Can't see new character in InDesign

[Graham]

I have managed to create a new Chinese character in a particular font, and I have renamed the font.

When I go into InDesign my Desktop Publisher to use the character, I can find the renamed font, but when I look in the glyphs, it is not there.

I created it in the first empty glyph space. When I open Font Creator, it sits happily there, but the glyph space is empty in InDesign.

What have I not done - I must have missed something, but not sure what at all.

Any help most appreciated - Thanks - Graham

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

In most fonts, the first empty glyph is the .notdef glyph, which is usually a blank rectangle displayed when a character typed does not exist in the font. After that is the .null glyph, then nonmarkingreturn, and then the space character.

Your new glyph needs a suitable mapping before it can be used in InDesign. In the MingLu font, glyphs are mapped from 豈 CJK COMPATIBILITY IDEOGRAPH-F900 onwards, for example.

[William]

> I created it in the first empty glyph space.

That sounds like you might have put it in the null glyph position!

> I have managed to create a new Chinese character in a particular font, and I have renamed the font.

For safety when learning, two things need renaming, the file name and the font name.

For example, in my Quest text font.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/QUESTTXT.TTF

The file name is QUESTTXT.TTF and the font name is Quest text.

Suppose that you were trying to adapt a copy of my Quest text font.

The first thing to do would be to download a copy of the font to your local hard disc, not to the fonts folder.

Use File Open Font File...on the QUESTTXT.TTF file.

Use File Save As... and save as some new file name, for example, QUESTTRY.TTF in a folder other than the Windows fonts folder.

Use Tools AutoNaming... to rename the font, that is, changing from Quest text to some other name, using no more than 28 characters. For example Quest Adventure would be a suitable name: there can be a space or spaces within the font name.

Then proceed with the changes such as adding extra glyphs. Afterwards, copy the font into the Windows font folder.

Of course, you are using some other font and I know neither the file name nor the font name, so I used QUESTTXT.TTF and Quest text as examples.

> What have I not done - I must have missed something, but not sure what at all.

At a guess, you may have not mapped the glyph to the Unicode code point.

An analogy is that if you build a new house somewhere then you also need to register an address so that deliveries of whatever can be made.

When you write "a new Chinese character" do you mean new as in "new to the particular font" or do you mean new as in "new in the history of what Chinese characters exist in the world"?

If the former, then you need the Unicode character code and if the latter you need to map the character to a codepoint of your own choice in the Unicode Private Use Area.

In either case you need to add a glyph to the font and then map it to a Unicode code point.

Use Insert Glyphs... to add a glyph.

Depending on what you are trying to do, the following may not be what you need, but unless you have a higher plane mapping, the following may help.

Right click on the glyph and then use Properties... then on the Mappings panel use Microsoft Unicode BMP only and then set the hexadecimal value in the value box after 0. For example, if the hexadecimal value were 1234 you need 0x1234 in the value box. Then click Add and then OK.

You might perhaps like to have a look at one of my development fonts.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/VALOG001.TTF

In that font I have added three glyphs at the end and mapped them into the Unicode Private Use Area.

That font is described in the following thread, though much of what is in that thread is not relevant here, though the way that the mappings listed in the text are implemented in the font might be useful to look at as an experience.

viewtopic.php?t=1947

I hope that this helps.

William Overington

4 November 2007

[Graham]

Dear William & Bikkhu,

Your notes are extremely helpful. I shall try again - never give up...

Many thanks - Graham

[Graham]

Dear William and Bikkhu,

I have tried for the past couple of hours with limited success to map a new glyph correctly. If I copy the Chinese character I want over to a space occuppied by a character I do not want, I can see and find that Chinese character in InDesign and can use it, so I can definitely fudge things, but that's not really what I want to do, so the problem must be in my mapping, I presume.

