Fixing Font Creator Defaults

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Dick Pape
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Fixing Font Creator Defaults

Post by Dick Pape »

Based on the experience we have had in Version 5.6, I would like to propose in any new version of FC to not provide any preformed letters ("Predefined outlines") as an crutch to font design.

We have started to see fonts created with Version 5.6 which come with 236 glyphs. Of these, 96 have been automatically drawn for letters such as Exclamation mark through At sign (glyphs 4-35), general punctuation marks, letterlike, currency and mathematical symbols. As they are drawn in a stylized seriffed style, by definition they will not match to the design of the new font.

Having at least two styles in a font is not at all professional and makes the font appear inconsistent and sloppy which immediately reflects on the Font Creator program. If these letters are not added by the designer, they should not be published in a font. To ask a new designer to clean up the font by getting rid of all glyphs he/she didn't design before publishing is an unrealistic expectation in my experience since many times they don't correct "Typeface © (your company). 2007. All Rights Reserved".

The opaque blue outlines should be more than sufficient for all font designers as guidelines to character formation.


In addition, being a traditionalist! I would correct the .notdef character to be a simple rectangle, omitting the extraneous embedded question mark which also cheapens the font style, in my opinion. If a font designer wishes a non-standard form, let them start from the proper design!
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Post by Erwin Denissen »

I agree predefined outlines are not a real solution, but we don't want fonts that contain empty glyphs either. Especially the numerous problems related to quotation marks not showing in Microsoft Word and other text processors. With the predefined outlines, the number of support questions related to the missing quotes significantly dropped to almost zero.
Dick Pape wrote:In addition, being a traditionalist! I would correct the .notdef character to be a simple rectangle, omitting the extraneous embedded question mark which also cheapens the font style, in my opinion. If a font designer wishes a non-standard form, let them start from the proper design!
This is what Microsoft recommends:
"It is recommended that the shape of the .notdef glyph be either an empty rectangle, a rectangle with a question mark inside of it, or a rectangle with an "X". Creative shapes, like swirls or other symbols, may not be recognized by users as indicating that a glyph is missing from the font and is not being displayed at that location."
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Post by William »

On the matter of the .notdef glyph.

As it happens, I often use my own design.

The basic design was first published in the following thread.

http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicod ... /0178.html

Some readers might like to know that the guest access username and password are available on the following page.

http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/

I sometimes use a font-specific variation on the design.

Of the three designs which Microsoft illustrates in the page which Erwin mentioned, the black rectangle with the enclosed question mark does, by the including of that question mark, have features of regular font glyphs, such as line thickness and whether serifs are used: the features used in the question mark within the .notdef glyph may or may not, in practice, match the features used in the regular question mark glyph within the font.

I do not really like the design of a question mark within a black rectangle for a .notdef glyph. To me, it seems to imply that the character is not known, whereas there is, in fact, no doubt as to what is the character, the indication is that the font cannot supply a glyph for the character.
Creative shapes, like swirls or other symbols, may not be recognized by users as indicating that a glyph is missing from the font and is not being displayed at that location.
As the sentence uses the phrase "may not", then that is true.

However, "may not" does not mean "will not", so I continue to use my own distinctive designs for the .notdef glyph. They are mostly large and solid, though some are not solid: maybe I should make them all solid so that they stand out in a display.

If I am not using my own design for the .notdef glyph I tend to use the black rectangle. However, a few of my development fonts do have the default black rectangle with a question mark and some might have made it to the web!

When starting a new font using FontCreator one has the option to set the "Don't include outlines", the option being prominently offered.

As it happens, I usually choose the "Don't include outlines" option. However, I feel that having the default case as being to "Include outlines" is the way round to do it, as that means that a beginner will get the outlines without neding to take any action.

Consider for example the Microsoft WordPad and Microsoft Paint programs.

If one starts Microsoft Word and presses a key on the keyboard, then the letter appears on the screen. WordPad is using several default situations, such as font, type size, colour: thus the beginner gets something.

If one starts Microsoft Paint and presses down the left mouse button and moves the mouse, then one gets a black line drawn on the screen. Paint is using several default situations, such as using the Pencil tool in black upon a white background: thus the beginner gets something.

