Glyph Transformation - Retaining Advance Width

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

I want to change the italic angle of a font from 7º to 9º. I can figure out the right amount of skew to use in the Glyph Transformer to get the right angle, but the advance width changes.

How can I apply the skew witout changing the advance width? Setting the left side-bearing to 0 is not enough.

Edit: I found a work-around.

Select the gylphs
Copy to the clipboard
Apply the italic transformation (skew + Left side-bearing =0)
Paste special, glyph metrics

It would still be useful to know if this could be done just by the gylph transform wizard

[Jowaco]

Hello Pesala,

It looks as though you have rediscovered your own solution, which I have adopted and used. Thanks for that, it saved a lot of work. The thread is at:

viewtopic.php?t=820&highlight=skew

I requested this to be available in the program in my post then.

Joe.

[Julian Griffin]

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, Pesala,

   I have been battling with this same problem with the Bold command. Your work-round is brilliant.

   I have just tried this on a font with over a 1000 glyphs. I was disheartened, if I needed to repeat the steps you outline for each and every glyph.

   But, more in hope than expectation; From the Font Overview window, I selected the entire font (Ctrl-A), Copied it (Ctrl-C), Applied my Bold Transform, then used Paste Special (Ctrl-Alt-V): Selecting only Metrics, and clicked on OK. Nothing seemed to have changed. So with a heave-heart I double clicked on a glyph, it was OK, excited, I looked through many glyphs (Alt-→), they were ALL OK.

   It does odd things with the LSB & RSB of composite glyphs. But the LSB & RSB are a bit flaky when "Use this glyphs metric's" is selected. So I can live with that.

   So thank you very, very much.

Best regards Julian

So now all I need to do is fix the plaiting of the nodes the Bold command leaves.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, Pesala,

 I have been battling with this same problem with the Bold command. Your work-round is brilliant.

It might have been useful in 2005, but it is not needed any longer. Just clear the checkbox that says "Preserve side-bearing."

I don't even have any reviews for FontCreator before version 5.5, which was released in 2006. One item in that review says:

• Fixed left and right side bearing issues

So perhaps that was the issue that this workaround was intended to fix.

In most cases, a bold type style will need to have a greater advance width than the regular type style, though there are a few fonts like Delicious that increase font weight without changing the tracking. The Bold Transform scripts therefore all have "Preserve bearings" enabled.

Regular.png (4.88 KiB) Viewed 5662 times

Bold.png (4.8 KiB) Viewed 5662 times

[Julian Griffin]

Well thank You again, Pesala,

   I had thought that ticking the "Preserve side-bearing" would preserve the Advance Width. This is, I fear, a mark of my inexperience. Now I understand my mistake, I think. It is now clear to me that,Advance Width is the sum of: LSB + Glyph width + RSB. So if the Glyph width changes and the bearings have been 'Preserve', the Advanced width will change also. If the bearings are not preserved the Advanced Width will not change.

   Thank you for the clarification, I have learnt something new today, which is always good.

Regards Julian.

PS This is one of the problems I find with user support forums. It is not always clear if you are reading a issue that pertains to the version of the software you are using. This is not a criticism of you. It is clear from the forum you help many, it is very admirable. It is just that I feel this information should be in the published manual. I feel each and every Tick Box, Selection, ... should be described and their interactions explored. But again, thank you for your invaluable help and support.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

It is just that I feel this information should be in the published manual

In my experience, it's not even worth trying to put everything in the published manual. Very few read it thoroughly, and if it was fully comprehensive, even fewer would read it thoroughly.

The Help File topic on the Glyph Transformer points to the Tutorials, where one can find a PDF and a link to my tutorial on Working with Transformations, where one can find this:

In the script — Bold (14,7) preserve bearings — means: add 14 funits to each side of vertical strokes, add 7 funits to the top and bottom of horizontal strokes, and preserve the side-bearings, i.e. add 28 funits to the advance width. Move (0,7) will move the glyph contours up by 7 funits to compensate for the bold action of adding 7 funits to the bottom of the glyphs horizontal strokes, thus keeping the X on the baseline.

That's not a criticism of you, but there is a lot of information to read through to learn all aspects of a powerful program like FontCreator, and the number of features has increased enormously since FC5.6. No one could hope to find it all even after several months of using the program. That's why support forums are so useful. Here, you can tap into the knowledge-base of users who have spent thousands of hours using the program, and with a range of artistic and programming skills.

[Julian Griffin]

Hi,

   I did not mean or intend to dismiss User Forums. They are a great place to help and support one another, something I am very much I favour of.

   I spent thirty years in IT, I know just how little some people will read. But others, like me, devour manuals, both paper and electronic [searchable]. It is a matter of the chaos over structure. Both have their place.

   But I am also dyslexic, which means I like to read only what I need to read [I read able half normal speed]. It is most disheartening to find out at the end of a long &/or complex peace of text that it is not what I wanted. But that, as they say, is life.

Regards Julian.

[MikeW]

Julian, one of my best friends is a pastor who is dyslexic. Lots of reading. Years ago he decided to use a screen reader that will read the active document or what is copied to the clipboard. It really has enabled him to comprehend longer technical material well.

Mike