Find the numbers of the missing glyphs

Post general font related questions (e.g. how to install, convert and use fonts) and requests (looking for fonts, designers etc.) here.
Post Reply
Pyanepsion
Posts: 52
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2020 5:33 pm

Find the numbers of the missing glyphs

Post by Pyanepsion »

Hello everyone.
I would like to export a list of missing glyph numbers in a font.
Example: the PLAYBILL.TTF font contains only 94 out of 96 glyphs in the Latin 1 supplement subset. In this example, the numbers #AF (i.e. 175) and #B7 (i.e. 183) are to be obtained instantly in a file.
How do I do this?
missing-glyph.png
missing-glyph.png (32.54 KiB) Viewed 16941 times
Thank you for your explanations.
Bhikkhu Pesala
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 9869
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
Location: Seven Kings, London UK
Contact:

Re: Find the numbers of the missing glyphs

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

In the glyph overview side panel (Ctrl+L shortcut), right-click on the Character set and select Complete Category.
Complete Category.png
Complete Category.png (4.48 KiB) Viewed 16914 times
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
Pyanepsion
Posts: 52
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: Find the numbers of the missing glyphs

Post by Pyanepsion »

Hello, Bhikkhu Pessala. This is a very useful feature that I did not know about. Thank you, Bhikkhu Pessala.
My question however is more about the convenience of the end user of the font.
Both Maintype and Font Creator, these tools can immediately detect all the glyphs present in a font. Here, it is a question of obtaining in the same way, "instantaneously", this list in an exportable file which will list all the numbers of the glyphs which do not exist in this font.
Bhikkhu Pesala
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 9869
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
Location: Seven Kings, London UK
Contact:

Re: Find the numbers of the missing glyphs

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

If you complete any category FontCreator will add the glyphs at the end of the font. Select the empty glyphs and cut them (Ctrl+X). Open the Insert Glyphs dialog and paste the clipboard contents into the Insert by name tab. Click the Validate icon to calculate the number of glyphs.

If I do this for Latin Extended-B for my font, I get a list like this. You could paste that list into Notepad and save that as a text file.

Code: Select all

bbar
Bhook
Btopbar
btopbar
Sixtone
sixtone
Oopen
Chook
chook
Dafrican
Dhook
Dtopbar
dtopbar
deltaturned
Eopen
Fhook
Ghook
Gamma
hv
Iota
Khook
khook
lambdastroke
Mturned
Nlefthook
nlongrightleg
OI
oi
Phook
phook
YR
Twotone
twotone
Esh
eshloopreversed
tpalatalhook
Thook
thook
Tretroflexhook
Upsilon
Vhook
Yhook
yhook
Ezh
Ezhreversed
ezhreversed
ezhtail
twobar
Fivetone
fivetone
glottalstopinvertedstroke
wynn
Ezhcaron
ezhcaron
Hwair
Wynn
Yogh
yogh
Nlongrightleg
dcurl
OU
ou
Zhook
zhook
lcurl
ncurl
tcurl
dbdigraph
qpdigraph
Aslash
Cslash
cslash
Lbar
Tslash
sswashtail
zswashtail
Glottalstop
glottalstop
Bbar
Ubar
Vturned
Eslash
eslash
Jbar
jbar
Qsmallhooktail
qhooktail
Rbar
rbar
Ybar
ybar
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
Pyanepsion
Posts: 52
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: Find the numbers of the missing glyphs

Post by Pyanepsion »

This list is useful, but it is not very useful outside Font Creator and Maintype since, as with all other software of this type, the names are now only friendly names. They will vary according to the idea that the creators of these different tools have of them.

Unicode contains seventeen planes of 65,536 characters each, making a total of 1,114,112 possible codes. Plane 0 alone contains 4096!
While glyph names used to be an important part of a font, this plethora of glyphs have led designers to deliver their fonts without glyph names.

It is therefore imperative to identify glyphs by their number.

Here’s a concrete problem: I converted the free Microsoft playbill.ttf font (258 glyphs) into woff and woff2 with Font Squirrel and Font Creator, then displayed the result on Firefox browse. There are 3 differences! And here, it is necessary to understand that there are, however, only very few glyphs in the font.

Font Squirrel
playbill-00.png
playbill-00.png (60.17 KiB) Viewed 16891 times
Font Creator
playbill-01.png
playbill-01.png (59.93 KiB) Viewed 16891 times
This will also allow a visual treatment that would be impossible from the only (friendly) name of each glyph.
Only their number will allow differentiating the missing glyphs. 256-337,340-375, 377-383.
playbill-02.png
playbill-02.png (60.02 KiB) Viewed 16891 times
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Find the numbers of the missing glyphs

Post by Erwin Denissen »

Pyanepsion wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 7:19 pm This list is useful, but it is not very useful outside Font Creator and Maintype since, as with all other software of this type, the names are now only friendly names. They will vary according to the idea that the creators of these different tools have of them.

