 256 256 254 356 426 426 254 427 254 411 427 341 426 313 254 411 506 341 356 438 341 254267 532 254 313 533 426 25401 After the tool is activated you will see a in the editing area Start typing text The Copy paste feature of the text tool is compatible with Unicode so if you paste some Unicode text it will appear unchanged if characters of that text are present in this font Check the sample string editing field you w
622. the hint property panel you can modify the position of a hint in the upper edit box and modify the width of the hint in the lower box Press the ENTER key or click the mouse outside of the properties panel to apply the changes Link Properties Panel In the Link properties panel you can modify a link s properties enter the index numbers of the two nodes which you want to connect by the link in the editing fields or check the Ghost Link checkbox to make a link into a ghost link Alignment Zones Most fonts have square and round glyphs Round glyphs like O and Q usually have 3 4 overshoot on the bottom and top Overshoot is the amount that a glyph extends above or below its nominal top or bottom It is used to optically correct the appearance of round glyphs which tend to appear too small at their nominal height When a font is rendered on a device with limited resolution it is often necessary to suppress the overshoots to make a line of text look smooth Top alignment zone Bottom alignment zone This whole process is described in full detail in the Hinting chapter Here we will only discuss the basic modification of the layer with the Edit tool To let a font rendering program perform overshoot suppression you need to declare overshoots using alignment zones You can modify alignment zones with the Edit tool just drag the bottom or top line of the zone to c
623. the polygon tool will try to add will be a curve To switch between adding a straight segment or a curve use the Tas key on the keyboard Repeat steps 3 and 4 for all points of the polygon Click the right mouse button to finish creating the polygon The Brush Trace mode of the polygon tool works just like the normal contour mode 393 394 Ellipse and Rectangle Tools The Ellipse and Rectangle tools are very similar The only difference is in the result To draw an ellipse or rectangle 1 2 Select the tool that you want to use Position the mouse cursor on the spot where you want to place one of the rectangle corners or on one of the corners of the rectangle that surrounds the ellipse If you hold down the Arr key the mouse cursor will become the center of a rectangle or ellipse Press the left mouse button and drag the mouse to define the rectangle or ellipse Hold down the Suirtr key to draw a square or a circle Release the button to finish creating the rectangle ellipse Text Tool With the Text tool you can add text to a glyph Carefully select the color mode when planning to use the text tool It is usually best to use the Empty color because in that mode the text stroke will not interact with the existing contour and you will be able to adjust its position using the Edit tool or the Free Transform operation Select the Automatic Activation of Transform Operation option in the Paint Options
624. the row 16 v T Cell caption Name Glyph List Print glyph index in every cell Select the Font Table item in the list at the left to print a font chart containing samples of all font glyphs Choose how many cells you want to be printed in one row The fewer cells will be printed in a row the larger will be each cell and the more pages you will get printed Choose information for the cells caption This option is similar to the caption popup menu in the Font window 279 5 Select whether to print glyph index in every cell or not and click OK You will see the standard Windows Print dialog box that will ask you to choose a printer and modify the printer settings Printer Name eros Phaser 3400 PEL 6 E Status Ready Type wema Phaser 3400 PCL 6 Where Phaser 3400 Comment C Print to file Print range Copies All Number of copies 1 Pages from A In this dialog you can choose the range of pages you want to print When you press the OK button FontLab Studio will print a font table containing samples for all font glyphs If you print a Multiple Master font the glyphs will appear according to the current font s WeightVector Printout of the font chart FONTLAB FONT PRINTOUT 10EST 10244558 NeaGothic Page 1 101 percent anpe quokssing pareniaft paranright cstansk plus 280 Printing Glyph List To print the glyph list of the current font n Select the Print c
625. the vertical size of the preview panel You can choose other sizes in the Size popup menu Tr T w Uta Custom et 36 fe 96 The Preview panel can work in two modes string preview and waterfall preview You can switch to the waterfall mode in the Preview Options E a a T maa PTAA s aterfall m Glyph Group i Show Metrics Vertical Orientation PTL Right to Left Note that the waterfall preview is possible only when the Glyph Window is active With the Show Metrics command in the Preview Options menu you can activate metrics preview mode In this mode you can see a preview of every glyph and its width If you are working with Arabic or Hebrew script you may need to preview a sample string in right to left mode Use the Right to Left command in the Preview Options menu to activate this mode The Glyph Group command will show you the current glyph for example A along with other glyphs from the same shapes group m 379 380 The following three buttons allow you to flip previewed glyphs vertically horizontally or to see the preview inverted B B r Vertical and horizontal mirrors will help you to observe glyphs but not meaningful words pe tue dnicK Vertical Preview The Vertical Orientation command in the Preview Options menu turns the preview into vertical preview mode d OpenType Features Preview Anchors waterfall Glyph Group Show Metrics
626. the width of a width aspect ratio candidate for the hint and the length of the straight segment that builds that candidate Remove all Allows you to remove all existing hints before autohinting the existing hints glyph If this option is switched off new hints will be added to before autohinting the existing hint set Of course a hint substitution program will be built Note that all values are set for a 1000 UPM font and are automatically scaled by FontLab Studio according to the real UPM size 482 Some recommendations 1 If you want FontLab Studio to generate thin hints horizontal serif hints for example set the Min width parameter to a value less then the width of the serif Use the Meter tool to measure the width of the serif Set Min width to a value that is greater than the serif width to prevent FontLab Studio from autohinting the serifs the real width of the serif in the picture is 18 units Min width 20 Min width 10 Decrease the Min length value to generate more hints Increase the value to generate only the most important hints Increase the Max width value if you are working on a black or heavy font that has very thick stems 483 484 Hint Properties Panel To open the hint properties panel Crri click one of the hint lines or right click and choose the Properties command in the popup menu Properties Hint Properties Horizontal hirit Position 756 F width 20 In
