Font becomes unsharp after moving

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1

Hi,

I’m using the Evaluation version of FontCreator 5.5. I want to modify the font Verdana: All characters should be moved to the right (to fit them in a game).
But when i move them (800 to right), they become unsharp at small sizes. in addition the size of the font file is approximate halved (133 → 70 kb). Can someone please tell me how to solve this problem?

thanks in advance

PS: Sorry for my bad english :slight_smile:

2

When you modify glyphs, the hinting is removed from those glyphs, that is why they don’t look so good at small sizes. It also accounts for the smaller TTF files size.

3

can i simply add it again or what do i have to do?

4

Verdana is designed for Microsoft by Matthew Carter (one of the four founders of Bitstream) and hand-hinted by Tom Rickner (works for Ascender). It’s first release in 1996 must have take hundreds of hours of hard work. I wouldn’t be surprised if the total time with all later releases totals over thousands of hours. I suggest you contact Ascender as they offer Microsoft fonts for license and they are also allowed to make modifications.
http://www.ascendercorp.com/msfonts/msfonts_main.html

5

In fact i do not want to touch anything of the font except increasing the space to the left about 5 pixel at font size 13. is there another way to solve this?
i would really appreciate your help!

6

Take a look at Bitstream Vera instead.

However, if you adjust the glyphs, you will still run into the loss of hinting problem.

Try designing your own font for use at the size at which you intend to use it. If you design it right, it won’t need hinting.

7

There is a - quite laborious - way to do what you want. You need to create new composite glyphs. Take the following steps:

  • Add the number of glyphs you want to change.
  • Select the glyphs you want to change.
  • Press Ctrl-C to copy these glyphs to the clipboard.
  • Select the added glyphs, which are still empty.
  • Press Ctrl-E to Paste Special the selected glyphs; tick all check boxes.
  • Make all new glyphs empty.
  • Then you need to add one by one the original glyphs as composite elements to the newly created empty glyphs and shift them as you like.

This procedure keeps the original hinting.

8

ok at first thanks for the help :slight_smile:

but i don’t really understand the two last points… can you precise them a little bit and what this is good for?
and do i have to select when in “special paste” mapping? “keep same mappings” ?

9

After ticking all the check boxes you should select “Overrule same mappings”. Now the new glyphs are identical to the original ones and have the correct encodings (which you moved to the new glyphs by selecting “Overrule same mappings”). Then you should make one of the new glyphs, e.g. the character “a”, empty, select the original “a” and copy it to the clipboard by pressing Ctrl-C, open the new glyph (which is now empty) and Paste the “a” into it. Now the “a” is a composite element in the new glyph with the correct encoding. Then you can shift it in any direction you like without destroying the hinting.

10

Thanks!

Joop, this would make a GREAT Tutorial!

11

:bulb: You can copy and paste more than one composite member at once — this saves a bit or work. For example, copy A-E, paste all five, delete four, move to the next glyph, etc.

12

wow i really thank you all
i have done it now and it looks perfect :slight_smile:
but in my opinion the developers should make a script that can do this or at least make the transformer tool to be able to move composites