Problem - Limitation of the program?

[Vasudevan]

Hi:
I have a problem using your software. I am not sure whether it is a
limitation of your software or maybe the helpfile is not complete.
Here are my queries:
1. How to create an open contour? Adding new contours always closes it
at the start and end points.
2. How will you join two contours? For Ex: If I want to break right
bottom Stroke of letter K and add it to O so that I can get Q. With
Font forge, I can easily do this by breaking the stroke from the
glyph, Open the contours, similarly open the contours on O and then
join the points. Is there a similar method in your program? (Your Join
contour does not provide expected results! It only allows selection of
two points and for proper joining of contours you need a minimum of 4
points - two from source and two at the target!)
3. How to join / combine points. If I have two glyphs and if I want to
join them to form one glyph? How to join the points to form one full
contour. For Ex. take the letter C. Flip it horizontal and combine
this with original C to form a full circle.
4. Also your font naming is not properly mapped according to
Unicode/Microsoft specification. VOLT is generally used for defining
complex GSUB, GPOS and GDEF. When I opened the font in MS VOLT, I
found that I had to rename all the glyphs to proper Unicode name, in
order to make it work under Character Map, even though they were properly defined in the program.
Currently I am forced to work with FontForge because of these short-comings.
If you think I am not doing it right, please let me know.

Regards
Vasu

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

1. An open contour is no use in a font. Since a line has zero width it will neither display nor print. What you need is two contours, going in reverse directions.

2. Joining contours is easy when you understand point 1.

For example to make Ø, instead of trying to join O and / you need to split the inner contour diagonally and separate the two halfs. Then lay "/" over the outer contour as a guide, reshape the outer contour to fit, then delete the "/".

3. Split the C into big ◖ and small ◖ - flip both to small and big ◗. Join big ◖ to big ◗, and small ◖ to small ◗.

4. Don't know about this.

[Dick Pape]

Welcome Vasudevan

0. Make sure you have the most current version 4.2.6.

1. Forming new contours has to begin with a closed figure. A circle becomes a "period" or "bullet". A circle with a circle inside becomes an "O". A rectangle with a smaller rectangle inside is an "open box". A straight line is a rectangle of some finite width. You can make a line of zero width (probably 1 pixel wide) by creating a triangle then overlapping two of the points, but it's still a closed figure.

2. In FCP joining contours is accomplished by selecting two points then right clicking to Join Contours or Split Contours. You may have to Add Points in order to have two to combine. You may have to move points On Curve or Off Curve to get the curve you need.

Yes, you may need 4 points, but here it's two at a time.

3. A C coupled to an inverted C can be joined by overlapping the two glyphs then selecting pairs of points from the two curves and Joining or Splitting them. You can then identify which points are redundant and delete them.

Of course, you end up with a "circle with a hole in it" -- or an outer circle with an inner circle. (So you can start with an O?) (You may have to "Change Direction").

I use the brute force method to create a Ø by putting the / on top of the O and then selecting pairs of points getting rid of extraneous ones.

4. Like Bhikkhu Pesala, I have not experienced the font naming problem you found.

Hope you are able to come back!

Dick Pape

[Erwin Denissen]

Vasu,

Make sure you are using the latest release from the announcements forum, as it has improved support for glyph postscript names. New fonts should have correct postscript names. With existing fonts you could use the "generate postscript names" feature available through the Postscript Names window to get correct postscript names.

Let us know your results.