627. ther characters are not To fix this problem a special technique called kerning has been developed A good example is the Av pair In the following picture you can see two examples of inter character spacing with and without kerning Av Av With kerning Without kerning You can see that only the kerned image is optically correct because it can compensate for the problem caused by the special form of the v and A glyphs printed in sequence that leaves too much space between the letters Older font formats Type 1 MM TrueType without OpenType tables implement kerning using kerning pair lists Each kerning pair defines the number of font units usually negative by which the right sidebearing of the first glyph in a pair should be horizontally shifted when the glyph is followed by a specified second glyph In the example above the advance width of the A glyph may be 400 units and the advance width of the v glyph 250 units The kerning pair A v 50 defines that if A is followed by y the advance width of A should be reduced by 50 units A typical problem of the plain kerning pair list approach is that for accented characters many duplicate pairs need to be included in the font The pairs Av Av v etc usually should be kerned by the same amount yet each of them needs to be included separately in the font otherwise it will not be kerned This results in rather large
628. tion 161 Context Menu Most commands available in the Font window can be selected from the context menu To open the context menu press the right mouse button anywhere in the chart area or just push the Space key once Here is a sample of the Font window context menu Width d ER Copy ctrl E Delete Delete Action Ctrl T E Add Note Rename 9 Cbrl CircumPlex accent Mark d More Select Encoding Select Modified Glyphs dd Suffix to Name Open Glyph Window Properties Alt Enter Macro Current Glyph is Default Remove Unicode 162 Here is what the commands mean Width Allows you to easily select one of the predefined widths of the Font window The width is defined in cells Copy Copies the selected glyphs onto the Clipboard Same as the Copy command from the Edit menu Paste Places glyphs from the Clipboard into the font starting from the first selected cell Same as the Paste command from the Edit menu Delete Deletes the selected glyphs Same as the Delete command from the Edit menu Action Opens the Actions dialog box Refer to the Actions chapter for more detailed information about actions Same as the Action command from the Tools menu Add Note Adds a Note to the current glyph Rename Opens a rename dialog box Mark Marks the selected glyph s a color Allows you to select one of the five predefined colors one of 255 custom colors or remove the marking More Submenu with more c
629. tion There are two other methods to set delta instructions The simplest method is to select the Middle Delta tool position the mouse cursor over the point you want to move and drag the point in the needed direction Hold down the Suirr key to move the point only in the current hinting direction horizontal or vertical While you are dragging the mouse to set the instruction you will see its value both near the end of the line and on the Meter panel 4 7 wh 4 You can also right click any point on the outline and select the delta command in the Ser Middle Dela 5 context menu Set Final Delta d Cancel Align Point 5 l 2 4 4 6 f g 725 726 Active and Inactive Delta Instructions Delta instructions may be active or inactive When the current PPM is within the PPM range of the delta instruction the instruction is active Otherwise it is inactive gt Active delta instruction shift up ss Inactive delta instruction Note if you set a new middle delta instruction at a point where a delta instruction is already set and is active the old instruction will be replaced by the new one If you set delta instructions for the same point and with the same shift distance but for different PPM ranges FontLab Studio will try to combine PPM ranges and unite delta instructions where it is possible Customizing the Delta Instruction Right click the delta instruction mark to get access to the context m
630. tion from the Metrics Window When disabled the kern table will not be included It is highly recommend to enable this option for TrueType OpenType TT fonts For OpenType PS fonts the OpenType specification does not envision the kern table to be part of OpenType PS fonts but it is possible to include the table nonetheless Mac OS X and Adobe applications will read and use this table If the plain kern table is not included in the OpenType TT font and the font is used in a non OpenType savvy application no kerning will be available If the plain kern table is not included in the OpenType PS font and the font is used in a non OpenType savvy application the Adobe font driver will automatically build a kern table on the fly by using the Western subset of the OpenType GPOS kern feature kerning Expand class When enabled the plain kern table kerning will include kerning plain kerning generated from the kerning information available in the Metrics window combined with the class information from the Classes panel This may result in a very large number of kerning pairs 109 Generate only With this setting you can subset the expanded kerning Only pairs with glyphs kerning pairs for glyphs included in the specified codepage in following will be included in the expanded plain kern kerning codepage Limit total With this setting you can limit the number of kerning pairs number of pairs included
631. tions Export Unicode codepage if codepage mode is active FR ee eae ne Always write Standard Encoding Export Unicode codepage if codepage mode is active Select encoding autornaticall When you generate a Type 1 font the most important encoding choice is to choose between one of two encoding forms e Standard Encoding e custom encoding Standard Encoding is a special Type 1 encoding created by Adobe Systems Instead of enumerating all the code positions in the font the Standard Encoding font leaves the actual encoding to the system font driver and on the other hand the system font driver knows what characters can be expected in the font StandardEncoding is the recommended choice if your font is a typical Western Roman font If you generate a Mac Type 1 font on FontLab Studio for Mac with Standard Encoding Mac OS will know that the font is a standard Western Roman font and will automatically match the font s encoding to the system Mac Roman codepage Similarly when you generate a Windows Type 1 font with Standard Encoding Windows will know that the font is a standard Western Roman font and will automatically match the font s encoding to the system Windows 1252 Western ANSI codepage Also if the user of such fonts create documents in some applications e g QuarkXPress for Mac and Windows the applications will automatically re encode the documents when moving between platforms Custom encoding is any Type 1 encodi
632. tive the font will be generated using custom encoding that will exactly reflect the active encoding table Type 1 Western Roman group If Tools gt Options gt Generating Type 1 gt Encoding Options is set to Select encoding automatically or Export Unicode codepage then FontLab will generate a Standard Encoding encoded Type font if one of the encodings from this group is active Please refer to the FontLab Studio Options section for more discussion on this Use any of these encodings when you are working on a typical Western Roman Type 1 font If you are working on a Western Roman Type font that will be generated as Windows Type 1 and as Mac Type 1 use MacOS Roman as your encoding since this will give you the entire character set that is required to be present in your font Adobe The native representation of the Adobe Standard Encoding Standard Encoding Default Encoding The simulation of what a Standard Encoding encoded Type 1 font will appear to the user if installed on the current operating system MS Windows 1252 The simulation of what a Standard Encoding encoded Type 1 Western ANSI font will appear to the user if installed on Microsoft Windows MacOS Roman The simulation of what a Standard Encoding encoded Type 1 font will appear to the user if installed on Mac OS Use this when you are working on a typical Western Roman Type font Type 1 non Western groups If any of the encodings from these groups is activ
