How to add lowercase letters

[cybercat5555]

Hello, I am new to FontCreator and I am trying to edit a font that has no lowercase letters, only uppercase and numbers. I want to use the uppercase letters as the lowercase ones as well, but I can't seem to figure out how to. I tried copy and paste, but that didn't work. The tab for lowercase says 0/26. How do I add letters to it? Thanks.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Just select "All Glyphs" or Unicode, Basic Latin.

If there's still no lowercase glyphs showing up, not even empty ones, either:

• Add mappings for lowercase to the uppercase glyphs
• Add 26 new glyphs and map them

The first method would be easier and would keep the font smaller.

The second method would be more flexible if you want to edit the lowercase glyphs later. What I sometimes do with this kind of font, is to make the lowercase glyphs a set of Small Capitals.

To add a mapping to an existing glyph, first set the Display Format to "Decimal" from the View menu, open the Glyph properties toolbar, type the lowercase mapping (Uppercase mapping + 32), separated by a comma, and click Apply. Repeat for each uppercase glyph, adding 32 to the Uppercase codepoint.

Add Mapping.png (13.15 KiB) Viewed 7333 times

To insert 26 more glyphs, select the first glyph with a codepoint > 122 (usually the left brace { and insert 26 empty glyphs before it).

Insert Glyphs Before.png (11.29 KiB) Viewed 7333 times

Paste your 26 Uppercase glyphs into these empty glyphs. Select the new lowercase a, and type "a" for its name in the Glyph Properties toolbar, click the button to "Auto complete codepoint based on the glyph name," and then click Apply to add the mapping for the new lowercase "a" glyph. Repeat for the other 25 glyphs, typing the appropriate name for each glyph.

Add New Mapping.png (19.11 KiB) Viewed 7333 times

[Alfred]

To add a mapping to an existing glyph, first set the Display Format to "Decimal" from the View menu, open the Glyph properties toolbar, type the lowercase mapping (Uppercase mapping + 32), separated by a comma, and click Apply. Repeat for each uppercase glyph, adding 32 to the Uppercase codepoint.

Doesn't it just make the arithmetic harder, if only a little, if you choose the decimal format rather than hexadecimal? To add 32 in hexadecimal you simply add $20, so $41 (for uppercase 'A') becomes $61 (for lowercase 'A'). Anyway, the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+J and Ctrl+K make it easy to switch between the two formats.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Doesn't it just make the arithmetic harder, if only a little, if you choose the decimal format rather than hexadecimal? To add 32 in hexadecimal you simply add $20, so $41 (for uppercase 'A') becomes $61 (for lowercase 'A'). Anyway, the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+J and Ctrl+K make it easy to switch between the two formats.

I don't think most ordinary users are comfortable with Hexadecimal notation (unless they have done some coding).

New users won't know the shortcuts until they have used the program for a while. Its much better to point out the menu options — the shortcuts are shown there, and can be learnt later. If one just tells them the shortcuts, they may forget them within a week or two.

[Alfred]

I don't think most ordinary users are comfortable with Hexadecimal notation (unless they have done some coding).

Point taken, although you don't need to understand it in any detail in order to use it in this situation. You just need to add 2 to the first digit (so $41 for 'A' becomes $61 for 'a', $50 for 'P' becomes $70 for 'p', etc).

New users won't know the shortcuts until they have used the program for a while. Its much better to point out the menu options — the shortcuts are shown there, and can be learnt later. If one just tells them the shortcuts, they may forget them within a week or two.

Quite so. I wasn't suggesting that it's better to point out the shortcuts than the menu options; I was merely observing that it's easy to switch between the familiar decimal and the less familiar 'hex'.

[Dick Pape]

I learned this in version 6 and I think it's the same under 7. If you already have the glyphs for the lower case simply copy the letters a-z move to the A glyph and do an Edit/Paste Special. Deselect Outline Data and Metrics and select Codepoints and Add Codepoints. This will double map the A-Z. You can see the effect when selecting Multi-mapped Glyphs.

[Alfred]

Yes, that works in FC7. Thanks for the tip!

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

If the font doesn't contain a set of lowercase glyphs at all, you can use copy/paste special, to paste the codepoints from another font too, either to the uppercase glyphs, or to 26 new blank glyphs, which would be quicker than my suggested method.

[Erwin Denissen]

You can also insert characters as a range.
http://www.high-logic.com/fontcreator/m ... cters.html