Unicode contains seventeen planes of 65,536 characters each, making a total of 1,114,112 possible codes. Plane 0 alone contains 4096!
While glyph names used to be an important part of a font, this plethora of glyphs have led designers to deliver their fonts without glyph names.

It is therefore imperative to identify glyphs by their number.

Here’s a concrete problem: I converted the free Microsoft playbill.ttf font (258 glyphs) into woff and woff2 with Font Squirrel and Font Creator, then displayed the result on Firefox browse. There are 3 differences! And here, it is necessary to understand that there are, however, only very few glyphs in the font.
I don't understand the problem, but what I know is Playbill has 258 glyphs, but only 240 characters.

Not all glyphs have a codepoint. Some are used by other (composite) glyphs or can be exposed through OpenType layout features.

So what is the problem you try to solve?
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
Pyanepsion
Posts: 52
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: Find the numbers of the missing glyphs

Post by Pyanepsion »

Hi, Erwin,

I want to make a page displaying on the Internet the Unicode plan 0 of the different characters of a font. It is clear that browsers substitute a character when it does not exist in the displayed font. I would like to automatically indicate on the page all characters that do not exist so that they are not displayed or are indicated in a particular way.

♠ For example, the Unicode 256 character (the letter Ā, Amacron) does not exist in Playbill. So I need to be able to add in the HTML code a ‘.missing’ class for this letter Ā (and every other missing character) something like

Code: Select all

<div class="missing"><p>256 – Ā</p>&#256;</div>
playbill-03.png
playbill-03.png (1.21 KiB) Viewed 16873 times
The task is inordinate since plan 0 contains 4590 characters and only 240 are (in this example) used.

I can’t figure out how to intercept the font replacement by the browsers when they detect a missing character.
Another solution is therefore to prepare the page display by extracting a list of these Unicode numbers from Maintype or Font Creator.
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Find the numbers of the missing glyphs

Post by Erwin Denissen »

You might be able to use a fallback font, for example AdobeBlank, but it is probably better to only show characters that are available in the font.

Just like how MainType shows the character set. wakamaifondue also shows characters in groups.
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
Pyanepsion
Posts: 52
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: Find the numbers of the missing glyphs

Post by Pyanepsion »

I need to know the Unicode number of each character that is displayed and each Unicode character that is not displayed.

Example: Playbill uses 240 Unicode characters out of 4095 possible, Arial 3331, etc. among many other fonts. I would like to automatically get a list of the numbers of all the characters available or not available in a font.

It is this list of numbers that I can't find in Maintype or Font Creator.
Bhikkhu Pesala
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 9869
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:28 am
Location: Seven Kings, London UK
Contact:

Re: Find the numbers of the missing glyphs

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Use the Insert Characters Dialog to complete the desired character set. Double-click an empty character to add it to the list; Shift+Double-click to add a range of characters. Copy the characters to the clipboard to get a comma separate list of code-points; in this example all missing characters from the Letterlike Symbols Unicode Block.
Insert Characters.png
Insert Characters.png (31.04 KiB) Viewed 16760 times

Code: Select all

$2102,$210A-$210D,$2110-$2113,$2115,$2118-$211D,$211F,$2123-$2125,$2128-$2129,$212C-$2131,$2133-$2138,$213C-$214F
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
Pyanepsion
Posts: 52
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: Find the numbers of the missing glyphs

Post by Pyanepsion »

I'm afraid that doesn't really answer the question.
One cannot of course click on each missing character one by one, as there may be thousands in a font. I really need to be able to export a list of characters present or absent in a font.
Thank you Bhikkhu Pesala, however, for your answer which allows me to review once again some sometimes forgotten and rather useful features of Font Creator.
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Find the numbers of the missing glyphs

Post by Erwin Denissen »

Pyanepsion wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 7:19 pm Unicode contains seventeen planes of 65,536 characters each, making a total of 1,114,112 possible codes. Plane 0 alone contains 4096!
Plane 0, also known as Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP), contains way more characters. As of Unicode version 13.0 it holds 55,503 assigned characters.

But I am afraid we do not have a solution to your problem.
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
Pyanepsion
Posts: 52
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: Find the numbers of the missing glyphs

Post by Pyanepsion »

Wikipedia may not be up to date. I am only interested in table 0.
Table 0: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_des ... 0000-0FFF)

Font Creator can display the list of visible characters and knows their numbers. It is this list of these numbers that I would like to export.
Erwin Denissen
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11107
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Find the numbers of the missing glyphs

Post by Erwin Denissen »

That is a subset of plane one which contains parts of several scripts, like Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Tibetan.
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
Post Reply