Font Forum

Hi everyone,

First of all: Thank you very much for this awesome program!

I’ve stumbled across a minor issue in the OpenType Designer: When a diacritical mark is placed on the first character of a kerning pair, it seems to be moved by the kerning value just like the second character of the pair. A screenshot shows it better than I can explain it: Some additional info:

• ᝆ + ᝆ (two times Buhid letter Ta) is a kerning pair with a kerning value of -300.
• The Combining Vowel Sign I is placed on the Ta using a Mark to base attachment lookup.
• In the kerning lookup, Process Marks is set to None; otherwise the mark would prevent the kerning entirely.
• The mark is only shifted in this preview. After exporting the font, it looks just fine e.g. in Firefox: The kerning is applied, and the mark is where it should be.

I think the effect can be reproduced with any font that has at least one kerning pair and a combining mark that can be placed on the first character of the pair. The FontCreator version is 13.0.0.2683 (64 bit).

This issue is a minor thing as it only happens in the preview and does not affect the actual outcome. But it can mislead the user into thinking they’ve done something wrong.

Kind regards,
Alexander Lange

I think we have fixed it in the improved shaping engine which comes with FontCreator 14. We expect to invite people for the beta period within a couple of days, but I can send you a pre-release to test it.

Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply. It’s great to hear that the issue is probably already fixed. I’d gladly test it in a new version, but you don’t need to put in extra effort to provide me with an earlier version (especially if the beta period is coming so soon anyway).

Since it doesn’t affect the actual font and I know not to worry about it when I see it in the preview, it is not urgent at all. I just wanted to make sure you know about it, especially if maybe at some point some other user might ask in the forum why their kerning + mark doesn’t work right.

Kind regards,
Alexander

This issue should be fixed with the release of FontCreator 14. Let us know if it still fails.