Font Forum

I would like the ability to export selected glyph names to a text file, or even to the clipboard. If there is a means, I couldn't find it.

Current font has 248 pre-built ligatures comprised of two and three characters. The current method of adding ligatures or other glyph replacements is a slow, click, click, click, click process of the source and replacement dialogs. As well, with ligatures there is also the manual input of any second or, also in this case, third character. It's a mind-numbing task.

Nearly all my fonts have dozens and dozens of alternates, ligatures, etc. It's a tedious task.

Tonight I got a bit tired of it. I opened the font in OTM and exported the glyph names to a text file. Opened it in my text editor and removed the extra information I do not need. Pasted the remainder into a spreadsheet, added the 'sub' and '->' strings in the appropriate columns' first cell, dragged down the selected text to fill the columns.

In the text editor, removed the underscore character I had used for the ligs and replaced with a space. Copied that and pasted into another column between the 'sub' and '->' columns.

Copied the spreadsheet to the text editor, replaced all tabs with a space, replaced the end of line return with a semi-colon and return. Copied and pasted into FC in the OT Designer in a new discretionary lig code section.

All told I spent about 8 to 10 minutes to add 248 ligatures, with time taken to figure out the process. It would have been a little easier with a direct, glyph name only text file export direct from FC. While I don't overly mind the process I went through, direct from FC would have been easier than using OTM.

Mike

I understand the need, but it would help if we know if more people want such feature. Maybe others want to export codepoints, left or right side bearings, etc.

We could provide some Glyph Export feature through the Tools menu. I guess that once we provide it, more people will also be interested in some kind of import feature, so we need to be sure if and how to implement such feature(s).

Perhaps a "recycling" of the Paste Special dialog where one can choose what to export just like for pasting?

Mike

There is a need.
In order to get a list of glyphs, I export the font from FontCreator, import it into FontForge, and use the "Save Namelist of Font" feature to generate a .nam file. FontForge is free so I use it to supplement the functions I can't do with FontCreator.

The namelist file includes the hex and the name, so I use Excel to split the components using the Replace function and the * wildcard.

It would be nice if I could export a list of glyphs with data about the glyph to either a text file or a CSV file so it could be imported into a spreadsheet.

The list might be the entire font or a subset of the font (selected characters or everything in a selected unicode block).

The data which would be useful is; the codepoint, the glyph name and the left and right bearings, optionally maybe the advance width as well but this is not strictly necessary.

If this were possible I would find it useful.

PJMiller wrote:If this were possible I would find it useful.

My thought process for "useful" improvements is more along the lines of "reasons I haven't upgraded to FC 9.0 Professional"

The next upcoming release will copy the list of selected glyph names to the clipboard.

Wonderful, Erwin. Many thanks for doing this.

Will the adding glyphs problem I wrote to you about be also fixed? That's my biggest issue at the moment.

Again, thank you. Mike

MikeW wrote:Wonderful, Erwin. Many thanks for doing this.

You are welcome.

MikeW wrote:Will the adding glyphs problem I wrote to you about be also fixed? That's my biggest issue at the moment.

I think it is solved. I've just send you a pm so you can see for yourself.

Erwin, I just wanted to thank you for this implemented feature. Over the weekend I added 300+ glyphs to various OT features in a font and being able to just copy and paste those glyphs into my spreadsheet take minutes, finish what the names needed to line up with, then to copy that into my text editor, swap out the tabs for spaces, etc., then paste into the appropriate OT feature code editor.

What a time saver for me. Thanks again.

Mike

I'm glad to hear that feature is so useful to you, but I hope you appreciate all other features as well

I appreciate the whole of FC, Erwin. Else I wouldn't continue to buy upgrade licenses for new versions!

I just thought it appropriate to single out this new feature in the original request thread.