Glyph Transformations in FontCreator 13

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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Glyph Transformations in FontCreator 13

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

See the tutorial on Working with Glyph Transformations for earlier versions.

FontCreator 12 came with major improvements and many new or updated scripts.
  1. Glyph Transformations can now be undone
  2. The Private Use Area is no longer used for most scripts
Join Contours
A new script to demonstrate the command Joining Contours, which executes Get Union of Contours.

Complete Composites
The Complete Composites Command now offers a choice of the four new methods.

Tabular and Proportional Figures
If the figures in your font are not a uniform width, it may be useful to add an OpenType feature for Tabular Figures. Conversely, if the figures are a uniform width, you might like to add a feature for Proportional Figures.

There are transform scripts to add each of these figures sets in the Private Use Area. The advance width of Tabular figures is based on figure zero, and the side-bearings for proportional figures are defined in CompositeData.xml. After running the scripts, you may want to adjust the spacing to suit your font's design.

Stylistic Alternates
To add a set of Decorative Drop Capitals to your font, run the Transform script for Unmapped Stylistic Alternates. This will insert an alphabet of A-Z named as A.salt to Z.salt. It will compose the glyphs from the Capital letters in your font. Import images into each glyph or redesign them with swashes, etc., to make them decorative. Then add a Stylistic Alternates OpenType feature to use them.
Stylistic Alternates.png
Stylistic Alternates.png (92.19 KiB) Viewed 23200 times
Optimize Contours
This is a very simple transformation command to use. It has no parameters. Use it on the current glyph or on all selected glyphs.
Optimize Transformation.png
Optimize Transformation.png (31.63 KiB) Viewed 23200 times
The Optimize feature is also available on the right-click menu in the Glyph Edit window, where it can be applied to selected contours or to all contours in the current glyph.

This feature reduces the number of points used to define a contour. With a complex glyph like that illustrated below, the number of points before and after can change significantly. The number of contours won't change, but the curves might change slightly. Use the Background Image toolbar to compare before and after results.
Optimize.png
Optimize.png (19.45 KiB) Viewed 23200 times
Removing Off-curve Extremes

An additional benefit of optimising contours is that any off-curve extremes are also removed. If using an italic transformation to skew glyphs, use Optimize after it in the Transform script to avoid the need to validate the font or remove these errors with the Validation Toolbar.

Set Glyphs for Tagging
This can be used in scripts to select a number of glyphs on which to perform some other operations.
Set Glyphs for Tagging.png
Set Glyphs for Tagging.png (12.74 KiB) Viewed 23169 times
Click the validate button on the above dialogue to check that the glyph names exist, sort them in order, and count them. After running the script, use the keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+1-5) to tag the glyphs, or use the right-click menu.

Inverse Transformation
This is another simple feature with no parameters.

It creates a black (clockwise) rectangle a few funits greater than the advance width of the glyph, and the full height of WinDescent to WinAscent. Then it reverses the contour directions to create white glyphs on a black background.
Inverse Transformation.png
Inverse Transformation.png (10.45 KiB) Viewed 23200 times
Be mindful that if you run it again, it does not remove the black rectangle, but inserts a second white rectangle over it.

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Attachments
Using Glyph Transformations.pdf
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My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
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