When I insert a glyph, I can create a glyph both at the beginning and end of the font set. I can see it. I have mapped it to private area and it has given me a number (I didn't see any decimals or hexidecimales anywhere - the number is $F8FF for the glyph at the front). In the postscript box, I could not name or generate a name, the area was greyed out. When I open the font in InDesign, the first box is empty and when it gets to the last box, I am out of memory. However, as said, I can use the dubbed over glyph without a problem.

I presume I am still mapping incorrectly. But trying to match the properties in your three added glyphs in your font - it didn't seem to work as I expected.

Any ideas where I am going wrong?

Sorry to trouble you. Thanks - Graham

[William]

> When I insert a glyph, I can create a glyph both at the beginning and end of the font set.

By "the font set", are you referring to the collection of glyph boxes as seen in the Glyph Overview window of FontCreator?

If so, I think that it is important not to add any glyph before any of the first four glyphs. I suggest that you add them at the end.

> ..., so the problem must be in my mapping, I presume.

Well, it might be, but there could possibly be some other reason.

I cannot fully justify the following advice with theory, but I would advise that you use, while you are learning, only those Private Use Area codes that start with E and that you avoid using any which end in 00 or 40 or 80 or C0, just in case of problems. Some of it is theory based, some of it experience with the way that some software packages have previously assumed things about certain Private Use Area codepoints.

When I saw U+F8FF mentioned I was somewhat wary. Apple Inc has used U+F8FF for its Apple logo: some software might act with that in mind. Microsoft used to use U+F001 and U+F002 for fi and fl ligature glyphs, they also use U+F020 to U+F0FF for internal mappings in Symbol Fonts.

There is some information about the Unicode Private Use Area in the following linked document, at section 16.5.

http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.0.0/ch16.pdf

There is information about the Corporate Use Subarea and that could possibly be part of the problem, though I do not know one way or the other how InDesign uses the Private Use Area.

William Overington

5 November 2007

[William]

Also, the following.

> In the postscript box, I could not name or generate a name, the area was greyed out.

Did you have the mapping set for Microsoft Unicode BMP only when you added the mapping?

Did you try to add the Postscript name using Format Post... and clicking the Generate Names button at the top of the panel?

William

[Graham]

Thank you for the pointers. In my Chinese software dictionary, the character I am trying to create is not mapped in unicode and the dictionary says this of it:

"Unicode eee6 (GB+ 8337f835) (Not standard; private-use codepoint assigned by Wenlin)"

When I was trying to map my inserted glyph, I wanted to try to name it eee6 or 8337f835 in the private use area, but no matter what options I played with, I could not get eee6 to come out. Probably because, I'm not sure what I am doing or why, I have absolutely no idea where in the process I am going wrong. I expect it is something simple, which you take for granted and I do not.

In addition, if I insert the glyph at the end of the glyphs, InDesign runs out of memory before it gets there (my IND file is already big), so that doesn't work too well. In the end, I inserted it at the start, since that made it easy to find.

I do not know what the Format Post is., but my mapping set is Microsoft Unicode BMP only.

Sorry for all the trouble - Graham

[William]

It looks like you need to use 0xEEE6 as the value when doing the mapping.

> I do not know what the Format Post is .,

On the Menu Bar of FontCreator is the word Format. Click on it and a menu cascades down. Click on Post... to open the panel.

I just tried to check on the http://www.high-logic.com/comparisonchart.html web page as to whether it is in both the Home and Professional versions, but cannot find it mentioned specifically.

In relation to one of your previous posts I did try an experiment and found that if one adds a glyph manually and then tries to add the Postscript name in the Properties panel that one must first click OK in relation to the mapping of the glyph and leave the Properties panel then go back to Properties to generate the Postscript name then click OK.

Actually I had not noticed the existence of the facility to add the Postscript name from within Properties before yesterday: I have always added the glyphs that I want then used Format Post... and added the Postscript names all at once.

