Font Forum

I would like to change white area to black, I've read that it depends on the direction you make the glyph. How do you do it if you are editing a font? Are there any font editing tutorials? Any help would be appreciated!

I guess you could always read the FontCreator manual.

You will find it in the program directory.

Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:I guess you could always read the FontCreator manual.

You will find it in the program directory.

Yeah I read the manula all it doesn't tell you how to change it on an existing font, that's why I posted here.

From page 37 of the manual:

Contours that need to be filled black must have a clockwise direction. If we want to make a white area inside an existing contour we must make the direction of the new contour counter clockwise. Contour direction is determined by seeing in which direction the point index values increase or decrease. Contour direction is from the smaller point index to the larger. The general rule is that the contour direction should be such that "black is on the right". Using the glyph "O" as an example, the outer contour should travel clockwise, and the inner contour counter clockwise.

Click the Correct contour directions button on the Validation toolbar to correct thedirection of all misoriented contours in a simple glyph or select Direction from the Edit menu to change the direction of the selected contour(s).

If you are trying to make an outline font, try the Glyph Transformation, Outline Presets. If you want white text on a black background, then you need to add black contours enclosing the entire glyph, and fix the contour directions from the Validation Toolbar.

julie.jenkins wrote:I would like to change white area to black, I've read that it depends on the direction you make the glyph. How do you do it if you are editing a font? Are there any font editing tutorials? Any help would be appreciated!

> ... I've read that it depends on the direction you make the glyph.

Actually, no.

It depends on the direction that you make the contour. A glyph consists of one or more contours. Each contour has its own direction. That direction is either clockwise or counterclockwise. Clockwise contours are filled with black, counterclockwise contours are filled with white.

> How do you do it if you are editing a font?

In FontCreator, right click within the contour to highlight it and cause a panel to appear. Click on the Change Direction item on the panel: it is the third item down on the panel. That will change the direction of the contour: however, contours should be arranged to be black on white or white on black, that is clockwise on counterclockwise or counterclockwise on clockwise, with the outer contour black, that is clockwise; so changing just one contour within an existing font is liable to produce an error if the font was correct in the first place. However, that is a technique for changing the direction of a contour within an existing font, useful if the original font had an error.

William Overington

8 May 2008

An easy way to do this is to use the rectangle tool on ALL the glyphs you want to change:



Then Validate and let Erwin change the directions of all the wrong contours:



You will probably need to correct the Bearings. Use AutoMetrics and Comparison to see how you are doing.

Are there any font editing tutorials?

viewtopic.php?t=1562
May be of help