Pointing hand bug in preview?

FontCreator - Font Editor FontCreator - Support
21

I appreciate the effort, Erwin (seriously), but you didn’t actually answer any of my questions. :wink: I do understand – now – the reason/purpose for having an offset (for things like diacriticals), I just don’t know how to create/change such offsets. Like, in the latest version of my font, I mistakenly ran that script to set x=0 to all my glyphs, not realize that I was screwing some things up – so how do I fix that now?

Other than diacritical marks, I can’t think of any other glyphs that might need an offset – are there any, other than diacriticals? – but even if the program creates those offsets automatically, is there no way to make adjustments to them? Surely there are times when one would want to?

Nowhere in the program can I find a way to change the offset (or create an offset in the first place) – and now that I’ve screwed up my font I’m not sure how to get things fixed up again (other than to copy/paste my diacriticals from an earlier version of my font… but then, how do I know they were right to begin with???).

Plus I discovered that I had offsets (to “regular” characters) all over the place – how on earth did I create those? I certainly didn’t create those intentionally, but the fact that they were there obviously means that there’s some way to create/edit those offsets.

While designing fonts, it is usually smart to keep composite glyphs, unless they are just a way to get a start for a final result. Most composites can remain a composite, some examples are agrave, aacute, acircumflex, ograve, ntilde. Other glyphs are too complex but can get a good start through complete composites. They require some fine-tuning.

Oh, that’s interesting. I distinctly remember reading somewhere that one should avoid having any composite glyphs at all, because apparently they can cause issues at times – I don’t know what those issues are, or in what contexts that they occur, but I’m sure I read that somewhere (and hence the reason that I have no composite glyphs in any of my fonts – although many characters do start out as such, of course).

For example the > Bitcoin Symbol> .

Oh, crap, another glyph for me to add in all my fonts! Just what I needed. :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway, thanks for your reply, once again, it’s appreciated – even though I’m still confused! :frowning:

22

Most issues should be solved by another run of complete composites.

23

Well, this is confusing for me. Please correct me if/when I’m wrong in my understanding of this, based on what I’ve been reading here so far…

The only glyphs that should have an offset are the aforementioned diacriticals, whlle all other glyphs should have no offset – is that right?

Diacriticals (which have an offset) are used to make composite characters (which, in the end result, do not have an offset), but in and of themselves diacriticals aren’t “composites” of anything.

So what is it that you’re saying I should run “complete composites” on? The diacriticals? They’re not composite characters – they’re used to create composite characters.

Does my confusion, at least, make sense? LOL :wink:

24

No, all glyphs should have their left side bearing point set at x=0, thus offset = 0.

No, I’m saying, to first ensure all glyphs have their left side bearing point set at x=0. Then run complete composite on all composites that need to be fixed.

25

This isn’t helping – ha ha. Okay, if all glyphs (including diacriticals) should have no offset, then what’s this whole discussion about? I ran that script on all my characters to set the offset to 0 and was told that that was a mistake, that my diacriticals (at least) need that offset – and I actually understood why they do, but now you’re telling me that they shouldn’t.

I’m saying, to first ensure all glyphs have their left side bearing point set at x=0. Then run complete composite on all composites that need to be fixed.

If no glyphs should have an offset, and if I then run that script to get rid of that offset on all my characters, then what is it that needs to be “fixed” afterwards? What got “broken” by running that script?

I just don’t get this – and I feel like there’s something I’m just not getting here, something that should be obvious, staring me in the face, and I’m just not seeing it. :open_mouth:

26

Please show us a character that has issues, so we can better understand your problems, and how to deal with them.

27

PS. to my last reply… another thing I don’t understand here is how on earth an offset is created (or edited/changed) in the first place. I never even noticed (or paid attention to) that offset checkbox in the glyph properties dialog until recently, but upon doing so I discovered that I had offsets all over the place in various characters (and not just diaccriticals). Obviously those shouldn’t be there, but how were they created? Nowhere in the program can I find anywhere to set/change the offset, I can only find where the offset is indicated, but you can’t change that amount in there other than to set it to 0.

This makes no sense to me. How did I unintentionally create an offset in various characters – how is it even possible! – when I can’t find anywhere in the program to adjust that offset? And yet, somehow I did manage to do so.

