Reorganizing glyphs

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Yehuda
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Reorganizing glyphs

Post by Yehuda »

Is there any way in FCP to reorder the glyphs in a font? I am editing some fonts, and the order of the glyphs in them tends to be more a reflection of the history of the font rather than some logical order. I'd like to rearrange the glyphs to make more sense to me, so when I am editing the font it is easier to find a particular glyph.

I know I can insert a new glyph position in the middle of the font, and then cut and paste a glyph from elsewhere in the font, and that would be a way to achieve what I want, but that would mean losing the hinting information in the font, and I'd rather not do that.
Yehuda N. Falk
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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Requests for Enhancements

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

There isn't currently any way to do this. I have already asked for it to be added to the list of features. As you say, it would make it much easier to find a paritciular glyph.

When inserting glyphs into composites, one cannot even use the search function, so finding glyphs in a large font is very time-consuming.

I wasn't aware that hinting information is lost when cutting and pasting glyphs, though this does seem to be the case even when using paste special to copy glyph mappings and glyph metrics. I have been doing this with my fonts to get the glyphs in numerical Unicode order. There are nearly 500 glyphs in my fonts.

Fortunately, I think I have not lost much hinting information as I have only been moving composite glyphs, and the accents. The base glyphs remain in their original, and correct, numerical order.
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Yehuda
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Post by Yehuda »

Fortunately, I think I have not lost much hinting information as I have only been moving composite glyphs, and the accents.
Are you sure about this? In my experience, copying/cutting and pasting a composite glyph results in a simple glyph which looks the same as the composite on which it is based, but is no longer based on the original elements. So hinting would be lost on those as well. (Of course, composite glyphs are also easier to recreate.:))
Yehuda N. Falk
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jerusalem, Israel

"And because, in all the galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere."
--Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey
Bhikkhu Pesala
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Copying Composite Glyphs

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

:) Yes, of course, you are right, but all I am doing is copying the mapping information and glyph metrics. Afterwards, I delete the simple glyph and recompose it from its elements. So the hinting information is retained as long as I don't move any of the original base characters.

:idea: However, I do also move the accents, to reorder them. I wasn't aware that hinting information was being lost by doing this. So, it would be very helpful to have a glyph sorting option.
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Erwin Denissen
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Post by Erwin Denissen »

I've put the Glyph-sorting feature on the todo list and gave it a high priority.

Maybe an AutoArrange Glyphs feature that sorts the glyphs based on the Microsoft mappings would help as well.
Erwin Denissen
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Bhikkhu Pesala
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More power to your elbow

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

:lol: That's good news. I should think that sorting by Macintosh, Microsoft, or Unicode order would all be useful to someone. For me, Unicode order is the preferred choice as I am editing Unicode fonts. Macintosh order may seem less useful, but some users may be more familiar with that order, and many fonts do come originally from the Mac platorm.
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