Keeping Hinting Information

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

As I understand it, if I copy a character from one font to another, or from one position to another in the same font, the character's hinting information will be lost. Is this correct?

Can I work around this by creating a composite glyph in a new position, then making it simple?

Are there any plans to add the option to sort glyphs in a font by mapping order?

[Erwin Denissen]

As I understand it, if I copy a character from one font to another, or from one position to another in the same font, the character's hinting information will be lost. Is this correct?

This is necessary since a glyph could also use global hinting data from the cvt, fpgm and prep tables. The Font Creator Program is not aware of the actual hinting information, so it is not possible to update those tables accordingly.

Can I work around this by creating a composite glyph in a new position, then making it simple?

No, as soon as you change a glyph’s outline, the hinting data is lost. Glyphs with hinting data show an H in the upper left corner of the Glyph Edit window.

Are there any plans to add the option to sort glyphs in a font by mapping order?

Right now "Sort glyphs by mapping (AutoSort)" has medium priority, like around 40 other items do, while there are 14 items with high priority.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

I am not a great fan of hinting, but I hadn't realised that by editing the glyph outlines I would be removing hinting information. Good to know that, and also good to be reminded of the Hinting indicator.

The fonts I am currently editing were apparently generated automatically from poor quality scans. They have lots of unnecessary points and some very jagged curves.

Interesting to note that just moving a single point to remove hinting reduced file size by 28 bytes, while removing four excess points saved just 8 bytes.

General advice would seem to be "If a curve looks smooth, don't bother with removing excess points."

I look forward to glyph sorting, though with the glyph search option it becomes slightly less important. Sorting glyphs in order would make it a lot easier to spot differences, omissions, or errors.

[Joop Jagers]

Two remarks:

- When you copy and paste a complete glyph (or a number of glyphs) hinting is preserved.
- As an alternative to glyph sorting it would be a nice feature if FC could produce a list of characters present in a font. This would make comparison even easier.

[Erwin Denissen]

- When you copy and paste a complete glyph (or a number of glyphs) hinting is preserved.

This is only true when source and destination font are the same font, otherwise hinting information within the glyf table will not be copied.

- As an alternative to glyph sorting it would be a nice feature if FC could produce a list of characters present in a font. This would make comparison even easier.

What type of list do you have in mind?

[Joop Jagers]

I mean a list of Unicode code points assigned to glyphs within the font, preferably together with the glyph's number in the font.

You're right on the other issue: this is only true when copying within the font.

[Erwin Denissen]

I mean a list of Unicode code points assigned to glyphs within the font, preferably together with the glyph's number in the font.

I'll add it to the todo list, although I’m not sure if this enhancement would serve a lot of users.

You're right on the other issue: this is only true when copying within the font.

...so my answer to Bhikkhu Pesala's initial question was not correct.