633. tive and you have a system or program crash you can open your last saved font from the Autosave folder 169 170 Copying and Pasting Glyphs To copy selected glyphs select the Copy command from the Edit menu Note that this copies not only the glyph outline but also the glyph information such as its name The selected glyphs will be placed in the Windows Clipboard and can be pasted into the same font or into another font by the Paste command from the same menu Glyphs from the Clipboard will be placed starting from the first selected glyph in the destination font If the destination position is occupied by existing glyphs a warning dialog box appears Warning You have dropped glyphs at the places used by the glyphs with names listed below semicolon less equal greater question Keep replaced symbols under new names Leave Keep replaced symbols under new names checked to save the glyphs I e put the new glyphs in the cells and move the existing glyphs to cells at the end of the encoding or clear it to replace them I e delete the existing glyphs If you select the Cut command instead of the Copy command the glyphs will be copied to the Clipboard but will be deleted from the source positions If you prefer to use the drag drop method to copy glyphs within a font window you may do this with the help of the CTRL key To make a copy of a glyph select it you may select many glyphs at once position the mouse cur
634. to activate 2 Select a master in the master selection combo box 3 Select the Window gt Panels gt Masters command The Masters panel appears Synchronize WO n WE Click on a master s activate control in the Masters panel Using the Masters panel you can also select which masters will appear in the Glyph window Use the masters check boxes in the Masters panel to show or hide masters Press the Hide All button in the Masters panel to hide all masters except the active master or press the Show All button to show all the masters The Synchronize option when switched on allows you to synchronize changing active masters both in the Glyph window and in the Metrics window if it s open Using an Axis Panel When the Preview mode of the Glyph window is active you can display an intermediate instance of the MM font that is selected for editing Open the Axis Panel by using the Window gt Panels gt Axis command You will see the Axis panel appear Auto Align Weight s This panel has a slider and an edit box for each axis in the MM font Use these controls to select the design coordinates of the intermediate instance that you want to preview The filled preview View gt Show Layers gt Fill Outline of the selected intermediate design will appear in the Glyph Window in gray Four masters outlines and an intermediate preview in gray If an active master is the same as the sele
635. ton glyph class then the rule will be treated identically to a format B rule If the replacement class has more than one glyph then the number of elements in the target and replacement glyph classes must be the same For example sub a by a smcp format A sub one fitted one onum one taboldstyle by one format B sub a z by a smcp z smcp format C sub Capitals by CapSwashes format C The third line in the above example produces the same effect in the font as sub a by a smcp sub b by b smcp sub c by c smcp sub z by z smcp 855 856 Sample applications of this rule Replace different types of figures sub figs_lnum by figs_onum Replace lowercase glyphs by small caps sub lc by sc Small SMALL Ligature Substitution The ligature substitution rule replaces several glyphs in sequence with a single glyph A Ligature substitution rule is specified as substitute lt glyph sequence gt by lt glyph gt lt glyph sequence gt must contain two or more lt glyph glyphclass gt es For example substitute one one onum slash fraction two two onum by onehalf Since the OpenType specification does not allow ligature substitutions to be specified on target sequences that contain glyph classes the implementation software will enumerate all specific glyph sequences if glyph classes are detected in lt glyph sequence gt Thus the above example produces the same effect in the font as if th
636. tour be Trace tolerance Allows you to change the distance between the generated outline and the edge of the original bitmap Curve fit quality Allows you to change the accuracy of curve fitting in the generated outline Straighten angle Defines the angle between two lines less than which the autotracer will replace several lines with one line Tracer may This option active by default allows the autotracer to generate curves generate curves Tracer should This option active by default forces the autotracer to insert generate extreme nodes at the extreme points of curves points on curves 111 Editing Fonts In this chapter we will discuss the editing of fonts A font is a collection of glyphs with similar design and some encoding and header information The information includes font identification names copyright data character encoding information and other data that is necessary for font usage Generating fonts is not discussed in this chapter Refer to the Generating Fonts chapter for this information 114 Opening Fonts With FontLab Studio you can create new fonts or open existing fonts for modification When you open an existing font however please be sure that modifying it does not violate copyright laws some fonts are copyrighted as software so it is not legal to change them in any font editor Carefully read the license agreement that comes with every font You can find two one serif and one sans serif ro
637. trol the appearance of the ruler using the Ruler command in the Options menu if the local command area is at the bottom or with the Ruler button on the Metrics Window toolbar 535 536 Metrics Panel The Metrics Panel is a horizontally oriented table that may appear above or below the editing area NE H A Ma E Em G E v E 253 T43 331 BBO T46 Bo 315 B30 TOE 35 a 31 3 ie 45 46 ao af 3 Eq T 13 J z9 13 Ke The Metrics Panel includes the following information for every glyph in the editing field name width left and right sidebearing and a pair kerning value with the next glyph You may control the appearance of the Metrics Panel using the Panel command in the Options local menu when the local command area is at the bottom or with the Panel button on the Metrics window toolbar F Click on this button in the top right area of the panel to move it top or bottom Use the up and down arrow keys to navigate between different values for the same glyph Use the Tab and Shift Tab keys to navigate between glyphs When the Metrics Panel is visible the properties area of the command area if it is at the top disappears Metrics Table Use this button in the bottom control area or the Table button of the Metrics Window toolbar to open the Table Hame Width Left Right Ta E BEO al Eq C T4 45 38 D B13 24 q E B30 46 ed F 138 ae 12 G aie 45 36 H 553 a af l af z 40 J 332 7T
638. tructure as the folder discussed above and can store any files customized by the user Any file placed in the respective location within that folder will override the corresponding file placed in the shared Fontlab Ltd Please put your customized files in this folder The location of the folder can be modified in Tools gt Options gt General Options gt Folders and paths Files used by all FontLab products C Documents and Settings 4lexihy Documents Fontlaby Shared Application default data folder typically C Program Files FontLab Studio5 29 30 This folder holds files that are only used by FontLab Studio 5 In each respective subfolder metrics kerning and other text strings additional encodings Python macros and modules as well as samples are stored Only Fontlab Ltd applications and applications from registered Fontlab Ltd developer partners should place their files there This is to rule out conflicts between the user s customized files and default files Application user data folder typically C Documents and Settings Your Username My Documents FontLab Studio5 This folder has exactly the same structure as the folder discussed above and can store any files customized by the user Any file placed in the respective location within that folder will override the corresponding file placed in the shared Fontlab Ltd Please put your customized files in this folder The location of the folder can be modified in Tools gt O
