Adding a glyph makes others revert to default

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1

Hello,

first, newbie alert: I’m taking the first serious steps with using FCP (4.5).

So far it went very well and was great fun, but now I have run into a strange issue and am hoping someone can point me at least in the general direction where to look for a solution.

I have two symbol fonts to which I want to add two glyphs each.
For the first one it all went perfectly smooth (proving that up to a point I know how to do it :smiley: )

So I tried the same procedure on the second font, and the following happens:

  1. I can add an empty glyph to the font.
  2. I can copy-paste the new glyph into this new position.
  3. If at this point I try the Test Font window, the other glyphs of this font show up OK.
    (Obviously I cannot yet type the new glyph, because it has no mapping yet.)
  4. I can then assign a mapping to the glyph (doing it the same way which succeeded in the first font), and can then type the new glyph in the Test Font window; it shows up OK.
  5. But all other characters are now displayed as glyphs from some “default” font (looking a bit like Arial and entirely unlike “my” font). Ditto if I check them in Charmap and in the specific application for which the font is made.
    (I also noticed that in that application the new glyph is not adjusted properly: it is an up-arrow and should “stand on the baseline” like the letter “i”, but it seems to descend below the baseline. This is however not the case in the Test Font window, so I am not sure if it is the font’s or the application’s fault.)
  6. If I remove the mapping (or indeed the whole glyph), the other characters use their correct glyphs from “my” font again. Only that the new glyph now is no longer available…

That font originally had a lot of errors (as seen in Validate), but these are now all fixed, and the problem persists.

Can anyone advise in which direction I should be looking, to find out what is going wrong here?
Could the problem be with copy-pasting the glyph from another font (in fact the one I earlier modified successfully)?
Which font parameters have to be compatible for “inter-font copy-pasting” to succeed?

Thanks in advance for your comments and advice!

Cheers,
Martin

2

Welcome to the Forum, Fondoffonts. We are too.

Vn 4.5 isn’t the most current although this problem would not be different with a more updated version.

The display font is likely to be Arial. That shows there is a problem with the Platform and the Mappings.

The two Symbol fonts you started with – were their platforms both “Symbol”? (Format/Platform Manager > Microsoft Symbol) There is no rule that insures proper platform coding. You should try to be consistent in the maps so as not to confuse anybody. More accurately, symbol glyphs should be established in Symbol fonts.

If you add a glyph to a font (copy/paste or draw it or import image) and go to map it, check what assignments have been given to the other glyphs and be consistent (Format/Mappings).

If the others have been mapped to Latin letters (A,B,C, etc.) then use another available letter.

Symbol fonts are often assigned numbers in the private use area, 61k on up range. Just use the next available one.

This consistency is important.

3

Hello,

many thanks for your prompt reply!

OK, this is an important hint, so I need to look further into the mapping issue.

My first idea had indeed been to check the platforms, and to convince myself that both fonts are Symbol fonts.
I also had a look at the mappings, of course, and most glyphs are mapped to some Unicode up-range ($F0nn) number, which I understand to be appropriate for Symbol fonts.

The problem is that these fonts (which are used only in a specific application) have a long and somewhat varied history, so not all is as consistent as it should be.

E.g. alongside the $F0nn mappings there are also others of $00nn type (as used for non-Symbol fonts), and I’m not sure how compatible it all is. In fact, many glyphs have a $F0nn and a $00nn mapping (with nn the same number for both). This seems to be legitimate, but what exactly does it mean? I am aware that no two different glyphs can have the same character mapped to them (obviously), but what about two mappings for the same glyph? Apparently this is allowed, but would it have “ramifications”?

Anyhow, my best bet seems to be to re-do all mappings from scratch. So far I avoided this according to “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.”, and for the first font this worked indeed. But the second one is clearly broken, so I might have to “bite the bullet”.

Thanks again for your comments, and giving me some “sense of direction” for which I was hoping.

Cheers,
Martin

PS.

Yes, I know, but I think I would have to buy the current version at full price. And as I use FCP only in sporadic bouts every now and then, I still have to get full ROI from my old version :slight_smile:
(Or is there in fact an upgrade offer from 4.x to 5.x ? AFAIK, my original purchase, which was long ago, covered only 12 months worth of updates).

4

Happy End: After cleaning up the mappings everything is now fine.
Switching all mappings consistently to Unicode Private Use Area numbers ($F0nn) did the trick.

Thanks again for showing me the way :stuck_out_tongue:

Cheers,
Martin