Help with ligatures, etc.

[Psymon]

Not to be confused with the Matrix.

Sometimes I think that's actually where I go to whenever I fire up FC.

There are also the font metrics (Tools menu, show metrics lines), which are calculated and not set. It is the size and design of the glyphs that determines the position of x-height, Cap-Height, TypoAscender, TypoDescender, WinAscent, WinDescent.

Hmm... is that in the latest version of FC (which is what I'm using)? I don't see that. In the Tools menu, apart from AutoMetrics I see a thing that says "Metric Options," but that's more like a "View" sort of menu, i.e. re what's visible as you work on glyphs. I don't see anything for "calculating" what the values for those things are??? I looked around elsewhere for anything like that and couldn't seem to find anything.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

In the Tools menu, apart from AutoMetrics I see a thing that says "Metric Options," but that's more like a "View" sort of menu, i.e. re what's visible as you work on glyphs.

That's the one. The CapsHeight is calculated from the Capital H. You can guess which glyph is used to calculate the x-height. The Metrics calculations are found in Font Properties, Metrics.

[Psymon]

In the Tools menu, apart from AutoMetrics I see a thing that says "Metric Options," but that's more like a "View" sort of menu, i.e. re what's visible as you work on glyphs.

That's the one. The CapsHeight is calculated from the Capital H. You can guess which glyph is used to calculate the x-height.

Yeah, but like I mentioned, that's just a "view" sort of menu -- I'm not sure why you directed me to that one, as it gives no information, and I can't see any reason to turn anything off in there.

The Metrics calculations are found in Font Properties, Metrics.

Ah, yes, now that you directed me in there, I recall stumbling across that before, and without really knowing "why" I did run the two "calculate" buttons in there (and assumed at the time that my having done so was a good thing).

There's one option in there for choosing between "Minimum" and "Maximum" -- it was set to calculate based on the latter, and so I just left it like that. I have no idea if that's the better option of the two. In my head, it rather makes sense to me to calculate it base on the maximum -- I'm not sure what contexts one would want to calculate it based on minimum. I would think (if I understand this correctly) that it would be dumb to calculate it based on the minimum, because then you would have parts of certain characters (ascenders or descenders) "disappearing" when they display on one's page -- I've seen that happen with some really crappy freebie fonts before, and I can only assume that that's the issue that occurred there.

PS. On a TOTALLY unrelated note to type design, I got curious about "who you are" -- i.e. what you do, etc. -- and googled you, and discovered that you're a Buddhist monk, and that you design fonts for Buddhist publications. How very cool! I'm not as serious (or "devout," perhaps might be a more accurate term) about my own spiritual beliefs, as my own interest is in mysticism regardless of tradition -- when people ask me what I believe, I tell them "everything" (ha ha), and in a way that's true, I see the "fundamental truth" in the mystical roots of all spiritual traditions, which is also reflected in science (in particular physics, but also in biology and various other sciences as well). However, Buddhism and other eastern traditions, along with Native American traditions, has been a HUGE part of my own personal growth and, indeed, psychological healing (I've struggled for many years with PTSD-related issues). I'm totally digressing off-topic here, of course, but that was a nice, rather pleasant surprise, to discover what you do, what you're into.

[Psymon]

Hmm... in the last few days I've gotten a couple email notifications that there's replies to this thread, but then when I come to read them there's nothing new here! The other day I got one that said that there was a new reply from someone named "Alfred" (if I remember the name correctly), and then this morning I got one saying there was a reply from Erwin Denissen. Both times I came and looked, and nothing new was here.

Where are these supposed-replies disappearing to???

[Erwin Denissen]

Sorry for the confusion. I replied twice to test some reported forum issues, and removed the posts afterwards.

[Psymon]

Ah, okay -- thanks! Now my world makes sense again.

[Psymon]

So I guess the answer to my question, with regard to getting autokerning to include the glyphs in the PUA, it's just not possible to get FontCreator to include those?

If you include glyphs from the PUA in your kerning classes and/or kerning pairs, then Autokern will use them.

Hmm... this didn't work. I spent HOURS this morning cleaning up all sorts of crap in my font, improving various characters, etc., and then added classes for each and every ligature (etc.) that's in my PUA, then ran autokern...

...and there's no pair adjustments for any of those PUA glyphs at all, all those classes still come up as "not used." If there is a way to automate this task, then I don't know how -- I must be doing something wrong.

You said "If you include glyphs from the PUA in your kerning classes and/or kerning pairs..." and I take "and/or" to mean that if I only create classes for those those various PUA glyphs, then by running autokern FC will automatically create adjustment pairs on its own.

Did I misunderstand? If I have to do it manually, one pair adjustment at a time, then what a pain! Like, I've got a ligature for longs+h, and just think of all the possible combinations that can go with that -- not just virtually every single lowercase character, but every accented variation of those, to boot -- and I have many different other ligs, too.