639. ts and is non blank i e it contains an outline or a component A yellow caption of a glyph cell means that the glyph is part of the currently selected encoding codepage or Unicode range or as we say is in the yellow zone see next section Glyphs that are not part of the current encoding have a grey caption A strong red caption with yellow text of a cell means that the character has some naming conflict one name is used for different glyphs or the glyph s Unicode codepoint does not correspond to its name You should usually correct either the glyph name or the Unicode codepoint for glyphs with red captions The small marks that appear in the glyph cell mean Left Top Blue mark Glyph has more than one Unicode codepoint assigned Right Top Yellow red or Glyph has compatible mask layer yellow green mark Left bottom Green or red Glyph has hint replacement program or H mark overlapping Type hints A Green mark means that the program is correct The red H mark means that you should correct the hint replacement program Right bottom Brown or blue Glyph has TrueType hints either original blue T mark mark or manually set visual brown mark Middle bottom Red rectangular Glyph is a key glyph in the kerning class mark 123 124 The meaning of all the small marks will be discussed in full detail later Some characters may be marked with a different color for the caption and background KE
640. ttF T Andale Mono AndaleMo TTF T Arabic Typesetting arabtype ttf es arial ttf T Arial Black ariblk ttf T Arial Bold arialbd ttf T Arial Bold Italic arialbi teF T Arial Italic ariali ttf T Arial Monospaced arialm TTF T Arial Monospaced Bold arialmb TTF T Arial Monospaced Bold Oblique arialmbi TTF T 4rial Monospaced Oblique arialmi TTF ABRaeg123 CAWINDOWS Fonts arial thf Most Recently Used Fonts All fonts that you recently opened in FontLab Studio are added to the list of the most recently used font This list is used in the File Open dialog and also at the bottom of the File menu 1 wri PFE 2 womb PFE 3 wmb FFB dutsbi___ PFB Exit Next time you want them just select the font file in the File menu and FontLab Studio will open them Opening Fonts with Drag Drop An easy way to open fonts in FontLab Studio is to drag drop font files from Windows Explorer onto the FontLab Studio application window gt File Edit View Favorites Tools Help Q sax X pO search Folders IPS 3 FontLab Studio File Edit Yiew Contour Glyph Tools Window Help OSUG s Blo alS AR BR PARAS E ae Name Size Type KabelSBOP Heavy otf 21KB OpenType Font file o Kabel5SHOP Heavy otf OpenType Font file d Kalliigraphia5SBOP Regular otf OpenType Font file o Kapplusch5SBOP Regular otf OpenType Font file KaufmannSBOP Bold otf OpenType Font file o Koloss5BOP Regular ot OpenType
641. tter to disable the option and only store the binary tables You will need to use Microsoft VOLT to develop the feature definitions for complex script fonts If a GDEF table is defined in the font FontLab Studio will read information about anchors glyph types and caret positions from it Import kerning from the kern feature If enabled FontLab Studio will import kerning defined in the kern positioning feature into the font pair kerning table We recommended you have this feature active when you import the OpenType font An OpenType font may have two sets of kerning included OpenType GPOS kerning usually class based and plain kern table kerning With this option enabled FontLab Studio will only import the GPOS kerning If you disable the option FontLab Studio will import the plain kern table kerning into the Metrics Window and the GPOS kerning into the OpenType panel You may later convert the GPOS kerning into plain kerning using the Convert kerning button on the OpenType Features Sample panel Generate missing glyph names using layout tables Some OpenType TT fonts do not include glyph names at all they include a so called post table format 3 With this option enabled FontLab Studio will algorithmically build glyph names based on the Unicode values and the OpenType Layout features Most users will want to leave this option enabled Interpret GX AAT mort amp morx tables GX AAT is an Apple technology that
642. tudio the new font template will be automatically opened so all the values that are specific to your foundry are already filled in Glyph template images the dark gray bitmap images that appear in Font Window glyph cells if a glyph in the font is empty The glyph template images can be used as an orientation during your type design process For example if you open a Western font switch to the Unicodes mode and choose the Cyrillic range you will see what your Cyrillic glyphs should roughly look like FontLab Studio 5 ships with a very extensive set of pre installed default glyph template images These are based on the Andale Mono WTG font courtesy of Monotype Imaging http www monotypeimaging com and cover the entire Unicode 3 2 character set Note that the default glyph template images are low resolution monospaced and in a sanserif style They should not be used as direct source of information about the typographically correct shape of glyphs but only as an orientation 73 74 Use Following template Font to initialize new Fonts pT Show glyph template images in empty cells Use default glyph template images Andale Mono font by Monotype Imaging visit wa Fonts com Use bitmap font For glyph template images dat or bdF PT O Use installed Font For glyph template images Arial opt Put glyph template images in Background layer when creating new glyphs Use template font When enabled allow
643. tudio the position of the origin point is the position of the left margin in the horizontal direction and the position of the baseline in the vertical direction However you can modify the position of any of the four margins If you move the baseline or left margin line you will shift the entire glyph 467 468 Editing Metrics FontLab Studio has a special window for editing glyph metrics of course but you can make small adjustments right in the Glyph Window using the main edit tool To change glyph metrics first activate the Metrics layer in the Editing Layers panel Editing Layers Outline Metrics Guides Hints Mask Auto select layer Then use the mouse and drag the left or right sidebearing or the baseline In FontLab Studio you can define vertical glyph metrics the vertical advance width called vertical advance vector for Asian glyphs used to type in vertical direction from top to bottom To define a vertical glyph advance vector hold the Suirr key while moving the base line Using the Measurement Line By default the sidebearing values are measured from the rightmost and leftmost points of the glyph Left sidebearing Right sidebearing I J ee a ee Sometimes you need to measure sidebearing values from some other point on the glyph outline In FontLab Studio you can do that by using the measurement line a horizontal red line that defines the height of t
