Hello everyone! I am new to font making and fontcreator. I typically teach myself how to do just about everything computer related through trail and error. But I have been having problems figuring out what I am doing wrong now.
So I’ve been working on this font, it is a handwritten style script font. I’ve been working on this for over a week, its been going well, the font is looking great. I have attempted to add stylistic alternates for each lowercase character, but I think I must be doing something wrong because when I export and install the font, and open the glyph panel in Illustrator, all of my alternates are squares.
I’ve tried to look up my issue but can not find anything. It is probably something simple that I just did completely wrong.
Thanks in advance for any help!
If you copy and paste your script for the Stylistic Alternates here, someone may be able to spot what is wrong. Mine are like this with five alternates for each glyph, the first being the same as the input (I only listed one sub for the sake of simplicity).
feature StylisticAlternates salt {
lookup StylisticAlternates;
} lookup StylisticAlternates {
sub asterisk -> [asterisk asteriskmath uni2051 uni2042 uni203B];
}
Thanks for your quick reply, and for pointing me toward the script. Would that make the alternates turn into squares if the scripting was wrong?
I imagine I likely do not have it written right, I have tried to do it several different ways. Mostly by looking at other fonts script to see how they did it. This is my latest, it is not showing any errors when I validate. But the alternate characters are still not showing after exporting and installing. In Photoshop, it recognizes that there are stylistic alternates in the character panel, but when I try to apply it to a letter it changes to a square.
script latn {
# Latin
feature StylisticAlternates1;
}
feature StylisticAlternates1 salt {
# Stylistic Alternates
lookup Lookup1;
}
lookup Lookup1 {
# Referenced by feature "StylisticAlternates1"
sub a -> [a.alt01];
sub b -> [b.alt01];
sub c -> [c.alt01];
sub d -> [d.alt01 d.alt02];
sub e -> [e.alt01];
sub f -> [f.alt01];
sub g -> [g.alt01];
sub h -> [h.alt01];
sub i -> [i.alt01];
sub j -> [j.alt01];
sub k -> [k.alt01];
sub l -> [l.alt01 l.alt02];
sub m -> [m.alt01];
sub n -> [n.alt01];
sub o -> [o.alt01];
sub p -> [p.alt01];
sub q -> [q.alt01];
sub r -> [r.alt01 r.alt02];
sub s -> [s.alt01 s.alt02];
sub t -> [t.alt01 t.alt02];
sub u -> [u.alt01];
sub v -> [v.alt01];
sub w -> [w.alt01];
sub x -> [x.alt01 x.alt02];
sub y -> [y.alt01];
sub z -> [z.alt01];
}
This is my latest draft. I don’t know if I am doing this scripting right, as I have only been able to reference script from other fonts. Photoshop recognizes that there is stylistic alternatives in the character panel, but when I try to apply it to a letter I get a square.
script latn {
# Latin
feature StylisticAlternates1;
}
feature StylisticAlternates1 salt {
# Stylistic Alternates
lookup Lookup1;
}
lookup Lookup1 {
# Referenced by feature "StylisticAlternates1"
sub a -> [a.alt01];
sub b -> [b.alt01];
sub c -> [c.alt01];
sub d -> [d.alt01 d.alt02];
sub e -> [e.alt01];
sub f -> [f.alt01];
sub g -> [g.alt01];
sub h -> [h.alt01];
sub i -> [i.alt01];
sub j -> [j.alt01];
sub k -> [k.alt01];
sub l -> [l.alt01 l.alt02];
sub m -> [m.alt01];
sub n -> [n.alt01];
sub o -> [o.alt01];
sub p -> [p.alt01];
sub q -> [q.alt01];
sub r -> [r.alt01 r.alt02];
sub s -> [s.alt01 s.alt02];
sub t -> [t.alt01 t.alt02];
sub u -> [u.alt01];
sub v -> [v.alt01];
sub w -> [w.alt01];
sub x -> [x.alt01 x.alt02];
sub y -> [y.alt01];
sub z -> [z.alt01];
}
I tried adding the input as the first, like in your script, now in Photoshop when I click on the stylistic alternatives button, instead of a square, it just does not change the letter at all.
script latn {
# Latin
feature StylisticAlternates1;
}
feature StylisticAlternates1 salt {
# Stylistic Alternates
lookup Lookup1;
}
lookup Lookup1 {
# Referenced by feature "StylisticAlternates1"
sub a -> [a a.alt01];
sub b -> [b b.alt01];
sub c -> [c c.alt01];
sub d -> [d d.alt01 d.alt02];
sub e -> [e e.alt01];
sub f -> [f f.alt01];
sub g -> [g g.alt01];
sub h -> [h h.alt01];
sub i -> [i i.alt01];
sub j -> [j j.alt01];
sub k -> [k k.alt01];
sub l -> [l l.alt01 l.alt02];
sub m -> [m m.alt01];
sub n -> [n n.alt01];
sub o -> [o o.alt01];
sub p -> [p p.alt01];
sub q -> [q q.alt01];
sub r -> [r r.alt01 r.alt02];
sub s -> [s s.alt01 s.alt02];
sub t -> [t t.alt01 t.alt02];
sub u -> [u u.alt01];
sub v -> [v v.alt01];
sub w -> [w w.alt01];
sub x -> [x x.alt01 x.alt02];
sub y -> [y y.alt01];
sub z -> [z z.alt01];
}
Hopefully someone can help, I’ve hit a roadblock. Thanks again!
If a letter is changing to a square that usually means that the glyph is not defined, so what you see is the .notdef glyph in your font.
I think the problem may be that you have mixed “one to one” and “one to many” substitutions, i.e. a → a.alt01 but d → d.alt01 d.alt02.
In PagePlus, when I enable Stylistic Alternates, I expect to get no change until I select one of the additional sets. The original text stream is for SS01:
When I select the second alternate set I get this:
And when I select the third alternate set I get this:
Thanks Bhikkhu, I will go through and try to clean up the script and see if that works.
I messed around a little more last night and was able to actually see the alternates in the glyphs panel in Illustrator, but I still can not get them to work when I press the button in the character panel in Photoshop. Not sure what I did different that worked for Illustrator.
I am not convinced that my answer is correct. There might be some other reason. Do check that the glyph names are correct. It’s quite easy to add a space in error, eg. "a.alt01 " instead of “a.alt01”
Bhikkhu, I went back and started the script from scratch. I referenced the script used by Mathilde.otf to get it started. I separated the two alternates as you suggested, made the second set into swash because they actually are a swash style. It works perfectly now, no more problems. I must have been scripting it wrong to begin with, I’m not very good with script.
I appreciate your help!
I’m glad you sorted it out, but I would still like to make sure there are no bugs in FontCreator that caused the problem. So it would be great if you send the problematic font project to us.
