Hi,
We face a little problem when we edit and save a specific font file
with FontCreator 5.5.
We edit the font file to fix some problem, mostly intersecting
coordinates and redundant points.
We don’t face this on all font files but especially on a specific one.
After removing some redundant point and saving the file some glyphs are
lost and also additional info (e.g. horizonal device metrics) seem to
be lost. You can see this very easily if you open both fonts side by
side in MainType. That leads even to different display of most glyphs
in the font.
Is this a bug and will it be fixed?
If needed I can send the font files.
Best regards,
Thomas Krebs
You will have to wait for Erwin to get an expert answer, but if you look on Tools, Options, Fonts, you can find an option to delete some tables including hdmx on opening font files.
If you edit any glyphs, hinting will be removed from those glyphs too.
Hi Thomas,
I’m afraid it is due to the fact FontCreator doesn’t support all font tables and, as Bhikkhu Pesala already mentioned, it does remove hinting data when you modify a glyph. To regenerate some of these tables, you need to use CacheTT, a free utility from Microsoft. It can be downloaded from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/tools/tools.htm
CacheTT is a utility to enable the modification of TrueType and TrueType Open files. Modifications include creation/ modification of one or more of the tables VDMX, hdmx and LTSH by calculating and caching values obtained from the rasterizer. The resulting font is a complete and correct font.
Do let us know your results.
Hi Erwin,
Ok, I assumed something like that, but that doesn’t explain why it looses some glyphs?
And wouldn’t it be nice to inform the user that some information is lost due to the tables and hinting?
I will try CacheTT and report.
Thomas
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for sending the original font file to me. The font contains invalid character mappings. FontCreator automatically removes invalid mappings, in your case both Gbreve and gbreve. You can fix this by adding correct mappings to these glyphs as described here:
How to enable a glyph, so it can be used as a character?
FontCreator also detected issues with the kerning data and stopped parsing the kerning data as soon as it detected corrupt data. There are numerous other technical issues with the font that might cause unexpected problems. Do let me know if this information helps.
And wouldn’t it be nice to inform the user that some information is lost due to the tables and hinting?
Such a warning is on the to-do list for a long time, but I have mixed feelings about implementing it.
I will try CacheTT and report.
Perfect, I’m very curious about your findings.
Erwin,
I analyzed the font more deeply (I’m not the author of that font) and found that the eare doubled assignments in the mapping. I assumed that this is the reason that some glyphs are lost when savin the font file again.
This behaviour is fine, but I think the user should be informed somehow that those actions are done.
I also tried cachett and it fills some of those tables, but as the problem is somewhere else I didn’t proceed any further.
Opening the font with FontCreator doesn’t cause any loss of glyphs. In fact those glyphs have never been accessible because of the duplicate mappings, so FontCreator didn’t brake things, it just removed the invalid (and useless) duplicate mappings. Nevertheless I agree it would be a nice feature to show a report of all things that are wrong with a font, on opening it, but that is something that has very low priority right now.
it would be a nice feature to show a report of all things that are wrong with a font, on opening it, but that is something that has very low priority right now.
So the New Fix Fonts Folder won’t be out for a while?
I can’t give too much detail about future development and upcoming releases, but I guess you are right.