644. u wish We do not recommend you to replace the existing URANGES DAT file Put your own copy of the file in the Application user data folder Encoding folder typically C Documents and Settings Your Username My Documents FontLab Studio5 Refer to Tools gt Options gt General Options gt Folders and paths for the actual location of the Application user data folder 157 158 Custom Codepage Definitions Codepage definition files extension CPG are text files that have the following structure FONTLAB STUDIO CODEPAGE OxFFFF MS Windows 1251 Cyrillic GROUP MS Windows UN2 UN2 0x00 0x0000 0x01 0x0001 0x02 0x0002 0x03 0x0003 The first line of this file is an identification line that is used to set the codepage name and tell FontLab Studio that this file is a properly composed codepage definition file This line must be started by the text FONTLAB STUDIO CODEPAGE OxFFFF The name of the codepage follows The second line identifies the codepage group name The group name will become the submenu title in the Codepage popup menu Note that there is no space after the character All other strings starting with are comments and are not interpreted by FontLab Studio The following strings are formed as pairs of two integer numbers in decimal or hex starting with Ox form The first number is the code of the character and should be in the 0 255 range The second number is the Unicode codepoint of the chara
645. ual to WinAscent and WinDescent and the hhea LineGap should be 0 Alternatively the hhea Ascender hhea Descender and hhea LineGap should be equal to the corresponding Typo fields You can usually leave the other Font Info settings that were not mentioned above at their factory settings 303 304 Character Set Switch to Names mode in Font Window and select some encodings to see whether all glyphs in a desired encoding that you wish to cover by your font are included in the font If you are making a text font it should at least cover all glyphs from the MacOS Roman and the MS Windows 1252 Western ANSI encodings You may want to create a custom enc Encoding file that will work as your font family map and will include all glyphs that you want to include in the font Switch to Codepages mode and check several codepages If you are making a text font it should at least cover all glyphs from the MacOS Roman and the MS Windows 1252 Western ANSI encodings Remember that the Names mode uses glyph names and the Codepages mode uses Unicode codepoints to reference the glyphs Your font should have both the glyph names and the Unicode codepoints conform to published recommendations If any glyphs are present in the yellow zone in the Codepages mode but are missing from the yellow zone of the corresponding Encoding your glyph names may be incorrect Choose Glyph gt Glyph Names gt Generate Names to fix this probl
646. ue you entered For example 7 Fine Pi oN Wio ae s mo gt a Tie p ca FZ wm ae pi i LT ial ae a m n i Before adding nodes After adding nodes Note that this action always closes open contours Action Set Dialog Box There is a more advanced method of applying actions to glyphs With it you can apply many actions at once transform a subset of a font s glyphs see an instant preview of a series of actions and even save action sets for future use To open the Action Set dialog box select the Action Set command in the Tools menu Note that this command is available while any of the windows is open You will see a rather complex dialog box Action Set Apply action set to Current glyph only Action sek will affect 1 glyph Sayed action sets Select a set to load Available actions Action set El Contour Scale 80 00 100 003 HMZ Shift Simms otate 15 007 CW 2 Mirror Scale Rotate Slant Dernmnnse Current action is Rotate glyph Rotation angle 15 Clockwise Counterclockwise T E 0 Rotate around Origin point 0 0 This dialog box has several areas that control different options of the action set 641 642 Action Set Range In the top part of the dialog box an Apply action set to area is situated Apply action set to Current glyph only w Acti
647. ueType stems Type 1 stems are used by the Type 1 font rasterizer and have some limits For example it is possible to define only 12 stems for each direction TrueType stems have no limits and also have some additional properties They may be named and their rounding may be specified for selected PPMs In FontLab Studio you can control the rounding of the standard stem widths You can set the PPM size at which any standard stem width is changed from 1 to 2 pixels from 2 to 3 pixels from 3 to 4 from 4 to 5 and from 5 to 6 pixels We call these critical PPM sizes jump PPMs because here the stem width makes a jump from to 2 pixels from 2 to 3 pixels and so on up to 6 pixels wide By default standard stems are scaled linearly and are rounded to the closest integer value When you add a new Type stem it is added to both stem lists Type 1 editable with Font Info and TrueType To control the TrueType stems properties you open the TrueType stems dialog box Link to stem Automatic Press this button to open the Stems dialog box E Mone E x 36 v Round distance 731 732 You will see the following dialog box TT Hinting Options pA Stems Zones General DES EotT EG Do Name width poml ppme ppm ppm poms ppm Yi d0 J0 0 42 r J3 125 ar fe fe T 19 ae 49 63 a de J2 0 19 ac 39 49 Susk sk Make sure that Stems page is select
648. uidelines Popup Menu Guidelines Tracking Guidelines Properties Panel Meter Mode Setting Guidelines Anchors and Sidebearings Mask Layer Editing Mask Mask Operations Assigning a Mask Global Mask Layer Background Layer Background Positioning Tracing Background Shape Groups and Neighbors Shape Groups Neighbors Editing Groups and Neighbors Outline Operations Envelope Reversing a Contour s Direction Rearranging Contours Simplifying Path Moving Nodes Interpolation Metrics Editing Metrics Baseline Properties Panel Metrics Properties Panel Vertical Metrics Hints and Links Layer 399 401 402 404 409 412 417 419 424 426 427 428 429 430 432 433 434 436 438 439 440 441 442 444 445 448 449 452 452 454 455 456 457 459 460 461 462 463 467 468 470 471 472 474 Links Editing Hints Hints Tracking Editing Links Hint and Link Popup Menu Hint Commands Autohinting Options Hint Properties Panel Link Properties Panel Alignment Zones Sketch Mode Visualization of the Sketch Outline Moving Points Changing Point Type Removing Points Inserting Points Reversing Contours Selecting Points Moving the Selection Transforming the Selection Selection Operations Breaking and Joining the Sketch Outline Converting Sketch to Outline Working with Composite Glyphs Adding a Component Decomposing Component Positioning Component Properties Anchors Layer Movi
649. up this chapter Actions There are four groups of actions Contour The outline of a glyph is transformed Hints and Actions that are concerned with hints and links Guidelines Metrics Metrics information is transformed includes automatic metrics generation Effects A set of effects that can be applied to glyphs The actions in the Actions and Action Set panels can be applied to entire glyphs only not to parts of glyphs If you wish to scale rotate or mirror a selected portion of a glyph rather than the entire glyph please use the Transformation panel Windows menu or the Free Transform feature context menu of an outline selection 619 620 Contour Transformation Here is a list of all the outline transformation actions Shift Shifts the glyph s outline a ee aC ee eee cae Ree eal ee cee ce ae ele tana a OEN E AE E ee a ee POE E ee ee Contour Direction Sets the direction of contours to PostScript or TrueType or reverses all contours Connections Automatically detects the connection types between the contour segments Make Master Automatically calculates the 4t master when 3 other masters are known Optimize Optimizes the glyph outline with a custom set of options Blend Blends the outline and mask layers Shift Horizontal shift 0 vertical shift o Shift the Mask layer This action shifts the outline of the glyph in the vertical and or horizontal direction Here is a sample of a font with some
