Kerning 'not used'

[blmara]

Hi,

I've designed a music symbol font for my application. I tried to add kerning information with FontCreator 7.5 but I failed to get the kerning data exported to .ttf version of the font. I upgraded to FontCreator 8 only to notice that the 'Kerning...' functionality has probably moved to the 'OpenType Designer'. But the documentation of the Designer is quite scarce. I clicked there and there, and managed to add 'Kerning1(kern)' to features but there is also '<-not used'. After some more clicking, the lookups-pair adjustment seems to give me possibility to add kerning pairs. But even if I add a pair, also the lookup says 'not used' and the F8 'Preview' text window doesn't show the kerning done (even if 'Kerning' selected there).

So how can I enter working kerning to my font? And overall, can you enhance the documentation of OpenType Designer, the current one-page document has way too little information and explanation of terms, ie. scripts/features/lookups!

Marko

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Yes, it's a big change with a steep learning curve. If you open a font with existing kerning tables, the lookups will be there already to give you a head start.

You will find some videos and a description on my Review Page

For kerning your music font I think you will need a patch to update FC8, as that doesn't export pairs from the full range of Unicode character sets. Please see this earlier thread.

[blmara]

Thanks, the video about adding kerning was great. Hopefully installed documentation would show the basics too in the future.

But however, even if I did as shown on the video and added kerning pairs (no groups), the kerning is not shown in the preview window. I tried to change the type of font from symbolic to latin text, no effect. Could the selected code points (F021...F07A) be the reason? In the other thread there was talk about a patch, but it was 6 months ago?!

Marko

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

If I remember rightly, symbol fonts don't support kerning, so you will have to change it to a Unicode font. The linked thread tells you how to get the update.