How do I set up a font to use cubic rather than quadratic curves? I can’t seem to find the setting for this anywhere.
You cannot. The Truetype format uses Quadratic curves, so that’s what FontCreator uses.
This earlier thread may be of interest.
If the problem is the accuracy of small circles imported from EPS files, see this thread
FontCreator 7.5 can export to either TTF or OTF, the latter being Type2 charstrings. Type2 charstrings use cubic curves (there are no quadratic curves in CFF). One would thus expect to have the option to say “new font - OTF, not TTF”, and get cubic curves.
Forgot to response to your link to the other thread - that’s a topic from 2003, and fonts moved on since then. “Type1” fonts no longer exist as a thing, we now use OpenType fonts, with either TrueType outlines (using the glyf/loca tables) or Type2 (using the CFF table, encoding an adobe compact font format block). The first uses quadratic curves exclusively, the second uses cubic curves exclusively.
I’m also the author of http://pomax.github.io/bezierinfo (in addition to several font parsers, as well as font-to-outline converters), knowing the difference between the expressiveness of quadratic vs. cubic quite well – you can model the first perfectly with the second, but not the other way around. So, I expect to be able to say “this will be a Type2 font”, and get cubic curve modelling, which is more precise than quadratic modelling (both in terms of control as designer, as well as mathematically more precise in approximating sinoid curvatures, e.g. elliptical and circular arcs)
Today being Sunday, you may have to wait for a response from the developer whether he has plans to implement support for Postscript outlines.
Currently, FontCreator uses Truetype Quadratic curves and there is no way to change that.
I would like to make notice of another old forum post:
What is the difference between TrueType and OpenType?
Right now FontCreator can open all OpenType fonts, but will convert PostScript based OpenType fonts to TrueType based OpenType fonts. We are seriously considering adding more/better support for cubic curves, so it is great to know there is an actual need for it!
As a programmer with CFF parsing experience, working for an open source company, and having a decently big github portfolio: need a hand? Because converting Type2 charstrings to TTF outlines leads to loss of precision, I’m sure we can do something better here =)
Might also unlock the power of outline subroutines (global, at least) i.e. mark a section of an outline as a subroutine, see it listed in a folder “subroutines”, and have them be available when compositing your glyph. Draw some lines, right click “insert from subroutine…”, pick subroutine, continue glyph drawing. Need a new serif look later on? change the serif’s partial outline, and all your glyphs update.
We welcome all help that allows us to improve our software, so expect an email form us shortly.