What do you use for "Preview Text" for Auto-Metrics?

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nabsltd
Posts: 132
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 12:35 am

What do you use for "Preview Text" for Auto-Metrics?

Post by nabsltd »

For Auto-Metrics and Auto-Kerning, the default of "Preview Text" isn't terrible, but do other people have a better general-purpose text that fits in the 20-character limit?
Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: What do you use for "Preview Text" for Auto-Metrics?

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

My default preview text is for testing the OpenType features in my fonts. Others are for checking kerning.

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nabsltd
Posts: 132
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 12:35 am

Re: What do you use for "Preview Text" for Auto-Metrics?

Post by nabsltd »

Not that preview text. The preview text in the auto-metrics and auto-kerning dialog.
Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: What do you use for "Preview Text" for Auto-Metrics?

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Sorry. I was multi-tasking as usual and did not read the thread.

I just use "Typography" as the Preview Text. Maybe something like ONONO onono would give you a better idea of letter-spacing.

One tip worth remembering is to record the value for letter-spacing that you last used for that font in the Notes Panel (Shortcut F2).
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nabsltd
Posts: 132
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 12:35 am

Re: What do you use for "Preview Text" for Auto-Metrics?

Post by nabsltd »

Bhikkhu Pesala wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 11:14 am One tip worth remembering is to record the value for letter-spacing that you last used for that font in the Notes Panel (Shortcut F2).
I mostly use the "auto-*" tools to fix older fonts that have serious issues with their horizontal spacing, so I'm mostly going by looks on that dialog, and then checking on the F8 preview after the adjustments.

I was looking for a good suggestion so that I don't have to undo and try again so often.
MikeW
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Re: What do you use for "Preview Text" for Auto-Metrics?

Post by MikeW »

At only 20 characters, Preview Text is just fine as it does match up a few "important" characters/combination types.

I've used it for a quick fix now and again. But I think auto-whatever generates too many classes than ideal and/or too many single character classes.. In general I spend more time on side bearings than I do creating kerning classes/members.
nabsltd
Posts: 132
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 12:35 am

Re: What do you use for "Preview Text" for Auto-Metrics?

Post by nabsltd »

MikeW wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 3:50 am But I think auto-whatever generates too many classes than ideal and/or too many single character classes.. In general I spend more time on side bearings than I do creating kerning classes/members.
Auto-Metrics only changes side bearings...it doesn't do anything to the OpenType features. Auto-Kern does create single glyph classes, but I don't see that it hurts performance any. It's also not a terribly hard search and replace in the OpenType Designer to remove the single-glyph classes and replace them with glyph names.
MikeW
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Joined: Mon May 20, 2013 2:51 pm

Re: What do you use for "Preview Text" for Auto-Metrics?

Post by MikeW »

Auto-metrics affects what will happen with auto-kerning. If one uses both, that is.

Auto-metrics' preview text string basically does the same thing as auto-kern, just with respect to just side bearings as regards the Preview Text string. So the preview itself still has a good mix P & r is a good indication of a cap followed by a lc that has a full x-height character (or nearly so depending upon the design), as well as a cap followed by a rounded lc and is a good indication of how it will pull under a T character. Same with the e/v combination, etc., for the remainder of the lc characters used. It's sort of hard to imagine a more useful string, though one could enter other combinations but one would never be able to enter enough to satisfy all combinations.

The only way I can imagine these two auto-whatever screens being more useful as regards the strings used is if Erwin used the same drop-down control as is used in the OT Feature screen, but as is he would still need to truncate the strings unless he redesigned the auto-whatever screens.

I'm not a fan of the auto-whatever process for the reasons I mentioned. There will be too many classes and or pairs generated if one follows the auto-metrics by auto-kern. Most/many of which should be combined, not broke apart. This I can do in a spreadsheet followed by a text editor. That is needless work if one manually does the side-bearings and repurposes the kern feature from one font to the next, which I do...even if I need to +/- values in my spreadsheet.

My current font has 65 classes with 12299 kern pairs contained therein. There are just under 1000 glyphs currently. While I am generally happy with the number of classes, I'm still not satisfied with the number of kern pairs they contain and so am working on side bearings more. It would be impossible (I think) to obtain that number of classes/pairs using the auto-whatever processes.
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