Lower Case y, p, g, etc Are Cut Off

[ginakra]

Hello,

Very new to FontCreator, was wondering how to fix the problem of lower case letters like y, g, f, j, etc from being cut off? What setting to look at and change? And why does this happen? Thank you!!

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

No glyphs should extend beyond WinAscent or WinDescent.

Go to Font, Properties, Metrics, and click the Calculate button the fix it, or design your glyphs within the existing limits.

[MikeW]

It's not specifically true that a font design should not extend above or below win ascent/descent. A lot of script fonts do for a reason. Depending upon the application the display will be clipped but print or pdf should be correct.

The reason some script font authors extend them past is for interplay between descenders and ascenders on successive lines.

Adobe products, and depending upon the patch in CorelDraw, show the entire characters. Adobe products bypass the OS font subsystem and calculate the metric values directly. CD uses the font subsystem but overrides it. At various release times CD mucks this up though. And I believe CD working as per Adobe products as regard display began with X6.

[ginakra]

Yes, it is a curly flourished font that I am working with. There has to be something I can change, because Samantha, a font with VERY long curly descenders looks fine in Corel Draw, no clipping. The font that I have trouble with does not have as long descenders, and is clipped. I am using Corel Draw X7. Samantha looks fine, this font does not

Look at screenshots of Samantha if you're not familiar. The descenders go WAY below the WinDescent line.

https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/laura-wor ... ht-script/

Seems like there has to be some kind of fix for it. :/ Thanks for replies

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

It's not specifically true that a font design should not extend above or below win ascent/descent. A lot of script fonts do for a reason. Depending upon the application the display will be clipped but print or pdf should be correct.

The reason some script font authors extend them past is for interplay between descenders and ascenders on successive lines.

Adobe products, and depending upon the patch in CorelDraw, show the entire characters. Adobe products bypass the OS font subsystem and calculate the metric values directly. CD uses the font subsystem but overrides it. At various release times CD mucks this up though. And I believe CD working as per Adobe products as regard display began with X6.

Fixing the metrics will solve the clipping problem in all applications. If the user wants to overlap the outlines on successive lines, they only need to set the line-spacing to less than "Single" spacing.

This is Gabriola with swashes, set to 120% of pointsize in PagePlus.

Swash Overlap.png (45.68 KiB) Viewed 5532 times

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Look at screenshots of Samantha if you're not familiar. The descenders go WAY below the WinDescent line.

There is no way to tell from the screen shot whether or not the descenders go beyond the WinDescent line, nor if they will be clipped in most Windows applications.

I notice that some of the swashes in Gabriola do exceed the WinDescent, but that still works OK for me in PagePlus.

[MikeW]

At least here and on other user's computers, CD X7 broke again with update 5.

Here's Samantha as shown in CD:

capture-003383.png (6.22 KiB) Viewed 5530 times

Here it is in AI. Note the active cursor extends down to the character with the largest descent:

capture-003385.png (10.27 KiB) Viewed 5530 times

The problem with many of Laura's fonts is that the WinDescent is set at the baseline. This is true of Samantha and a couple other of her fonts, but not all of them:

capture-003384.png (13.62 KiB) Viewed 5530 times

There are many fonts this way. And while I may fix some to work in all applications--and even CD depending upon the patch level--I don't fix them all. the reason I may choose not to fix them is if I am only setting a few lines coupled with the fact I know that the output is correct. This is a PDF from CorelDraw, which as per the above screen shot, shows the display clipped:

capture-003386.png (4.27 KiB) Viewed 5530 times

When I do choose to fix them for use in CD when it is misbehaving, it will be because I have successive lines (like an announcement) and I want to see the interplay. Else I just use AI...

Mike

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

For FontCreator 9, I asked specifically for the default setting for Font Properties, Metrics, Calculate, to be changed from "Minimum" to "Maximum," because if the "Minimum" setting is used, some glyphs will overlap the WinDescent or WinAscent metric lines like this with Scientific Inferiors (subscripts).

Calculate Metrics Minimum.png (6.86 KiB) Viewed 5525 times

The result in Serif PagePlus is severe clipping of the glyphs, like this:

Clipped Subscripts.png (6.62 KiB) Viewed 5525 times

Although there may be no hard and fast rule in the TrueType Specification about not allowing glyph outlines to exceed the metric lines (not that I know of anyway), it seems to me that the best advice is to always avoid doing it, then your fonts will never be clipped.