Swash caps -- bottom cut off

FontCreator - Font Editor FontCreator - Support
1

I have modified an existing font to add 26 swash caps characters. They are mapped to the Private Use Area beginning at address 0xE000. The captions are A.alt01, B.alt01, etc.

The em-square for the font is 2048. The maximum ascender is 1675, and the maximum descender is -753, so the maximum vertical character size is 2428. The tallest characters are among the new swash characters.

At Format/Settings/Metrics, I used the Calculate button to calculate the Win Ascent and Win Descent using Default, which are 1630 and -563, respectively. (According to Help, these numbers are based on only the ANSI characters.)

If I install the font at this point and use it in a Word document, I can select my swash caps via Insert/Symbol, but the bottoms of several of these swash characters are cut off.

I tried re-calculating Win Ascent and Win Descent using the maximum, which gives me 1675 and -753 (and uninstalling, saving, and reinstalling the font, of course). But this does not correct the problem in Word.

I was able to see the entire swash character only by using the Glyph Transformer to scale all characters to 80%. This gives me max values of 1340 and 602, and a maximum vertical character size of 1942 (i.e. less than 2048). Is this the correct way to solve this problem?

Should you keep your characters “within the black lines”, by scaling if necessary? Or is there some way to adjust the settings at Format/Settings/Metrics to avoid these chopped-off characters?

From looking at several commercial fonts, in some cases the sum of the calculated WinAscent and WinDescent are as much as 150% of the em-square, yet they print correctly in Word. Why do these fonts print, and my swash caps do not?

When should you calculate metrics using Default and when should you use Maximum, and what difference does this make? In my case, using Maximum didn’t solve the problem.

2

This link should help:
How to Change the Space Between Two Lines of Text

Do let us know your results.

3

Hi, Erwin:

Thank you for the tips. I did those things last night. I tried with both “Default” and “Maximum”, but the lower bearing line did NOT change, and my swash caps extended above and below the top and bottom bearings and were cut off top and bottom. I could only get them to print by scaling the entire font down to 82%. This font does not have a VDMX table.

This morning I did this all over, and now the bearings ARE changing and the characters print properly. I don’t know what was happening last night. I didn’t really reboot – I put the computer into “hibernation” over night.

In general, when you know you have larger letters outside the ANSI character set, is that the time you should use Maximum instead of Default? Is there any time when you would type in the values manually?

Is there anywhere I can read about how the Apple values (on the right) for Ascent and Descent are calculated, and how the TypoAscent and TypoDescent are calculated? The manual says they are calculated differently from WinAscent and WinDescent, but doesn’t elaborate.

4

Hi Myrna,

I’m glad to see it finally worked the way you intended. When you modify a font, always make sure to first uninstall or unload it, before saving your changes. Then reinstall or reload the font. This ensures Windows releases the old version and uses the new modified version instead.

Right now I don’t have much time to explain the calculations. Although the title lets you believe this is only related to FontLab, this is actually related to TrueTypoe and OpenType fonts regardless what font editor you use:
Setting Font Family Metrics in FontLab

Do let me know if you still need more information about FontCreator’s calculations and I’ll try to find some time to further explain this.