The drawn border looks different from font size.

[BParkoff]

Hi,

I am new to FontCreator 14. I am learning how to draw font in glyph correctly.

I set Units per EM to 2048 in Font Properties. I set Between grid points in units to 50 in Grid Options.

I opened the glyph with character 'A'.

I placed four contours in glyph locations: (100, 100), (1000, 100),(100, 1000), and (1000, 1000) to form inner square.

I placed four contours in glyph locations: (50, 50), (1050, 50),(50, 1050), and (1050, 1050) to form outer square.

I selected inner square and I selected Change Direction.

Both inner square and outer square became border. The top horizontal line, left vertical line, bottom horizontal line, and right vertical line in border have identical 50 units.

I closed the glyph with character 'A'. I generated the exported font: MyFont.TTF.

I opened Microsoft Word 365. I selected font name: MyFont. I pressed 'A' key several times while border appeared to the screen. The drawn border in charater 'A' looks good. The problem is that top horizontal line, left vertical line, bottom horizontal line and right vertical line in border look different when I change the font size from 11 through 48. For example, left vertical line looks smaller and right vertical line looks larger around the border. All the sides of border should have identical width and height to 50 units (shown 2 or 3 pixels on screen).

What did I do wrong?

Kindly,
Bryan Parkoff

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Apart from drawing the inner contour first (the direction won't need changing if you draw the inside border second), nothing seems to be wrong.

The apparent change in the border thickness at different sizes is probably due to the lack of hinting. Zoom in or out to see the same effect.

[BParkoff]

Hi,

Thank you for explaining the border's thickness from font size.

I chose to draw inner square first before outer square because I try to make sure that placing contour on the correct grid location each 50 units. I will not click the mouse's left button if contour is at (149,151) or (148, 152). I prefer to perfectly place it on (150, 150). I did zoom in and zoom out the grid at 100%. It is difficult with mouse pointer on the contour location on the grid.

I tested the border in Microsoft Word 365. The border looks good from the font size: 11 through 24 except 12. The 12 points from font size shows thick left vertical line and thin right vertical line.

Is there a way I can type and place numbers in (x, y) each contour manually without using mouse pointer on glyph editor?

I prefer to use GIMP to draw the font in perfect grid before I export it into PNG file and I import PNG file into FontCreator's Glyph Editor. I did not have problem with border thickness from changing the font size on Microsoft Word 365 after I did GIMP and then FontCreator.

Kindly,
Bryan Parkoff

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

You can set the grid spacing from the Tools menu, Grid Options.

Enable snap to grid from the View menu.