Units of Measure USA Inch feature needed

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pt_crusier_2002
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Units of Measure USA Inch feature needed

Post by pt_crusier_2002 »

I am presently using Gerber Omega 5.0 to construct my Vector outlines for each letter using US inches for my units of measure is there a way to set the defaults in FontCreator 9.0 to this measure of units instead of what appears when you load program. The reason I need this USA inches measure is that I do my drafting at 1 to 1 and the lettering is done in USA Inches not metric or ems like in desktop publishing.

The latest FontCreator 9.0 has lots of great features I hope to learn from using the program, and hope that my speed of constructing a font increases from it use, learning the short cuts to speed up reparative tasks I presently do in the program.

Since I have been saving my Gerber Omega Vector files as pdf files the import is an exact vector copy of what I need in FontCreator, the only issue I have now is that when importing the pdf file outlines, they may increase or shrink in size if greater that the font Cap letter height, is there a way to prevent that when importing. I have been placing a reference Cap size vector retangle block to reference when importing for sizing & positioning.
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Re: Units of Measure USA Inch feature needed

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

FontCreator only works with funits. It's up to you to decide how many funits you need to get glyphs of the desired height at a given point size. One inch is 72 points, but a 72 point font does not usually have 1" high capital letters. Compare some different fonts at 120 points in a drawing or DTP application where you can set accurate guide lines at 1"
120 point text.png
120 point text.png (3.81 KiB) Viewed 6607 times
The scale factor for importing vector based images is set in Tools, Options, Glyph.
Vector Scale.png
Vector Scale.png (54.58 KiB) Viewed 6607 times
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Re: Units of Measure USA Inch feature needed

Post by Alfred »

pt_crusier_2002 wrote:the lettering is done in USA Inches not metric or ems
Unlike liquid measures such as gallons or fluid ounces, there is no difference between the inches used in the US and the inches used in the UK and elsewhere. :wink:
Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:FontCreator only works with funits. It's up to you to decide how many funits you need to get glyphs of the desired height at a given point size.
Is there ever a compelling reason to use anything other than 2048 font units per em these days? :?
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Re: Units of Measure USA Inch feature needed

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Alfred wrote:Is there ever a compelling reason to use anything other than 2048 font units per em these days? :?
Yes, there is, but that's another topic.
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Re: Units of Measure USA Inch feature needed

Post by Alfred »

Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:
Alfred wrote:Is there ever a compelling reason to use anything other than 2048 font units per em these days? :?
Yes, there is, but that's another topic.
Thanks for the link. :)
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pt_crusier_2002
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Re: Units of Measure USA Inch feature needed

Post by pt_crusier_2002 »

I know that characters in a 1" font maybe over the 1" height such as the Letters AOW etc, but when I design my fonts for use in my Gerber Omega program for Monumental Drafting I design the font so the capital character of the font are set to the Caps Height from the base line, I do not go over the Cap height line for most Cap Characters if it is not curved or needs to go slightly above and below, not like the samples you show in your reply. I have to match / duplicate our Industry Standards Fonts to match a plastic stencil press letter so a 1" font is 1", 1 1/4" font is 1 1/4" etc that have been the standard for 50+ years.

I guess I am having a hard time explaining what I am looking for, but all I want to do is to keep it simple in making a simple basic TTF version of a font from my Vector outlines that I import into Font Creator using pdf files with the least amount of steps/ time needed, as I have 50+ Industry Standard fonts that I need to make into TTF only.
pt_crusier_2002
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Re: Units of Measure USA Inch feature needed

Post by pt_crusier_2002 »

Please explain funits, I know that 72points = an inch, I took printing class in High School where we did hand set type. I understand Baseline, X height, Cap height, Ascender Height, descend height. Please explain Bearing left and right Metrics, I know Kerning is adjusting spacing between character to look right.

Have made many fonts in Gerber Omega program for use in their program without having to know all the technical terms to create a font, but would like to use FontCreator to make simple TTF version so they can be used outside of my Omega program. KISS is what I learned in the NAVY.
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Re: Units of Measure USA Inch feature needed

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

pt_crusier_2002 wrote:I do not go over the Cap height line for most Cap Characters if it is not curved or needs to go slightly above and below, not like the samples you show in your reply. I have to match / duplicate our Industry Standards Fonts to match a plastic stencil press letter so a 1" font is 1", 1 1/4" font is 1 1/4" etc that have been the standard for 50+ years.
The samples in my reply are all from different fonts at 120 point, and the Caps Height varies above and below the 1" guideline.

See this post in the FAQ Thread at the top of the support forum.

I know what you are looking for, but tried to explain why FontCreator cannot use inches on the rulers because how many funits = 1" depends on how the font is designed.

The first "H" in my screen shot is from my font "Guru" with a Caps Height of 1274 funits, the second is from "Balava" with a Caps Height of 1577 funits, the fifth "H" is from "Talapanna" with a Caps Height of 1167 funits. Guru is slightly over 1" while Talapanna is slightly less than 1" high.
  • For Guru: Ascender + Descender + Line Gap = 1879 + 547 + 31 = 2458 (approx 2048 x 1.2)
  • For Balava: Ascender + Descender + Line Gap = 2123 + 539 + 0 = 2662 (approx 2048 x 1.3)
  • For Talapanna: Ascender + Descender + Line Gap = 1833 + 1280 + 0 = 3113 (approx 2048 x 1.52)
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Re: Units of Measure USA Inch feature needed

Post by Erwin Denissen »

The formula to convert between font units and device units is based on a scale which is:

point size * resolution / ( 72 points per inch * units per em )

point size is what you use in your word processor, for example you add a line of text with font size 12
resolution is what your screen, printer, or other output device supports
units per em is set inside the font, as shown on the General tab at the Font Properties dialog

So on a 600 dpi laser printer, a 12 point glyph would have this scale (12 * 600) / (72 * 2048) = 0.048828125

So if your Latin capital letter H is 1600 units high, it will be 1600 * 0.048828125 = 78.125 pixels high on your printer.

If think if you only need to know the size in inches you can use this formula:

letter height * point size / ( 72 points per inch * units per em )

I just printed a huge "H" on my laser printer. Within Word I used font "Times New Roman" with font size "500". Internally the height of the H is 1356 units. I measured the printer H and it is 4.59 inches in height.

The formula confirms this as:
1356 * 500 / ( 72 * 2048) = 4.60 inches

Hope this help.
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Re: Units of Measure USA Inch feature needed

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

To summarise: For a font set at 100 points, to get a capital height of 72 points =1"
  1. A caps height of 1474 @ 2048 funits/em will give a Capital letter of 71.973 points
  2. A caps height of 1475 @ 2048 funits/em will give a Capital letter of 72.021 points
  3. A caps height of 2949 @ 4096 funits/em will give a Capital letter of 71.997 points
So, if you want a convenient size of 100 points for your text, and want to get really close to 72 points, use an funits/em value of 4096 and a caps height of 2949 funits. To get close enough, use a caps height of 1475 @ 2048 funits/em.

Alternatively, for a font set at 120 points, to get a capital height of 1"

A caps height of 1229 @ 2048 funts/em will give a Capital letter of 72.012 points.

The other metrics, Ascender, Descender, and Line Gap affect the default line-spacing for your text, but they do not, I think, affect the Caps Height.
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