650. urve system Bezier as drawing applications such as Illustrator and Freehand so letterforms are easy to edit when converted to curves Type hinting is comparatively easy to create Cons Does not work on Mac OS 9 or X not cross platform Contains two parts the outline file pfb and the metrics font pfm both of which must be in the same folder Does not contain class kerning so kerning tables are large Type 1 hinting does not allow precise control for very small screen sizes Cannot include more than 256 encoded characters and lacks advanced layout features such as ligatures making the format unsuitable for multilingual or non Latin fonts Cannot contain bitmaps for small screen sizes Does not contain embedding rights information One family cannot contain more than four styles Recommendation Draw fonts with Beziers as Type 1 When complete make a duplicate FontLab master vfb file and make TT conversions to it Generate either a TrueType OpenType TT or an OpenType PS font for the newest systems Windows and Mac OS X Mac Type 1 is not included in this overview since FontLab Studio 5 for Windows cannot generate Mac Type fonts You can use FontLab for Mac or TransType for Mac or Windows to produce a Mac Type font However we recommend producing fonts in the OpenType format unless you have Mac customers running a pre 8 6 Mac OS 301 302 Before You Generate Before you generate your font make sure the most relevant
651. used to control bottom overshoots that have to be aligned to the baseline OtherBlues includes up to 5 bottom alignment zones To add a new alignment zone press the button below the list To edit the position of the zone select the zone you want to edit in the list and edit it in the edit fields below the list 660 To remove an alignment zone select the zone you want to remove from the list and press the button below that list You can see a preview of the zones by switching on the Alignment Zones layer with the View gt Show Layer gt Alignment zones command When zones are visible on screen you can preview changes you make to the zones by pressing the Apply button in the FontInfo dialog box You can edit zones in the Glyph window using the edit tool Make sure they are not locked by the View gt Lock layers gt Alignment zones command Aut Press the button to automatically calculate alignment zones in the Primary zones list box How FontLab Studio Calculates Alignment Zones To calculate alignment zones in the BlueValues list FontLab Studio finds characters with overshoots and characters that are flat in the position of the overshoot Then it measures the top and bottom vertical positions of these characters and detects a zone Examples of such characters are o and x O and H p and g and so on FontLab Studio tries to find many different characters from different languages
652. used to select an intermediate design of the MM font Weight Axis 50 Different intermediate positions on the axis 1450 769 770 In MM fonts it is important to know how much the property connected with the design axis can be changed If we take the Weight axis for instance then it might be changed from normal 120 to bold 700 a moderate change or from light 50 to black 1450 a much larger change D D u 120 700 y w 50 1450 The range within which the property of the axis may be changed is called the dynamic range It is the distance between the two masters that define an axis measured using a standard scale line In our example the first dynamic range is 580 from 120 to 700 and the second dynamic range is 1400 from 50 to 1450 So that desktop publishing programs can use MM fonts that were designed by different manufactures some standards have been set for axes types and names Standard Axes There are four standard axes defined by the Multiple Master standard They are supported by Adobe and thus are likely to be compatible with all current desktop publishing programs Of course you can define your own design axes this may be useful if you use MM as an internal design tool Weight This axis allows you to change the weight of the font The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick
653. using the Magic Wand tool 397 398 Moving the Selection You can move the selected part of the contour by mouse drag any selected part of the contour or use the arrow keys If you press the arrow key then the selection will move in that direction by one font unit Hold down SHIFT or CTRL while pressing the arrow keys to accelerate the movement of the selection You can change the value of SHirt arrow increments on the Glyph Window gt Dimensions page of the Options dialog box Shift arrow keys increment Selection Commands When a part of the glyph is selected right click it to get access to the popup menu Cancel do Cut Copy Delete Delete i44 Free Transform Ctrl 3 Retrackt BCPS Align Points Reverse Contours Convert Connection Properties Macro Some commands are just copies of the Edit menu commands but others are much more interesting Cut Copies the selection to the Clipboard and removes it Copy Copies the selection to the Clipboard and leaves original untouched Delete Removes the selection Retract BCPs Removes the control vectors of the selected nodes making them sharp Align Points Aligns the selected nodes vertically or horizontally Convert Converts all selected segments to lines Bezier curves or off curve points 399 400 Connection Changes the connection mode of the selected nodes If the mode is changed to smooth all connections are forced to be smooth Prope
654. ut draws curves It emulates the curve drawing process that is common for Macromedia Fontographer and Freehand Drop tool just a whimsical example when you drag the mouse it adds a series of filled circles of random radius We will not document the process of creating new tools here It is a relatively complex programming job If you are interested please visit our website for more technical documents related to FontLab Studio macro programming Edit Macro Panel If you feel ready to create your first macro program you can start by opening the Edit Macro panel Use Window gt Edit Macro panel to make it visible Edit Macro ECI hl F IrL DEVE IF fl font af f None exit idef process f g index if g None return glyph Glyph g Fl SetUndo index glyph Shift Point amp 83 g Removedver lap g Distance i5 15 1 g Bsubtract glyph fl UpdatetlyehCindex del glyph font fl font glyphs font glyphs for index in range Clen glyphs oF Fl S5ebected tndex and index fl iglyph process font glyphsfindex index Fl UpdatetlyphCindex process font glyphs fTl iglyph fl iglyph Fl UpdateGlypho ll i This is basically a simple text editing control with a toolbar at the top The buttons on the toolbar mean ar Open the menu that contains New Open and Save operations PF Run the currently edited program M Stop the program that is runnin Restart the P
655. utton Leave the Type 1 number fields empty select your vendor ID from the TrueType vendor code combo box If you don t have one register one at Microsoft Typography On the Panose identification page click on the Auto button and customize the entries as good as you can The more precise the info the better but it s not crucial On the Metrics and Dimensions page font UPM size can be 1000 for all formats Don t worry about things like 2048 for TrueType On the TrueType specific metrics page click on both Recalculate buttons Then go to Key dimensions and check Copy values to TrueType metrics Make sure your Ascender and Descender values are uniform for all fonts in your family use average values if your styles de facto have different ascenders or descenders The Ascender value should be positive the Descender value should be negative preceded with a minus sign in the fields Make sure the sum of the absolute values of Ascender and Descender are equal to the font UPM size e g if your Ascender is 720 and your UPM size is 1000 your Descender should be 280 Go again to the TrueType specific metrics page and make sure the values of OS 2 WinAscent and OS 2 WinDescent are uniform across your family average if necessary The value of all OS 2 Typo values should be uniform as well TypoLineGap should be between 5 and 20 of your UPM size and uniform across all styles The hhea Ascender and hhea Descender should have the values eq
