Some characters not showing as created font in the test area

MiddleEarthNet · Post by **MiddleEarthNet** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 5:19 pm

I've been working on a font with a lot of accented letters in it. I've scanned, imported and positioned every single character and I'm just testing the spacing in the test window. All the normal letters and numbers work find, but the accented letters are more of a problem. Some are appearing as their arial equivalent. I've checked to see if the name is correct and the code that I type in. Everything seems to be fine but they still don't work. Does anyone know what the problem is?
Thanks.

Update, I've just discovered that the code used in word and the listed on the sheet provided in one of the tutorials of every character doesn't match up. I suspect this is the problem.

William · Post by **William** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 6:11 pm

Could you possibly try the following test please?

Please obtain a copy of my Quest text font from the web and save it to your local hard disc.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/QUESTTXT.TTF

Please start FontCreator and open the copy of the Quest text font.

Next, please carry out the same test on Quest text as you carried out on your own font.

How do the accented letters appear? Are they correct?

In Quest text the accented characters are all produced using individual glyphs, not using Composite glyphs. That may or may not be relevant in this test. Are your accented characters produced using individual glyphs or composite glyphs? If you have used composite glyphs it may be a good idea to try the test with a font known to use composite glyphs, such as one of those made available in the Gallery forum by Bhikkhu Pesala.

Could you describe the test you are making please.

William Overington

Bhikkhu Pesala · Post by **Bhikkhu Pesala** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 9:45 pm

Try Format, Settings, Ranges, Unicode Character Ranges Calculate, Code Pages Calculate. Reinstall the font and try again.

MiddleEarthNet · Post by **MiddleEarthNet** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 11:26 pm

Ok, I've now tried both of those suggestions.

William, your accented ones appear fine. There is nothing odd or different about their appearence compared to the rest of your font. I think my glyphs are simple (I've only had the software for 8 days so I could be wrong). When I move the cursor over them it says simple in the status bar at the bottom and there were created from scanned images.
The test I'm doing is to font, test and then type my characters into the window that appears. I'm going through in the order that they are displayed in the main window. Its only the accented ones and other non-standard letters (such as Æ and Ø) that are causing a problem but not all of them. The 's combination isn't working because its doesn't have a unicode assigned to it. I'll get that sorted.

Bhikkhu, the position of the 'X' and '_' changed but nothing about the font changed at all.

William · Post by **William** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 7:41 am

Thank you for making your font available on the web.

I downloaded a copy and had a look at it using FontCreator 5.5.

You might like to try the following.

Start FontCreator 5.5.

Open your font.

Use File | Save As... and save as TEST.TTF or some such name. The purpose is that the next step will produce a mangled version, so it is TEST.TTF that will get mangled, not your original.

Use Tools | Options... Overview and make sure that Postscript name is the chosen option, then click OK.

Observe that the glyph positions have names.

Use Format | Post... then uncheck the checkbox named Include Postscript Names and then click OK.

Observe that none of the glyph positions have names.

Use Format | Post... then check the checkbox named Include Postscript Names and then click the Generate Names button and then click OK.

Observe that many but not all of the glyph positions have names. Some do not have names because the glyph positions are not mapped.

Right click on one of the glyphs which does have a name, say G, then select Properties... and then the Mappings panel and then observe that it is mapped as LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G on both platforms.

Now, right click on one of the glyphs which does not have a name, then select Properties... and then the Mappings panel and then observe that it is not mapped.

This is what needs to be corrected.

I will try to add more later and maybe others will help.

----

I used a technique myself in a similar yet different situation recently to recover a font. It was fiddly yet worked. I made a copy of the original, then opened it. I then deleted all of the glyphs. I then started a new font and selected all of the glyphs and then copied them onto the clipboard and then did a paste special into the copy of the original. This gave me a font with empty glyphs all properly mapped, yet the metrics for ascenders and descenders were the same as in the original font. I then opened the original font and then copied the glyphs and pasted them (not a paste special) into the correct places in the new font. However, that was using my font http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/EUTOARCH.TTF which was known to be a working font with, as far as I am aware, everything in order. Is it right to recommend that technique for the font in this thread as it is not a working font? Would it be better to suggest writing down the metrics on a piece of paper and copying them manually to a new font? If so, is there anything else which would need copying across manually?

William

Bhikkhu Pesala · Post by **Bhikkhu Pesala** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 8:06 am

Several of the glyphs are not mapped at all. If you do Font, Sort, you will quickly see which ones.

MiddleEarthNet · Post by **MiddleEarthNet** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 10:20 am

Excelent, thank you. Now just two letter are causing a problem.

I've been through and made sure every character is mapped. The letters
U and u both with a ~ above them have been mapped from the latin extended 1 but I can't find the code to type in for them. I've looked on the unicode website and it gives 0168 and 0169 but neither works. They are bringing up the other symbols they are assigned to. Once these two work, my font is complete.

William · Post by **William** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 11:28 am

> it gives 0168 and 0169

That is 0168 hexadecimal and 0169 hexadecimal.

You need the hexadecimal values when entering mappings when making the font.

If you are using the Alt method to key the characters into WordPad so as to display the characters from the font you need the decimal equivalents.

0168 hexadecimal is 360 decimal.

0169 hexadecimal is 361 decimal.

Does that solve it or is there still a problem?

William

Bhikkhu Pesala · Post by **Bhikkhu Pesala** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 9:49 pm

William is correct. If you have mapped the characters then the code-point to type in Wordpad is shown in the Overview caption, but it depends on your setting in Tools, Options, Overview. There you can choose between Hex or Decimal coding. Typing with the Alter key uses decimal code point, though some applications allow you to convert hex to unicode with Alter x.

0168 = Ũ 0169 = ũ using Hexadecimal notation and type Alter X in Opera converts the codes to characters.

MiddleEarthNet · Post by **MiddleEarthNet** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 11:12 pm

Still doesn't seem to work. I changed the setting from hexadecimal to decimal in the tools, options menu and all the other characters displayed fine but now with alt 0350 and alt 0351 I'm getting completly different characters again. I tried repeating it in word. If I type the code in it doesn't work but if I go insert symbol, put in the two and then select them and change them into my font they display correctly.

William · Post by **William** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 5:25 am

> but now with alt 0350 and alt 0351 I'm getting completly different characters again.

The codes are for WordPad are Alt 360 and Alt 361. Have you just put the other numbers in this post or are they what you tried when testing the font in WordPad?

This does not work on Windows 95, which I mention just in case that is the problem.

If that still does not work, could you possibly put the latest version of the font on the web please?

William

MiddleEarthNet · Post by **MiddleEarthNet** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 3:55 pm

Oops, I read it wrong and therefore tried it wrong. Doesn't work in the test window but it did work in work by typing in the now correct codes. So I'll consider it sorted.
Thank you very much for your help.