Similarly, FontCreator by using default situations the beginner gets something more easily than if the default situations were not used.
If these letters are not added by the designer, they should not be published in a font.
I tend to have some agreement with this, though mention that not every font produced using FontCreator is intended for publication, some are for people learning: producing a first font where there are no printing characters can be confusing.
Especially the numerous problems related to quotation marks not showing in Microsoft Word and other text processors. With the predefined outlines, the number of support questions related to the missing quotes significantly dropped to almost zero.
That is interesting. That could perhaps mean that lots of new designers are not aware of the problem and its solution of the need to add the smart quote glyphs into fonts and thus they do not learn about that aspect of font design: or it could perhaps mean that putting the predefined outlines into the font helps them to realize what is happening and so they do not need to ask a support question in order to find out. Or maybe some combination of the two, or indeed perhaps something else.

William Overington

22 November 2007
Dick Pape
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After Two Comments

Post by Dick Pape »

So in conclusion:

1. Do not make "Predefined outlines" the default. Make the user select them.

2. Include only "a couple" of the quotation marks and not the other 94 extraneous, miscellaneous, infrequently-used fillers. (When was the last time ANY of us used any of the mathematical signs in our fonts?)

3. Use the first recommended alternative for the .notdef char. Alternatively use the 3rd choice -- both of these have no style (except for weight)! Do not use the question mark unless you composite it from a blank rectangle and the font-styled question mark so as to keep it in agreement...)

4. And, it would be nice to have some sort of "Validate"-like wizard to clean up a font. At a minimum it would delete incomplete glyphs. If those incomplete glyphs are present in a font, the .notdef character is not shown anyway.
Last edited by Dick Pape on Fri Nov 23, 2007 5:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by William »

Regarding Dick's suggestions under items 1 and 2.

Would it be reasonable to make the dialogue panel for a new font to be somewhat wider and to have three options rather than two regarding outlines?

"Include outlines" option on the left: "Include only smart quote outlines" option in the middle, that being the default selection: "Don't include any outlines" option on the right.

As the work to include the outlines has already been done, it seems reasonable to keep "Include outlines" as an option.

Regarding Dick's suggestions under item 3.

Would it be reasonable to make the dialogue panel for a new font to be somewhat higher (though still well less than 600 pixels!) and to have three options for the .notdef glyph, with the black rectangle as the default?

Regarding Dick's suggestion under item 4.

> At a minimum it would delete incomplete glyphs.

At present, using Edit Select Incomplete followed by pressing the delete key can be used to delete incomplete glyphs.

Yes, it would be nice to have a wizard which would do that and then recalculate the ranges as in the Format Settings... Ranges panel.

Maybe that wizard could include a copyright wizard so that the copyright messages in the various platforms could all be set at once, something like, in effect, by bringing up the panel from the Tools Options... Naming panel within the wizard.

Maybe it could be called the "Make ready for publication" wizard or something like that.

William Overington

22 November 2007
Bhikkhu Pesala
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Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

There is a good reason why I chose the notdef symbol with the question mark — there are valid symbols that use both of the other designs:

Geometric shapes, dingbats, and maths operators use these glyph shapes:

▟☒⊠
When was the last time ANY of us used any of the mathematical signs in our fonts?
The ANSI character set includes several maths symbols + - ± ÷ < > =

There could be an additiional option to include Serif or SansSerif glyph outlines, but perhaps that is just creeping sophistication. There is no way that we can guess what design will suit users' fonts.

The default outlines get beginners up and running fast. There is a long learning curve to font editing. FontCreator is trying to appeal to the non-professional user, so if they can get satisfying results quickly it will encourage them to keep going up the learning curve until they are ready to design their own quotation marks, etc.

I don't think we need to worry about FontCreator's reputation being spoiled by unprofessional fonts with mismatched glyphs. Just look at some of the freeware fonts produced by Fontographer. To me, fonts without basic glyphs like curly quotes or currency symbols look more amateurish than fonts with mismatched glyphs.
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Dick Pape
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Here's The Proof

Post by Dick Pape »

I'm glad you "forced my hand"... (hah).

I received this font which was really a Symbol font yet it had all those extra characters floating around. Displaying it in a character map where you can see the jumble of styles shows my concerns.

The font could have had an impact if it only had the glyphs drawn by the designer but with these extraneous letters it turned out poorly... This font was drawn and distributed without any "finishing" touches and these characters compounded the issue. (Apparently, this is what a font looks like if you use all FC defaults.)

Image

Bhikkhu Pesala -- you're being too nice. If we dumb down font design in the hopes of selling more product we will end up with tons of bad fonts because only the disinterested designers will use the autogenerate function. An unworthy direction for Font Creator. Having seen a lot of amateur fonts I don't want to see any worse than we've been getting in the past. I also will complain that the 30-day free trial allows crap like this to be freely drawn and distributed at no cost to the indiscriminate user, so perhaps there should be a watermark on the glyphs...

