Thank you for the information about the website. It is interesting.
However, I wonder if you might get better results for your particular use if you made your initial font using FontStruct instead.
http://fontstruct.fontshop.com
I have found that making a font 15 FontStruct blocks high above the baseline works well.
There is a thread about FontStruct in this forum, which is where I first learned about FontStruct.
I have made a few fonts using FontStruct. FontStruct does have limitations, but it is very useful for some purposes. I have got good results by making a font using FontStruct and then processing it using FontCreator 5.6: the processing involving removing redundant points and fixing a few overlapping contour problems. I have also altered the metrics on the fonts.
I do not fully understand metrics. I tend to alter them to the following, which is what I usually use in FontCreator 5.6 when making fonts from a blank start.
I always use, on Format Settings… Header Layout 2048 Units per em. That is the default with FontCreator 5.6, but FontStruct gives 1024 Units per em. Maybe there is no need to change it, but I do.
I then have, at Format Settings… Metrics, Typo Ascender, Win Ascent and Ascender set at 2048, Typo Line Gap and Line Gap set at 0, and Typo Descender, Win Descent and Descender all set at the same value, which depends on the font, but is always a multiple of 256. I have used 0 for some symbol-like fonts, I cannot remember ever having used -256 or -512 but I have used -768, -1024, -1280 and -1536.
The -1536 is rather extreme, it is in a font design with very long ascenders and descenders.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/CHRONICL.TTF
I usually use a value of -768 or -1024 for a text font.
I made a font at the FontEditor BitfontMaker website, saved it to local storage on this computer (PC running Windows xp professional) and then opened it in FontCreator 5.6. The font I made was just using the Sample button, so there is no artistic input from me.
Running Font Validate… informed me that 92 glyphs have problems.
So I shifted the glyphs up by 200 and changed the metrics as you did. Testing the font in FontCreator 5.6 clipped the descenders, and trying the font in Microsoft WordPad at 24 point clipped the descenders as well.
What I tend to do in a situation of this kind, namely a situation where I have a font with artwork that I want yet the font was either made with an older fontmaking program, or has some structural problem that I either cannot locate or am unsure how to fix, is to start a new font in FontCreator 5.6, with no outlines included, and then set metrics and so on in FontCreator 5.6 in the new font and copy the artwork only from the old font into the new font, if necessary one glyph at a time, though often large runs of glyphs can all be copied at once; for example A..Z or a..z.
This method has always produced good results. The artwork is conserved and is available in a font structure that is made in FontCreator 5.6.
I hope that this helps.
William Overington
25 May 2009