656. vert to Instructions Converts Type 1 hints to editable visual TrueType instructions a sees E ries EEEREN z ee ais serch E transect ier Tae eee g E I E O ES EEEE EEE EEE EE E eee eee Ba E a E E ee DENE oa eee Se IE DE E EA N eT a to automatically select the best stems for them Remove hints guides Remove horizontal hints Remove horizontal guidelines Remove vertical hints Remove vertical guidelines Also remove links Use this action to remove hints and links or guidelines in selected glyphs This command is the equivalent of the Remove Hints and Remove Guides commands that were described in the Glyph Window chapter Autohint Analyses a glyph s outline and generates hints for the glyph This action uses autohinting options that can be set in the Type 1 Autohinting page of the Font Info dialog box Please refer to the page 738 for a description of the autohinting options 628 Convert to instructions Use this action to convert Type 1 hints to the editable TrueType visual instructions Do not forget to prepare the outlines of the glyphs for TrueType hinting using the Curves to TrueType transformation action You can find a detailed description of this process in the Hinting chapter Autoreplace This action automatically builds a hint replacement program for the overlapping Type 1 hints Run it after autohinting Refer to the chapter Hinting for more information about hinting and hint replacement
657. witch between the top and the bottom location of the command bar by clicking on this button amp in the top right corner of the Font Window When the command bar is in the top position it can be detached and you can drag it to the bottom area or just leave it floating around Font Window v Default Encoding On the command bar you can easily find a button Ea on the left which is a duplicate of the File gt Font Info command which is described later in this manual Right of the buttons there is a combo box which allows you to change the information that appears in the character cell s captions Next is a combo box that allows you to change the encoding table of the current font 4 Imported Imported x We will talk about encodings later but you could choose a couple different ones from the combo box and see how the Font window changes At the right of the encoding list there are four buttons that allow a choice of encoding modes Again a detailed description of this follows Just a few words here any glyph in the font may be identified by a name Unicode index or just its order in the glyph table Four buttons in the command bar in the top position allow you to choose one of four modes Names Unicode Ranges Codepages or Index HAHE ci 2 In the bottom position there is a combo box that you can use to choose the mode Unicode Ranges Codepages Glyph Index The last butt
658. x to select the BlueScale editing method and edit it in the is equal to edit field BlueScale Formulas The actual value of the BlueScale value is calculated as PPM 1 63333 800 0 The BlueFuzz value allows you to expand the action range of the alignment zones in both directions Thus if you have defined a zone like 700 715 and BlueFuzz is equal to 2 then the actual zone used will be 698 717 This is usually used when you are not sure that you correctly set all the alignment zones or when the characters are not all precisely aligned The normal value of this parameter is 0 but by default it is set to 1 BlueScale TrueType hinting algorithms do not use BlueScale BlueFuzz and BlueShift values 261 262 Format Specific Options Type 1 specific settings E True Type speciic settings F Mapping Device metrics 2 Font smoothing Fort flags head table E PCLT table 7 Font identification z Font metrics Codepages This section covers options that are specific to Type 1 and TrueType OpenType fonts For both destination formats you may choose font specific export options that will be used instead of globally set FontLab Studio options In addition for TrueType fonts you can customize some settings that are necessary for high quality rendering Type 1 Export Options Type 1 export options 4 gt Make PFM file Make AFM and INF files Use Windscent and WinDescent as font vertical size En
659. y sort glyphs according to your glyph arrangement table by choosing Glyph gt Sort Glyphs gt By Encoding Also remember that when you create OpenType or TrueType fonts the encoding table in the Names mode serves as a glyph arrangement table and not as a source of encoding Normally OpenType and TrueType are based on Unicode so the Unicode codepoints that you assign to each glyph are the source of the character encoding To make sure the encoding of your OpenType or TrueType font is correct switch to the Unicode Ranges or Codepages mode You can automatically assign Unicode codepoints to your glyphs by using Glyph gt Glyph Names gt Generate Unicode Note Type 1 encoding tables can be also used as source for TrueType encoding if Tools gt Options gt Generating OpenType and TrueType gt Ignore Unicode indexes in the font is enabled This may be useful if you need to generate a single codepage non Western TrueType font for old systems such as Windows 3 1 or Windows 95 but in most cases it s recommended to keep the said option disabled and use Unicode encoding rather than Type 1 encoding tables as source of TrueType When you activate a different encoding in the Font Window you will see that the characters in the Font Window are rearranged Some characters will move below the yellow zone Remember that only characters that are in the yellow zone are covered by the currently selected encoding 141 142 Unicode
660. y Documents File name ACaslonPro Regular My Network Save as type All Metrics Files Save the INF File when AFM is saved Select the destination format AFM or PFM for single master fonts and AMM or MMM for Multiple Master fonts and the destination directory Enter the file name and press the Save button to save the metrics file You may choose whether to save the font information inf file along with the afm metrics file or not 612 Printing While you are in the Metrics Window you can print sample strings with or without metrics and kerning information To do so select the Print command in the File menu Choose the Font Sample page Printing pont ene Font Table 4 text bo print hamburgevons Glyph List hamburgevons Text size 45 i K C word wrap Print right to left Font waterfall Fill outlines Al Apply kerning Glyph Sample Print metrics data Print underline wall Glyph Waterfall You will see that the A text to print field is populated with the sample string from the metrics window Select other appropriate options and click OK to print the sample Check the Printing and Proofing Fonts chapter on page 277 for more printing options 613 Actions In FontLab Studio you can transform glyphs in many ways You can edit glyphs and glyphs metrics manually using the Glyph and Metrics windows described in previous chapters Or you can use FontLab Studio
