Max width for a glyph

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hisboyelroy
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Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 2:36 am

Max width for a glyph

Post by hisboyelroy »

I am a novice at font creation/editing, and I couldn't find the answer to this by searching. I appreciate your help.

A former member of our team created an .otf font made up of some basic shapes that we use for some pseudo graphics. Most of them are just solid rectangular blocks. The font currently works as is, and when I type out the characters using MS Word (and in our intended application), they appear as expected. However, if I read in the font into FontCreator or another editor then try to output the font (or just "Test TTF/OTF" in FontCreator), only the rectangular blocks that are less than about 6000 units are generated as visible characters. If I stretch any of the glyphs to less than 6000, they become visible. But stretch any of them to over 6000, then they become invisible.

The existing font file has some of these rectangular glyphs that are as wide as 32,000 units, so somehow the original designer was able to generate the font file without this problem. Is there a setting or something I'm missing that allows for these wider glyphs? I am trying to edit the font because I want to add a couple more glyphs that will also be these types of extra wide rectangles.
Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Max width for a glyph

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

There is a maximum limit, but I don't recall what it is.

I was not able to reproduce the issue with a new font, using 1000 funits/em in Font Properties, General, and glyphs of 6000, 16000, and 32000 funits. All displayed correctly in the Font Test window and in another application.

Which version of FontCreator are you using and which code-points are these glyphs assigned to?

If you can attach the font here it would help.
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
hisboyelroy
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 2:36 am

Re: Max width for a glyph

Post by hisboyelroy »

I am using a free trial version of FontCreator 9.0. Since it is a free trial, I am only able to display it in the font test window. I used FontForge to generate the actual font file and it showed the problem in actual use. And now it seems that the problem I continued to encounter when I used FontCreator was because I used the font that was generated by FontForge. If I use the original, which our former team member created using FontCreator, it doesn't seem to exhibit the problem. But again, I'm only able to test at this point, not generate a font file with it.

I am also finding a different issue. If I copy one of the glyphs to a new one and try to create a longer rectangle, it seems to be shorter in the display than it should. Also, the editor doesn't seem to like operating much beyond a certain point. So perhaps I've reached the width limit.

If you could do me the great favor of making sure that it generates the actual font file no problem, then I will purchase a registered version so I can do the same. And could you tell me how wide of a rectangular character you were successfully able to create? The original font file is attached.

Here is a summary of the current code points:
The ! character has the shortest rectangle, which displays properly. The > character has a filled in triangle that also displays properly. The characters that have rectangles that were too wide (but now seem fine in the test window) are: #, A, B, C.

Thanks very much for your help!
Attachments
pphDynamicBackground_orig.otf
(2.13 KiB) Downloaded 596 times
Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Max width for a glyph

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

It seems to work OK.

The widest glyph that displays correctly in the Glyph Edit window is about 16,000 funits @ 2048 funits/em.

The C glyph is nearly 32,000 funits, and overlaps the working area, but seems to work OK in the exported font.

I added some glyphs for the Digits, and reversed the direction of the ABC glyphs to get this result in Serif PagePlus with the text string "C01234567890."
Experiment.png
Experiment.png (3.69 KiB) Viewed 11523 times
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
hisboyelroy
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 2:36 am

Re: Max width for a glyph

Post by hisboyelroy »

That's good to know. Thanks very much for your help. I will go ahead and register the software now.
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