Font Forum

I have added a ct ligature and some OpenType Features for Standard and Discretionary Ligatures. I added the legacy kern table to the export options — otherwise the kerning will not work in some applications, including Serif PagePlus X8 or earlier.
I have also made some other minor modifications — these are suggestions only, as it's all a matter of personal preference.

1. I adjusted the position of the macron accent on L dot macron and R dot macron
2. I adjusted the spacing on the ffi and ffl ligatures to match the ff ligature
3. I straightened the connecting arm of the ff ligature
4. I lowered the left ascender of the ff ligatures by 50 funits
5. I renamed the Lookups to match the Features — Standard Ligatures, Discretionary Ligatures — instead of using the default names.

Thank you very much for your help Bhikkhu. It is much appreciated (and so fast).

I will take a look at the modifications at some point today.

> If anyone doesn't have 7-zip then let me know and I will post the uncompressed files.

I do not have a facility to unpack 7-zip files. The font file would be appreciated please.

Also, could you possibly say something about the name Kelvinch please, as to what is its meaning?

William

William wrote:I do not have a facility to unpack 7-zip files.

Download 7-Zip and install it then you will be able to extract and create 7z archives, saving bandwidth and reducing the load on the High-Logic server.

Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:

William wrote:I do not have a facility to unpack 7-zip files.

Download 7-Zip and install it then you will be able to extract and create 7z archives, saving bandwidth and reducing the load on the High-Logic server.

You will also be able to extract from (but not create) RAR archives.

I would prefer the font file if possible, but if that is not possible, then so be it.

William

William wrote:I would prefer the font file if possible, but if that is not possible, then so be it.

William

If you have downloaded the 7z archive, then you already have the font file. If you download and install 7-Zip, you get a host of useful options on the context menu in Windows (File) Explorer, including several 'Extract' options for any archive file type that 7-Zip understands.

William wrote:> If anyone doesn't have 7-zip then let me know and I will post the uncompressed files.

I do not have a facility to unpack 7-zip files. The font file would be appreciated please.

Also, could you possibly say something about the name Kelvinch please, as to what is its meaning?

William

The name Kelvinch is a joke, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

My main character on the MMORPG Guild Wars 2 is called 'Kelvinch Twock'. Apart from that it has no real meaning.

Do you still want the raw font file uploaded or did you install 7-zip? I will post the font file if you still want it.

Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:I have added a ct ligature and some OpenType Features for Standard and Discretionary Ligatures. I added the legacy kern table to the export options — otherwise the kerning will not work in some applications, including Serif PagePlus X8 or earlier.
I have also made some other minor modifications — these are suggestions only, as it's all a matter of personal preference.

1. I adjusted the position of the macron accent on L dot macron and R dot macron
2. I adjusted the spacing on the ffi and ffl ligatures to match the ff ligature
3. I straightened the connecting arm of the ff ligature
4. I lowered the left ascender of the ff ligatures by 50 funits
5. I renamed the Lookups to match the Features — Standard Ligatures, Discretionary Ligatures — instead of using the default names.

I didn't include a legacy kern table because it triples the size of the file. But you are correct, older applications do work better if it is included, as time passes it's significance will diminish.

I don't like the way that Autokern adds a whole load of adjustment pairs that nobody needs, especially positive kerning pairs.

If you take the trouble to manually create your own groups, you will get better results. My Pali Regular font has over 20K kerning pairs, but the legacy table doesn't make too much difference:

1. With legacy kern table = 880 KB (901,120 bytes) • 7-Zip archive = 268 KB (274,432 bytes)
2. Without legacy kern table = 780 KB (798,720 bytes) • 7-Zip archive 260 KB (266,240 bytes)

So, for the sake of just 8 Kbtyes added to the download it is well worth while.

Although it does take considerable time and effort to create your own kerning classes and adjustment pairs, once you have completed one typeface, it's a simple import/export process to add all of the OpenType kerning and features to other typefaces and fonts. Then, autokern the existing adjustment pairs to suit the new font.

I imported the attached OpenType Layout Definition script into your font, ignoring the unknown glyphs, then deleted the unused features and lookups. I then ran Autokern on the Kerning adjustment pairs to let FontCreator recalculate adjustment values. Just run it again in the OpenType Designer if the kerning is too tight or too loose for your tastes.
I left the Contextual Ligatures feature just so that you can see how it's designed, but you probably don't need it unless you're into Pali literature.

Take a careful look at the Class Manager and the Kerning tables.

The way that I do it is not necessarily the right way to do it — it's just what I discovered for myself over several versions of FontCreator.

Dear Bhikkhu,

Thank you for your reply. You're right of course. Auto Kern does generate a lot of pairs that will probably never occur in real text. And I thought it was such a good idea, it enables a noob like me to cheat and let the machine do all the hard work.

I am not an expert in typography. I'm an electronics engineer, I could work out a bezier curve by hand given a good calculator, a pen and sufficient paper but I had never even heard of kerning until I downloaded Font Forge in January.

I have a lot of experience with CAD systems and I thought font editors are just another variant on a CAD system, should be easy to master, err ... yeah, right.

I now realise I have much to learn. Not about the process of desiging characters but about the background knowledge which is likely to make the process easier to understand.

I spent some time this evening messing about with open type designer and I think I am starting to understand what is going on, I should have done this earlier instead of avoiding it and using the automatic tools.

But I think there are some things I can do which might make things easier.

For instance it should be a trivial task to write a Python script to generate a text file with all the expected permutations of pairs of characters in columns. This text file could then be imported into a word processor and formatted in the font of interest and the columns could be scanned by eye for pairs which look as though they need to be kerned.

http://logofontandlettering.com/kernking.html

Has two large paragraphs of common kerning pairs. I use it in a couple different layout applications to test. I just change the font to my test font for checking.

Mike

PJMiller wrote:There are a lot of extra control points left over from the copious use of the 'Add on-curve extremes' button in the real time validation window.

Here is a demo of how to remove excess control points with before and after screen shots of the tail of the capital Q.

1. Hide the Glyph Fill
2. Display the Image Toolbar (F9)
3. Copy the background image from the current glyph
4. Select a suitable colour for the image (I like yellow)
5. Delete the excess nodes
6. Adjust the two off-curve nodes using the cursor keys (with the Ctrl modifier for 1 funit fine adjustment and Shift modifier for 100 funit rapid adjustment) until the curve aligns with the background image again.

The end result is a smooth bézier curve with fewer nodes and no off-curve extremes.

After you have finished tidying up to your satisfaction, run the Font Validator to remove redundant points.

PJMiller wrote:For instance it should be a trivial task to write a Python script to generate a text file with all the expected permutations of pairs of characters in columns. This text file could then be imported into a word processor and formatted in the font of interest and the columns could be scanned by eye for pairs which look as though they need to be kerned.

Since there are 129 languages that use the Latin Script, trivial is not a word I would use, but it is easy enough to cut and paste kerning pairs into the code editor.

Select the kerning adjustment pairs lookup and right-click to open it in the code editor. Some prefer to work in the code editor, but the visual designer makes things a lot easier for the average user.