661. y to change the connection type is to double click on a node More detailed control is available on the Properties panel Use Contour gt Correct Connections to automatically fix incorrect sharp connections that is sharp connections that can be turned into smooth connections without any change in the shape of the contour Contour gt Optimize will do some additional clean up to your contours but may slightly change the shape 345 346 Node Type FontLab Studio has several types of nodes that are represented by different node symbols The node symbol unifies two essential kinds of information the type of segments that the node connects straight segment or curve segment and the type of connection sharp or smooth Curve node Green round node symbol indicates a smooth connection between two curve segments h Tangent node Violet triangular node symbol icon indicates a E smooth connection between a curve segment and a straight segment Corner node Red square node symbol indicates a sharp connection between any types of segments A blue node indicates the startpoint To display the nodes similar to Fontographer in black and white only enable Tools gt Options gt Glyph window gt Appearance gt Black white To display the additional color information as in older FontLab versions disable that option Z Note Corner nodes may exist between any types of segments straight or curve If possible you should convert a
662. yalty free non copyrighted fonts that you can use as a basis for your own fonts or characters in the Sample folder or on our website http www fontlab com To open a font for editing select the File gt Open command or click the L button on the toolbar You will see the Open File dialog box in which you can select a font file to open In this dialog box you will see all the fonts that can be opened TrueType OpenType TT ttf Windows Type 1 and Windows Multiple Master pfb Unix ASCII Type 1 pfa OpenType PS otf Ikarus files 1k FontLab 2 5 font files vfa FontLab 3 x 4 x Studio 5 font files vfb as well as FontLab Studio Project files flw Look in O f re My Recent Documents Desktop My Documents 58 My Computer OO amp amp d Flrs6__c pfb E flr76_c pfb E frg55_c pfb E frgS6__c pfb E frg 5_c pfb E frg66__c pfb E frgz5_c pfb E frgz6__c pfb e frgg5_c pfb E frg86__c pfb E frq55__c pfb El frq56__c pfb e Frq85__c pfb E Frq86__c pfb E frs45_c pfb File name Files of type Font name E frsS6__c pfb e frs65__c pfb E frs 6__c pfb E frs75_c pfb E frs76_c pfb E Frs95__c pfb fea frs96__c pfb E Ftc95__c pfb E fte93_c pfb E ftf c pfb 3 Ftr35__c pfb E ftr36_c pfb E ftr45_c pfb frs55__c pfb All Font Files FreeSetC Show font preview ABRaeg123 fea Ftr46__c pfb E FtrSS_c pfb E ftr56_c pfb E Ftr6S__c pfb E ftr 6__c pfb E fts45_c
663. you have a Multiple Master font that has one axis two masters that are the same and a Bold style on the Mask layer of the second master Open any character for editing and activate the Wt1 layer switch on the Fill Outline mode and select an intermediate position of the design coordinates in the Axis panel Auto Align Weight Look in the top right area of the Glyph window There is a special mark rightmost that may be gray red or green CT CH OD A red mark shows that the mask layer is not compatible with the master Incompatible means that mask and outline layers have different numbers of contours so FontLab Studio cannot match the points and curves A green mark means that the mask and outline layers seem to be compatible and you may apply the Mask to Master action This action replaces the contents of the active master with the contents of its Mask layer If the Mask layer is completely compatible with the outline you will instantly get a properly made master for the active layer FontLab Studio uses the Blend algorithm to match points in the Mask and outline layers Sometimes it can produce incorrect results so we recommend you check your outlines after you complete the Mask to Master operation 795 796 You can apply the Mask to Master action to several characters at once 1 Activate the Font window Note the mask compatibility marks in the top right corner of the characters cells
664. you want to customize values select the Set Custom values option and edit data in the fields below Note that if you choose Set Custom values but leave all data unchanged FontLab Studio will restore the original vertical metrics data from the imported font and the new updated font will align exactly as the original one Here is a description of each value Typo Ascender This is the typographically correct ascender value It is the topmost line of lowercase characters usually the topmost line of the b character Typo Descender The same as Typo Ascender but for the lowest line Usually it is equal to the bottom line of the character p Typo Line Gap Typographically correct line gap value distance between bottom line of the upper line of text and top line of the lower line of text WinAscent OS 2 This value defines the topmost line of all important characters in the font Important characters are all non exceptional characters For example if most of the characters have the topmost position at 900 font units and one not often used character has it at 1300 font units it s a good idea to set WinAscent at 900 units Note that in most cases portions of the characters that are above the WinAscent value will not appear on the screen or print on some printers Please note that WinAscent is NOT a typography ascender usually measured as the topmost line of lowercase characters It is mostly a technical parameter used
665. ython system Use this command to reload all standard libraries and free all memory allocated by the Python system 891 When you click the button you will see a menu FE New Program Ty Open Program ije save Program ils save Program AS Show Line Numbers Close Panel The commands in this menu let you perform standard file operations on your current macro program 892 Naming the Programs When you are saving a program and want it to be used in the Macro toolbar or to be integrated into one of the FontLab Studio menus you need to name it There are two ways to name a program you can store the name in the file name followed by the py extension or you can embed the name into the program code The latter way is recommended it allows you to keep the filename small but descriptive To name a program put the following line at the very beginning of the program FLM lt program name gt where the lt program name gt is the name of the program as on the following example FLM Shadow Effect note that there is exactly one single space between FLM and the name Save your macro within the FontLab Studio user data folder Macro folder FontLab Studio user data folder usually is C Documents and Settings Your Username My Documents FontLab Studio5 but the location of that folder can be changed in Options gt Folders and Paths gt FontLab Studio 5 files You can make your own subfolders within t
666. zontal The same as above but only a horizontal guideline will be guideline added This command with the 50 option can be very useful in finding the middle of a glyph element Add slanted guideline A slanted guideline will be added along the meter tool s arrow Note that the next guideline that you drag from the rulers will be parallel to this one Set left sidebearing Set the left sidebearing at the destination point Set sidebearing commands are very useful when you need to set sidebearings at given distance from some glyph element Add anchor An anchor point is added at the destination endpoint of the meter line 438 Mask Layer When you need something more than guidelines or a grid to help with glyph editing you can use the mask layer The mask layer is an outline that is created with the same segments as the glyph s outline It appears in the Glyph Window as a dashed outline and the glyph s nodes stick to the mask You can think of the mask as a freeform guideline The mask layer is very useful when you want to use one font as a template for another font For example you can put the sans serif version of the typeface into the mask layer while you are working on the serif version in the outline layer Another application of the mask layer is the creation of Multiple Master fonts In this case you put one style of the typeface in the mask layer another style on the outline layer and after defining the design axis

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