I agree the design of the .notdef probably can't be made unique due to the wide range of Unicode codes. My point is this figure should have no design characteristics such as, weight, slant, serifs or sans. A neutered notdef is needed!

You could easily say "throw it away". But I've seen is some otherwise good fonts don't have names, metrics and whatever but once run through FC quickly turn out very well. If these amateur fonts now have 96 additional visible things in them they will be in every font published from now on and they will be very hard to clean up.

This effort has a precedent in early Fontgrapher fonts which included many of the same letters. They stopped doing it for quality reasons I could guess. We should too!
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Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Never mind what other people's fonts look like. If you don't want to see any more amateurish fonts, then stop looking at other people fonts — look at your own. All you need to do is ensure that your own fonts contain all of the right glyphs and work as intended. Any software program can be used to produce rubbish if the user hasn't got a clue what he/she is doing. It does not reflect on the program, but only on the font designer.

The programmer can only provide the tools to do the job as easily as possible — we can provide tutorials and help files too, but many users do not read them.

Let's focus on improving the program for new users with a Panose wizard, better font validation, etc. Still, if people don't run these wizards, the errors will remain. I could show you plenty of "professional" fonts with many validation errors, no Panose information, or faulty metrics. The fonts are still usuable though. Isn't that the purpose of making fonts — to produce something people will actually want to use in publications?
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Committee

Post by Dave Crosby »

This demonstrates why nothing run by a committee ever prospers.

There has to be only one "Decider."
Otherwise the product (be it a program, an army, or a country), just like any creature that has lost its head, flails around until it dies.

Having committees around for input is a different matter entirely.
Hopefully, that is what we are, each with totally different needs, wants, and interests.

Dick is a Font Collector with zero interest in creating another alphabet font of which there are already more out there than most people can imagine.
For him, FC is a tool for cleaning up other people's messes in the fonts he likes.

For me, I enjoy adding hopefully unique font styles that interest me to those that do exist. I know an infinite number of curves can be drawn between two points. Therefore all possible alphabet fonts will never be made.

I agree with Dick that most of the time the Predefined outlines are not helpful.
I dislike having to turn them off every time I start a new font.
Several times I was well into a new font before realizing they were there and had to find and erase each of them.
A few times I even deleted entire fonts and started over because that was easier than chasing all the "No Fits" down.
Now I have to take time to make sure I've turned off the default setting each and every time I start a new font. It is a drag.

On the other hand, I can see a Newbie delighted to have a new font after only designing a few glyphs. As for the question mark, it is easily deleted.

As first time fonts are usually the person's handwriting, perhaps the default outlines should be a hand style?

In my opinion the Default should be "Don't include Outlines."

Perhaps there could be a choice of outlines available: hand drawn, sans serif, and several serifs.
This last I would use from time to time as I find it easy to modify glyphs and get what I want without having to start from scratch, but it sounds like a lot of work for Erwin, and very little return for it on his paycheck.
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Dick Pape
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Post by Dick Pape »

OK. I have the solution:

Erwin: I will buy another copy of FC if you will turn off those autogenerate characters!

(Money talks!!)

DP
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Re: Here's The Proof

Post by William »

Dick Pape wrote:I agree the design of the .notdef probably can't be made unique due to the wide range of Unicode codes. My point is this figure should have no design characteristics such as, weight, slant, serifs or sans. A neutered notdef is needed!
Do you or other readers have any ideas as to what such a .notdef glyph should look like?

I produced a design for a .notdef glyph in 2002. My design was first published in the following thread.

http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicod ... /0178.html

Some readers might like to know that the guest access username and password are available on the following page.

http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/

Maybe an art exhibition of .notdef characters can be produced, with the characters shown on large panels, both alone and amongst a page of text, so that viewers of the exhibition can look at them.

One interesting aspect is as to how many different designs for the .notdef glyph have been observed in use and which designs are used in which proportion of fonts.

William Overington

27 November 2007
Last edited by William on Wed Nov 28, 2007 7:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Erwin Denissen »

Dick Pape wrote:Erwin: I will buy another copy of FC if you will turn off those autogenerate characters!
As you know I'm working on a third product right now, socan the money wait till early next year?
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Hah

Post by Dick Pape »

If the Bush Dollar rises and the Oil Glut returns and my Lottery Win comes in, I will have money enough for your new product and this bribe offer...
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Post by Erwin Denissen »

With the weak dollar I'm losing more and more money every day... so I really need that bribe :wink:
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