And then I also have to go back to many (if not most) other lowercase characters and add pair adjustments for each of those ligs as well. I don't understand why there isn't a way to automate this, so that I can do in seconds what will otherwise take me a whole day (or something) to do.

[Psymon]

Never mind my last reply here -- I think I'm finally starting to get it (I think).

I'm mystified by an issue I'm seeing, though...

If only to use this as an example, I started (but haven't finished) creating kerning pairs for each of those various ligs in my PUA, one of which is a double-longs ("ſſ") lig. For whatever reason, before doing this, there was way too much space between that lig and whatever character came after it (and also before, but mostly the issue seemed after). I did check my bearings (and adjusted them), and then after creating kerning pairs everything looks fine in the font preview, and when I install the font on my system and create a graphic (with text) in Photoshop, the kerning comes out just fine...

...but when I embed the font into an ebook, for some mysterious reason it's like the kerning for that lig (and whatever other glyph) just isn't there, there's still way too much space.

If that kerning pair comes out just fine in the font preview, and then displays fine when using the font in Photoshop, why on earth would that kerning "disappear" when the font is used in an ebook (where everything else -- all ligature lookups and whatever other kerning made on more "regular," non-PUA characters -- seems to work just fine)?

Any ideas? As I mentioned in another thread here just now, when trying to validate my script in the code editor I get a TON of "Class overlap detected" error (or warning) messages -- could that be why, something funny going on in there? I'm clueless.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

As I mentioned in another thread here just now, when trying to validate my script in the code editor I get a TON of "Class overlap detected" error (or warning) messages -- could that be why, something funny going on in there? I'm clueless.

Class overlap errors will not prevent the font from being exported, but the classes will all be flattened to single adjustment pairs. If the e-book does not support GPOS kerning then try including a legacy kern table.

[PJMiller]

There are a great many applications out there that do not kern or do not support any of the open type features. Some do nothing more than a very basic rendering of the text.

I thought about adding ligatures to substitute for proper kerning but the problem is that the applications which don't kern are generally the ones that don't do ligatures either.

But in general applications where the function of the program is to present text properly rendered (word processors & desktop publishing) do have better support for open type features. I don't know about e-book compilers. One would have thought that they would do their job properly but there are no guarantees.

As Bhikkhu Pesala said including a Legacy Kern table is probably your best option at this point, it will make the font bigger but older applications are more likely to support that type of kerning if they support kerning at all. Microsoft Word until very recently only did kerning if the font had a legacy kern table.

[Psymon]

Hey, thanks for the replies, guys! Things still aren't working right, though. I regenerated the font with the legacy kerning table added, and that had no effect -- I still have this weird extra space to the right of that double-longs ligature. I have no idea why it's even arising like that, as my right-hand bearing on that glyph is actually "negative" (if you know what I mean), and yet when it renders in my ebook it's almost as though there's an extra space in-between it and the adjacent character.

Another strange thing I've noticed, too, is that only some of my ligature lookups seem to be working -- only lowercase ligs, but not uppercase ligs (I haven't tested out every single one of my ligs, but that would seem to be the case). So my st, ct, ſſ, ſt, etc. ligs all come out just fine, but my SS, WI, etc. ligs don't render at all. (All my ligature lookups are standard, by the way, not discretionary.)

How weird is that? I have NO idea what I'm doing anymore!

[Erwin Denissen]

Do send us the font along with some sample text so we can look into it.

[Psymon]

Do send us the font along with some sample text so we can look into it.

I've been wanting to just post the font here, actually, hoping that someone could take a look at it, but that thought has brought up another issue -- what if I were to decide I want to sell this font (as I've been urged to by other professional type designer friends I have)? By posting it here, aren't I just effectively giving it away for free (albeit in a preliminary, unfinalized form)?

Oh, crap... I just said to myself "what the heck" and figured I share the font here anyway, along with my ebook, too, so you could see what's "going funny," wrote up a nice description of the issues-at-hand, attached the font (no problem) but then when I tried to attach the ebook I got a message saying "invalid file extension" (and it's not!). So I tried changing the ".epub" extension to ".zip" but then I got a message saying "file too large" (1.8 megs is too large???).

I could load the ebook up to my website instead and then post the link for it here, if that's okay to do -- or if you're not able to view ebooks, I could take some screenshots instead.

[Erwin Denissen]

If you are not sure if you want to sell the font, then better not post it here. You can send it to me; I'll send you a pm with my email address.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

what if I were to decide I want to sell this font (as I've been urged to by other professional type designer friends I have)? By posting it here, aren't I just effectively giving it away for free (albeit in a preliminary, unfinalized form)?

Nope. As long as your font contains at least some information identifying you as the author in the Legal Tab of Font Properties, it is protected by copyright.

Even if you sell it, Tom can buy it, then share it with Dick and Harry if he does not care about copyright infringements. Protecting fonts is difficult, and expensive, if you need to hire lawyers.

The same goes for E-books.