Font character 'disappears' after hitting 'return'

[AndyL]

Hello,

I am using Font Creator 5.6 on Windows XP SP-3 and running MS Office 2003 SP-3.

In our bespoke font we have glyphs for the characters 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 (on the top of the keyboard) which map to $0031, $0032, $0033, $0034 and $0035 - these work fine

I've created a new glyph for the character "t" (mapping $0074). It looks and tests OK in Font Creator 5.6 however when I install the font and use it in MS Word the character displays when I press the letter "t" on my keyboard .... but then disappears (is replaced with a wide blank 'space' - as if it's not there!) as soon as I hit the Return key.

Does anyone know why this might be please - have I missed a setting somewhere etc.?

Thank you ....
Andy

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Probably Word is replacing “t” with “T” through autocorrect, capitalise first letter of sentence.

[AndyL]

I just switched off AutoCorrect - capitalize first letter of sentences and now it works fine

Thank you very much for your swift reply

I'll add the same glyph to both the “t” with “T” character mappings - it's not a conventional A to Z alphabet true type font so this should work for us

[William]

Could you please try using the font in Microsoft WordPad, as a test?

WordPad, at least on the Windows xp professional PC which I am using, does not have an autocorrect facility. So if WordPad is the same in that regard on the PC which you are using then it would be a good test.

I hope that this helps.

William Overington

10 March 2009

PS I have just posted the above and noted that you had already replied whilst I was preparing my post. Anyway, WordPad is a useful test, also useful for checking that ordinary single quote and double quotes characters work as some packages convert them to smart quotes and that means that the glyphs for the basic items cannot be displayed. William

[AndyL]

Yep - it also works fine in WordPad - thank you both for your help. Very much appreciated

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

You could also create it as a symbol font. Then you shouldn't have this problem or hyphenation problems if you use symbols together, e.g. tt could wrap as t-t

[AndyL]

Can you tell me more about symbol fonts please (or where I can read up on them) as all our glyphs are symbols/logos.

We have no characters like in a 'normal' font for typing!

Thank you

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

You can choose Unicode or Symbol when creating a new font. I don't use symbol fonts much as they're limited to 224 characters. I add all of the symbols that I need to my Unicode fonts in the Misc Symbol and Dingbat areas, etc.

Symbol fonts won't be spell-checked, won't use word breaks, and won't use Autocorrect.

[William]

Symbol fonts won't be spell-checked, won't use word breaks, and won't use Autocorrect.

I learned something there and thus thought that I would try to make a Symbol font with glyphs to be selected using digits and a glyph to be selected using a letter t, as mentioned in the first post in this thread.

I have, in fact, already added some glyphs for those cells and a few others.

The reason for this post is something that I discovered along the way (just, "new to me"), which might perhaps be of assistance to some readers if they are making a Symbol font.

Here is the start of my transcript file, up to where I found the interesting item.

----

Wednesday 11 March 2009

08:11 am

Try to make a symbol font using FontCreator 5.6.

Start FontCreator 5.6.

File New...

Choose the Font family name of Pop Symbols.

Choose the option Symbol.

Click OK.

There is now an array of cells, except for one, the .notdef symbol, all are empty.

Only the first four cells are named.

Tools Options... Overview Caption shows that the option Postscript name is in use.

Change the caption choice to Symbol Chars and click OK.

----

The effect of changing the caption choice to Symbol Chars is that the cell headings then have an indication of which character needs to be entered into an application in order to display the glyph from a finished font.

It may well be that that is well known to many people: however, I have on a number of occasions previously tried to make a symbol font and been puzzled as to what goes where, so I was pleased to find the facility to change the caption choice to Symbol Chars, so maybe this post might be of help to some readers.

William Overington

12 March 2009

[Dick Pape]

Alas when you edit a character the name is not displayed and the PS names (keyboard strokes) don't show In an external program . Postscript Names are helpful throughout the font life cycle in my mind.

One solution is to:

Build a Symbol font.
Open Format/Platform Manager.
Select Microsoft Symbol.
Change the platform to Microsoft Unicode (Accept Warning msg). [Notice the blued off letters in each glyph box but no postscript names.]
Go back to Format/Post...
Check Include Postscript Names.
Generate Names, select OK. [Now there are blue letters and PS names.]
Go back to Format/Platform Manager.
Change the Microsoft Unicode BMP Only platform to Symbol. (Accept the Warning msg).

Now the symbol font has permanent postscript names.

I don't know why enabling PS names isn't the standard setup for Symbol fonts as you can always overwrite Properties/General/Postscript names if you identify any glyph directly.

(Make sure Tools/Options/Overview/Caption is set to Postscript names before you start.)

[William]

I learned something there and thus thought that I would try to make a Symbol font with glyphs to be selected using digits and a glyph to be selected using a letter t, as mentioned in the first post in this thread.

The font, Pop Symbols, with more glyphs than first intended, is now published and is available from the following thread in the Gallery.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2642

William Overington

14 March 2009