I wonder if I may suggest an experiment to you please. I wonder if it might be a good idea to try to produce a new font using FontCreator, as a test, and add a glyph mapped to U+EEE6 at the end and then try using that font. I suggest that you draw at least one printing glyph within the basic Latin range, perhaps a letter T, just in case of problems with any application software which checks only those locations and maybe mistakenly deems the font empty on that basis. In that way you could test that font with InDesign to find out if it works. That would narrow down the source of the problem as regards whether it is problems with mapping the glyph into the font or something to do with the size of the font.

William Overington

6 November 2007

[Graham]

Dear William,

I think at least one of my problems is very basic, I don't know how to get the mapping done. You say map to U+EEE6, but how? When I go into the character to glyph index mappings, my newly created Chinese character is $000. I am on Micorosoft Unicode BMP only and format encoding is Segment mapping to Delta values. Where do I go from here? If I press select, I can find private use area. If I select that, I get two options under character Value $E000, Glyph $7145 and Private Use First. The other option is $F8FF, $0001 and Private Use Last. I presume I want the E one, it says there is a glyph already mapped there. I don't see any options to get a U+EEE6. I am missing something, aren't I. Something very obvious? Please tell me.

Hope you don't mind helping - Thanks - Graham

[Erwin Denissen]

Unless you have the Home Edition, I suggest you use the Insert Character feature. Also be sure to add a dollar sign before the value, in case you want to add a hexadecimal value. For example to enter decimal value 61158, you either add that as decimal value (thus without $ sign) or its hexadecimal equivalent $EEE6.

Also worth reading:
How to enable a glyph, so it can be used as a character?
Insert Characters Feature

[Graham]

Such euphoria! I have mapped my character to $EEE6. As it turns out, it was the the hexidecimal thing which I didn't 'get'. Perhaps I still don't, but at least I'm now moving forward again.

Much thanks for your help - Graham

[William]

Firstly, I am pleased that you have now achieved the result from what Erwin told you about using Insert Characters... facility.

For completeness I will try to answer your question as it stood regarding mapping an inserted glyph.

> Where do I go from here? If I press select, I can find private use area.

There is no need to press select to do this operation.

Right click on the glyph and then use Properties... then on the Mappings panel use Microsoft Unicode BMP only and then set the hexadecimal value in the value box after 0. For the hexadecimal value EEE6 you need 0xEEE6 in the value box. Then click Add and then OK.

The EEE6 is hexadecimal. The U+ prefix is used in discussions of characters. EEE6 is just a number, U+EEE6 is a Unicode character code. One does not put the U+ into value boxes when making a font. The U+ is just used in discussions as far as I know.

The 0x in 0xEEE6 tells the software that the rest of the number is in hexadecimal format. I have seen the 0x format before FontCreator: I think that it is a way of many years standing of expressing hexadecimal input to a computer system.

I have found that a useful way to convert hexadecimal to decimal and decimal to hexadecimal is to use Microsoft Calculator, which is included as an accessory with Windows, in View Scientific mode.

Actually, the reason that I do not use the Insert Character facility of FontCreator is because the PC which I am using has the screen set at a 800 by 600 pixels display and the OK button of the Insert Character panel does not show on the screen. The lowest thing viewable on the panel for me is the Add button.

William Overington

7 November 2007

[Graham]

Dear William,

It is all becoming much clearer. I now find another problem with inserted glyphs versus original ones (posted separately), even with the copy/paste (special) function, which I have just found, it is still slightly too much space on the left. In FontCreator, it looks perfectly well aligned, but in the glyphs box in my DTP programme, it looks slightly right aligned and it is when put into the text. Almost there, but not quite.

Thanks for your help - Graham

[Erwin Denissen]

I don't know how many people use our products with a 800 x 600 screen resolution, but here are the screen resolutions from people who visit high-logic.com.
43.3 % -> 1024 x 768
37.7 % -> 1280 x 1024
15.0 % -> 1600 x 1200 (or more)
2.3 % -> 800 x 600
1.7 % -> Unknown