Font Forum

I'm creating a contextual cursive font so it requires A LOT of manual kerning. I have 7000 or so pairs. Then I started using the glyph manager and didn't break up the kerning pairs made from the glyph manager groups. The result was awful, everything was out of sync.

So I began breaking up the groups before exporting the groups and that seemed to solve that problem when a new problem starting happening. I would get duplicate kerning pairs, pairs with the same names but different values. I've deleted them countless time consuming times but they keep coming back, and I'm clueless as to why. It takes hours to fix this problem each time it occurs, Help!

Attached is a copy of my font with duplicate pairs...please tell me if I'm doing something wrong...i'd hate to stop using the glyph manager for kerning as it saves a lot of time.

Thanks in advance.

Jonne

Jonne,

I'm not finding any dups here with the file you uploaded in this thread. Can you point to a pair that is a duplicate?

Mike

Mike

Here's a pic,

I know you might have missed them cuz for some reason they occur later in the alphabet.

Thanks for your interest in helping me.

Jonne

Let's see if the pic worked this time.

Hopefully this is easier to read.

Odd issue. One I have not seen before. I can delete them. A few, but not all, do come back. A second pass through the ones I did delete (only worked on the a.init series) remained deleted.

I think this is an issue for Erwin to figure out.

Mike

Thanks for trying,they're stubborn buggers. Cost me a lot of time.
I hope Erwin can fly in with his red cape and save the day.

Erwin,

An update for you. Unfortunately while kerning strange things are happening. Now I've noticed that it randomly deletes seemingly random kerning pairs already made.

I know you're busy and I don't want to rush you, but I'm anxious to start working again with out being...well anxious.

Much obliged,

Jonne

PS - While using classes to kern, I have to break the groups for the kerning to kick in or else it just doesn't work otherwise I would just leave the kern as a class and export...but i think that's too much to wish for. Thanks again.

I'm looking into this, but it takes time. I hope to find a solution within the next couple of days.

I need to know a little more about the way you work with kerning pairs, but I first want to make clear it is not allowed to have duplicates in a single sub table. If you work with class based kerning you can use exceptions but that is a different topic.

Before you start worrying, on export the duplicates are excluded. But it would be best to either refuse duplicates, or have a way to easily remove them.

I can delete the duplicates, but since this is a manual and tedious process I do forget a couple. But all that I did delete remain deleted.

So the main question is, how did you get those duplicates? Can you produce a simple step-by-step so I can reproduce the issue?

Hi Erwin--I had the same behavior as the OP in regards to keeping them deleted for some reason.

BTW, the fastest means of ridding oneself of those pesky duplicates is to change the export to TrueType and make sure to include the OT Features and Glyph Names. Then export and open that generated font--making sure to save that FCP project as a new revision.

The 136 duplicates in this font are then gone for good.

Mike

Hey Erwin and Mike,

Thanks for both of your work and quick responses on my project. I know it's not a fun problem, it's tedious and time consuming. So to get to the steps I took.

1. Made kerning classes out of my alphabets, about 4 per letter.
2. Broke the kerning classes after making pairs of with the classes on the right side and glyphs on the left using regular alphabet and .init alphabet. With various variations of .highs and such. I broke the groups by right clicking PairAdjustment and clicking break groups.
3. Applied and said ok.
4. Now this is where I'm a little fuzzy, I don't know when the duplicates showed up, before or after I saved...sorry...but I think it was after I saved.
5. Went back to my kerning pairs and duplicates showed up...it's important to mention that they are not exact duplicates...in fact the values are different on every single pair which makes exporting the project impossible because I don't know which kerning pair will be exported. Only one of the pairs are correct. ALso notable is that on occasion there were triplicates.
6. Going through the pairs I noticed that it had not only made "duplicates" it also randomly deleted some of my un-duplicated kerning pairs...which is really hazardous as I have to go through 7000 pairs individually to make sure that all are present.

Tried uninstalling and reinstalling but the problem remains. Also notable is that it seems only to occur if I use kerning classes and may actually introduce the duplicates as soon as I "break" the groups (just a hunch)....but doesn't show up until I exit and then re-enter the Opentype Designer.

Thanks for your work and speedy response both Erwin and Mike! I feel like I'm really getting my money's worth out of you all...and I understand that all programs have these little bugs and glitches. Heck, just looking through the code in the designer shows me a little of how complex the programming must be.

Jonne

Update,

I deleted some of the triplicates, applied and saved. Then I came back to it and one of the triplicates had returned...no class kerning was involved just some deletion of a few kerning pairs.

Thanks,

Jonne

Erwin and Mike,

I think i sussed out the problem of the duplication of pairs. You mentioned that you can't have duplicate glyphs, not only did I have one, but I also had duplicate number names for my tails. I remedied this deleted all the duplicate names (those sneaky numbers), and tried class kerning and breaking. It worked. I closed the program and reopened it to make sure no more duplicates but the numbers don't lie. Yay!

I think your program goes haywire when there are multiple glyphs with the same name in the same subtable and does random things that are hard to explain.

Thanks for any work you did on it, I didn't give you enough information to figure it out on your end.

Peace.

Jonne

PS - I have a question in 'support' section of the forum.