28

The offset is the horizontal position of the left side-bearing line.

Indeed the manual needs to be improved here. If someone if able to write a short description of this, then I’m happy to add it to the manual.
http://www.high-logic.com/fontcreator/manual11/glyphmetrics.html

29

I’m slow – I don’t know what you want me to show you. This all started because I was trying to add a the 4 pointing hand glyphs to my font, then one of them was somehow pushed over, disappearing into the left margin (if it was the first character). I couldn’t understand why that was happening but then Bhikkhu pointed out that I had an offset and to just check the checkbox to get rid of it.

How I created that offset in the first place, though – when nowhere in the program can I find anywhere to change that offset (other than to set it to 0) – I have no idea, but after Bhikkhu pointed that out I just poked around in my font, hitting characters here and there, and discovered that most were okay (set to 0) but several others did also have an offset.

And so then I found that script to set that to 0, and ran that on my whole font – which I was then told was the wrong thing to do, because diacriticals need that offset (and I can understand why).

I’m happy to take screenshots if you need to “see” what I’m talking about, but I’m not sure of what – doesn’t the above (and previous/original) explanation(s) explain the issue?

30

Yeah, that much I finally did learn. :wink: So I know WHAT it is, but how do you edit (change) it? If I want to “manually” give a character an offset, how would I go about it? The thing is, I did do so before (unintentionally) because a number of my glyphs incorrectly had an offset, so obviously there has to be a way to give a glyph an offset – but where/how?

And your comment here relates to that, too…

Indeed the manual needs to be improved here. If someone if able to write a short description of this, then I’m happy to add it to the manual.
Welcome to FontCreator 15

From that page, the manual currently says this (in part)…

In the Glyph Edit window there are two vertical lines (normally the glyph outline lies in between these lines) that represent the left and right side-bearings. These are shown by default but you can hide them through the Show Metrics button on the Drawing toolbar. The left and right side-bearings can be changed by dragging them to their desired position. You can also adjust the side-bearings through the Glyph Properties tool window. White space should be evenly distributed between the left and right side-bearings of glyphs except when font is specifically designed with ligatures for joining characters in a cursive script font.

Yes, that’s what I see in the glyph edit window, too – but where is this “point” that the LSB is referring to? I see the two lines for the LSB and RSB, but if a glyph has an offset, where/how is that indicated? There’s no other, third line or anything (let alone something I could adjust).

31

It is not wrong, but it might affect the horizontal position of composite glyph members.

32

Again, the offset is the horizontal position of the left side-bearing line. So if you want to change the offset, just move that line.

33

My brain just exploded. Now I suddenly don’t understand anything at all! :open_mouth:

I just did that, and – my apologies for not “seeing” that before – now I see that if I move the LSB then suddenly I indeed do have a third line.

What the fudge, though! It’s like all of a sudden I don’t understand fonts (more specifically glyphs) at all. I’m looking at a character in the glyph edit window, I see it’s shape, and to the left there was originally a line – the LSB, of course. It wasn’t touching the edge of the actual glyph, but was off a little bit – by the amount indicated in the LSB window, of course (in the glyph properties). And that’s what that number represents, i.e. how far from the left edge of the glyph the left-side bearing is. And as far as any offset goes (to another, third point) there was none.

Then I drag that line a little over to the left – and as I do so there’s now TWO lines (i.e. a third vertical line), and both the numbers in my LSB and the offset (below it) change.

So this – now, at this point in this discussion – is what I don’t understand. When I move the LSB, surely I don’t want it to create an offset, I’m only adjusting that bearing to wherever I think it should be – no? But when I move that LSB, there’s that third line that appears that remains where it was before – and it’s not touching the edge of my glyph, it’s away from it by the same distance that my LSB was before. It’s like I now have two LSBs.

It’s totally weird that I never noticed a third line appearing before, as I’ve adjusted that LSB countless times like that, but now I see what you mean – I just don’t know why you would want that to happen, though. Surely, in 99.9999% of the times that one moves the LSB, you want the offset to remain at 0, don’t you?

I feel like there’s more that I’m confused about here, but I’m having troubles thinking here while my head is still exploding – lol :laughing: