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AsiaFont Studio 4.0 User Manual

1. Example of a hint replacement program for the Times B character 3 oe 3 oe TR B D YY ua T ee ne Se ao a aS cee d i i a y i Ne u d Example of a hint replacement program for the Times g character 519 520 TrueType Instructions In TrueType fonts the hinting process is very different from the one used in Type fonts As we said before in TrueType font format almost all characters have special programs that directly control the movement of outline points at different PPM sizes The native TrueType instruction language consists of several dozen commands All the commands deal with the data stack a temporary storage place and the constant definitions that come with a font There are 3 different kinds of instructions in each TrueType font file One global program called the Font Program is executed one time when the font is used for the first time Another global program called the PPM Program is executed one time when the font s PPM is changed Local programs Glyph Programs are executed for each glyph when it is scaled Programs can deal with points distances arithmetic values constants
2. Lisa menart biban to salici Ore oF mana gyari licks w S17 247 Which is not the best way to work Add to this picture a few open Glyph and Metrics windows and you will see why workspace management is necessary 125 Window Menu The easiest way to manage open windows is to use the Window menu It contains some very useful commands Cascade Organizes open windows in a cascade Tile horizontally Organizes windows like tiles on a rectangular floor Tile vertically Remember that you may always use the Dock to store windows that are currently not used 126 Fonts Panel The Window menu is powerful but it works only on windows without paying any attention to the contents of the windows fonts To organize your open fonts use the Fonts panel Choose the Fonts panel command in the Window menu When you click on this command you will see the panel 6 6 Fonts a HEGE F PCan SS FLCaslon Caslonvfb edieresis A Song Song Regular Songdfont w Arial Arial Arial Arial Bold Arial Arial Italic Arial Arial Bold Italic Arial a The Fonts panel contains a small toolbar in the top area and a list of open fonts All open fonts are automatically arranged in font families using the Family Name entry in the font header see the Font Header chapter You can expand and collapse families to better organize space in the list If you have open glyph windows they are listed here a
3. I I Use the View gt Show Layers gt Nodes 7 1 command to switch the node icons on or off and the Show Marks d button to show or hide the direction marks The glyph outline may appear contoured or filled depending on the preview mode 361 362 Moving Points To move points simply drag them with the mouse button Hold the SHIFT key down to constrain movement to the vertical or horizontal direction Changing Point Type To change point type from corner to curve to tangent simply double click the node with the mouse button Removing Points There are two ways to remove unnecessary points sl 1 Use the Eraser tool Select the tool position the cursor over the point you want to remove and press the mouse button Drag the mouse to remove multiple points Cmp click and drag to surround the points you want to remove with a rectangle and then click the mouse button without releasing the CTRL When you remove a point you ll notice that AsiaFont Studio tries to keep the outline smooth In normal outline mode you usually try to minimize the number of nodes and use Bezier control points and off curve points to make the outline look smooth The main feature and benefit of Sketch mode is that you can add as many curve points as you want to make the outline smooth and precise and the curves will be aligned and optimized automatically Inserting Points 1 Select the tool on the Edit toolbar
4. Select a data section Open Dictionaries vo CreationDate Fri Mow 22 13 00 05 2002 o vv Musage 120000 150000 11 dict begin Fontinfo 14 dict dup begin version 001 000 readonly def Notice Copyright c 1990 15996 ParaGraph readonly def FullName Baltica Bold Cyrillic readonly def FamilyMame BalticaC readonly def ItalicAngle 0 def isFixedPitch false def UnderlinePasition 125 def UnderlineThickness 50 def Weight Bold readonly def end readonlw def 7 d Reset Changes 5 d Cancel Export y As you can see this dialog box previews and allows you to edit text data contained in the open and private sections of the exporting Type 1 font file Use the Select a data section control to choose the part of the Type 1 font file that you want to edit and modify the text in the edit field below Note that there is no external control of changes you make in the export terminal Use it only if you really know what you are doing or you may create a font which will not only be unusable but can even crash your operating system Refer to the Type 1 font format specification http partners adobe com asn developer pdfs tn T1_SPEC PDF for information about the contents of the Type 1 font file TrueType Export Options TrueType export options are concentrated in the TrueType page of the Options dialog box TrueType Export wi Export hinted TrueType fonts il Keep existing TrueType instructions vi Expo
5. Because at all PPM sizes we will have enough space between stems we don t really care about white space But look what happens if we try to use the same technique with a narrow font STITT TTT At many PPMs the vertical stems are snapped together and the character becomes completely unreadable We can however use only one double link then link the two stems together with a single link with a rounded distance and set the width of the right stem with a single link connected to the stem STITT TTT The rounded distance of the single links cannot be less than one pixel so we will always have some white space between the stems To complete the hinting of this character we have to add a rounded single link to the right sidebearing point to make sure that the white space between our character and the next character does not disappear 589 590 Hinting Serifs We recommend hinting serifs in the vertical direction by a single link command Serif singe link gt If the serifs are thin then it s not necessary to attach their width to the standard stem width A single link with rounded distance will be enough Rounded single links cannot appear less than one pixel in length so the serif will never disappear Of course if you want to have more control over the serif s width you can define a special stem width and attach the serif s single links to this width For total control over serifs behavior
6. Hint set 1 Hins set 2 As you can see we have two hint sets and three outline segments from point 1 to point 4 from point 5 to point 12 and from point 13 to point 15 So we must switch active hint sets as the rasterizer proceeds along the contour to match the part of the outline that the hint sets apply to We need to have some program that will switch off the right hint in segment 2 after the rasterizer has passed point 3 where the right hint applies and before it gets to point 5 where the left hint applies and switch it back on in segment 3 before it gets to point 13 where the right hint applies again The same program should switch on the left hint in segment 2 and switch it off again in segment 3 This way only one of the two hints is active at any one time 507 508 This program is called a hint replacement program and the process that it performs is called hint replacement AsiaFont Studio will generate hint replacement programs for every character where necessary but you can also set hint replacement programs manually if necessary to get the best possible results You can see the state of the character s hints and hint replacement program instantly in the Font Window There is a small mark in the left bottom area of each character cell If this mark is present it means that a hint replacement program is present If the mark is green it means that the program is OK that is there are no overlapping hints If this mar
7. 2 Click the mouse cursor on the first node of the link 3 Drag the mouse cursor to the second node and release the button To edit a link 1 Position the mouse cursor on one of the link s lines 2 Press the mouse button and drag the mouse You will see that when you move the cursor onto the outline s nodes they become highlighted 3 Position the mouse cursor on the node where you want to connect the link it will become highlighted and release the mouse button 4 Release the mouse button while the link is not connected and a vertical link will disappear A horizontal link will become a ghost link in this case more on ghost links later 5 Crri click the mouse button while dragging a links line to remove a link Hint and Link Popup Menu To open the hint or link popup menu Crrti click one of the hint or link s lines The Hint popup menu includes the following commands Convert to Link Converts the active hint to a link Reverse Reverses the direction of the hint Delete Removes the hint Define Stem Defines a vertical or horizontal stem global hinting parameter as equal to the width of the current hint Properties Opens the hint property panel The Link popup menu includes the following commands Convert to Hint Converts the active link to a hint Reverse Reverses the direction of the link Delete Removes the link Properties Opens the link property panel 341 Hint Commands The Tools gt Hint
8. source MacOS 8 0b5 0x00 O0x0000 0x01 Ox0001 0x02 Ox0002 0x03 0x0003 The first line of this file is an identification line that is used to set the codepage name and tell AsiaFont Studio that this file is a properly composed codepage definition file This line must be started by the text FONTLAB CODEPAGE OxFFFF The name of the codepage follows All other strings starting with are comments and are not interpreted by AsiaFont Studio The following strings are formed as pairs of two integer numbers in decimal or hex starting with Ox form The first number is the code of the character and should be in the 0 255 range The second number is the Unicode index of the character and should be in the 0 65535 0 FFFFh range The special Unicode index OxFFFF is used to define codes that are not mapped to any character 85 86 Using the Font Window The glyph chart in the Font window is a visual representation of all the glyphs in the font To modify the font you have to learn how to use the glyph chart navigate select glyphs and select commands From here on we will reference all characters as glyphs We would like to clarify once more a font is a collection of glyphs Text is a collection of codes An alphabet is collection of characters Since we are talking of fonts we will be using the term glyph Navigating One of the glyphs in the Font window is the current glyph It is specially highlighted
9. 1 This operation is equivalent to the OpenType import option rd Import kerning from the kern feature The difference is that you can do it at any time not just during import of the OpenType font file 2 Class based kerning defined in the kern feature will be converted into class based kerning as AsiaFont Studio understands it Real kerning pairs will be added only for the key glyphs Please refer to the Editing Metrics chapter and page 440 for more information about class based kerning Feature Development Process When you want to create a feature we recommend you follow this sequence of operations 1 Create a feature in the OpenType panel click on the button in the lower left corner 2 Name the feature Enter the name at the beginning of the feature block and at the end by replacing the default xxxx 3 Fill the feature body with lookups Description of all the types of lookups that AsiaFont Studio can handle follows this section 4 Click the e button to compile the feature definition text 5 Check the Output panel for warnings and errors If there is an error it will be highlighted in the feature definition text Fix any errors 6 When there are no errors check the feature in the OpenType Features Preview panel Open the panel select the script and language and enter the test text At this point you know everything you need to create new features except the actual lookups that define a feature In th
10. You may want to set a so called base point a reference point that points to itself A base point will remain in place during interpolation When you set the new position of the first reference point you will see the results of outline interpolation as a gray outline Crri click on a reference point to remove that reference point You can select several points using the usual point selection procedure If you add a reference point after selection all selected points will move to the position of the same reference point Use this technique to collapse parts of the outline CTRL Click the mouse button in the free space of the Glyph Window and select the Remove all links command from the popup menu to remove all reference links Envelope This operation transforms your glyph as if it were on a rubber plate and you began to stretch it Original glyph Glyph after envelope transformation Envelope is the most freeform transformation available in AsiaFont Studio Be careful with it because it can produce very unusual results 387 To apply an envelope to a glyph 1 Activate an Envelope operation Select the Envelope command in the Operations submenu of the Tools menu or press the E button on the Tools or Operations toolbar 2 You will see a control box surrounding your glyph The control box consists of 8 curves with control vectors and control points 3 Position the mouse cursor on any of the handles o
11. aj E Delete command v Round distance Distance alignment wa v Do not link to stem _ Select stem automatically Align destination position P X31 x42 Use the Delete command to remove the command and the other options to customize it The Distance alignment sub menu lets you link the command to one of the stems The Align destination position submenu is the same that you can see in the Align command s context menu and defines the rounding of the destination position In the Program panel the Single link options looks like From 73 To 51 Stem Round without stem H Align Do not align You can change the indexes of the starting and destination points and change the distance rounding and destination alignment options 547 Single Link Examples Here are some examples of single link hinting Vertical hinting of the Times F character 548 Double Links Double links let you set the distance between two untouched points Both points will be moved by this command and both points will be touched afterward The distance between points can be connected to one of the standard stem widths using the usual procedure described above If the distance is connected to the stem width it will scale with the stem lt Original stem Resul ing stem Double link instruction You can t predict where points will move that are connected by a double link so we recommend
12. 2 Activate one of the transform tools 3 Position the mouse cursor at the center of transformation press the mouse button and drag the mouse to make the transformation Remember that you can press the key at any time to get a high quality preview of the transformed outline 4 Usethe Suirt and Cmp Suirt keys to constrain the transformation 5 Release the mouse button to complete the transformation of the outline 290 Using the Transform Selection Operation select Transform in the popup menu Or you can double click on any selected graphical primitive to activate the Transform operation When this operation is activated you will see a transformation rectangle surrounding the selected area If nothing is selected the entire glyph will be subject to transformation Slan thandle Rotate handle Cen er handle Scale handles So what do all these handles mean and how can they be used 291 292 To move a Selection 1 Position the mouse cursor somewhere inside the transformation rectangle but not on the center handle 2 Press the mouse button and drag the rectangle to its new place 3 Release the button The selection will be moved To scale or skew a selection 1 Position the mouse cursor on one of the scale handles 5 2 Press the button and drag the mouse You will see that the transformation rectangle is scaled Hold down the Suirt key on the keyboard to constrain the scale proportional
13. 24 Getting Started When you run AsiaFont Studio 4 for the first time to run AsiaFont Studio double click on its icon 3 you will see a welcome screen for a few seconds and then the AsiaFont Studio menu and toolbars AsiaFontitdio File Edit View Clyph Tools Window mp 4 2 Wed 16 41 paas JMH BE ee S SE Like almost all Macintosh programs AsiaFont Studio has a menu a few toolbars and a status bar at the bottom There is nothing special about the AsiaFont Studio menu except that there is a difference between the Classic and Mac OS X environments In Mac OS X there is an Application menu containing the Quit and Preferences commands Under Mac OS 9 the Quit command resides in the File menu while the Preferences command resides in the Tools menu The usual location of toolbars is at the top of the screen but if you want to put them somewhere else just drag them there Standard BOSE The status bar can be placed only at the bottom default or at the top of the screen Some tool specific toolbars are floating only and cannot be docked to the sides of the screen You can easily choose which toolbars you want to see use the Toolbars submenu in the View menu Following is a list of all common toolbars with a few comments about each Standard Contains basic commands like file open and save copy paste and print Panels Controls the appearance of AsiaFont Studio panels shared windows used to control most p
14. Creating Contours AsiaFont Studio has two commands that can help you automatically create contours These commands are Expand strokes and Make parallel path Both commands will take one or more existing contours and create new ones using some options Expand Strokes This command will use contours as a trajectory for the paintbrush Se Source open contour Soo gti a Stroke is expanded with the shaped brush To use this operation first select the contours to which you want it to apply All contours that have at least one node selected will be processed If nothing is selected the whole glyph contour will be taken Select the Tools gt Outline gt Expand strokes command in the menu You will see a dialog box that lets you select options E Expand Stroke Stroke options Width 40 Angle 45 Roundness 100 Cap fey jin FG OF OF Body a The top area of this dialog box is used to specify brush size and shape Width is the width of the brush ellipse at its widest part Angle is the degree of the brush ellipse slant and Roundness is the relation in percent of the narrow and wide widths of the brush ellipse Below is a sample of the stroke expand with different brushes OO The next line of options specifies the way the expanding algorithm will process the contour corners and the ends of an open contour LCA Flat contour ends vs round ends 309 310 The las
15. Do not rescale EPS files on import and export You can also export several glyphs at once switch to the Font Window for example by selecting the Open Font Window command from the Glyph Window s popup menu select the glyphs that you want to export and select the Export to EPS command from the Glyph menu You will see a Save File dialog box where you enter a prefix file name for the exported glyphs Each glyph will be exported to its own file with the file name consisting of the prefix plus the sequential number of the exported glyph Printing a Glyph To print a sample of the current glyph select the Print command in the File menu while the Glyph Window is active You will see a standard Print dialog where you can choose a printer and select other printing options To begin printing click the Print button When printing is complete you will have a sample of the current glyph as seen in the Glyph Window If you see nodes on the screen they will appear on the paper If you are in preview mode the printed glyph sample will be filled Zoom mode on the screen will also be applied to the printed sample of the glyph Using this feature you can print very detailed samples of the glyph 405 Editing Font Metrics The tools in AsiaFont Studio that you can use to edit metrics data are common to all FontLab applications so if you have learned how to use these tools in AsiaFont Studio you will be ready to use these same tools in any of th
16. Note 1 Deleting glyphs from the font is not undoable so save your work before deleting glyphs Note 2 If you are in Unicode mode and deleting glyphs with the blue mark in the top left corner they will be removed without any questions because they are just one of the indexes of a multi Unicode glyph Creating New Glyphs If you want to create a new glyph in an empty place in the font a gray cell in the Font window double click the cell If you want to create a group of new glyphs with a single command select the empty cells Crri click the Font window and use the More gt Create Glyphs command in the context menu Mark Sort Glyphs gt Edit in new window Edit metrics Create Glyphs Properties Select encoding Macro gt _ Transform Transform Range If you are creating glyphs in the yellow zone names and Unicode indexes are assigned to the newly created glyphs according to the selected encoding table 103 104 Highlighting Glyphs Sometimes you need to visually differentiate groups of glyphs to easily examine and select them FontLab provides two methods of differentiation marking and definition of a glyph collection Marking Glyphs With marking you can add color to a glyph cell in the Font window There are five predefined colors red blue green magenta and cyan Marking is useful when you want to add structure to a font for example make a visu
17. TrueType Import _ Convert TrueType outlines into Type 1 outlines _ Scale the font to 1000 UPM Save TrueType hinting information _ Decompose composites rd Import embedded bitmaps W Store custom TrueType tables Autohint imported font Convert TrueType outlines to Type 1 outlines In AsiaFont Studio you can work with Type 1 based on 3 4 order Bezier curves or TrueType based on 2 4 order splines outlines If you open a TrueType font and plan to export this font as TrueType it s better to keep the original outlines to avoid conversion errors But if you plan to export your font as a Type 1 font then we recommend converting the outlines on import You can convert the outlines in either direction at any time using AsiaFont Studio commands Scale the font to 1000 UPM Typically TrueType fonts have UPM Units Per eM the size of the grid on which all glyph coordinates are defined equal to 2048 Type 1 fonts have UPM equal to 1000 You can change the UPM value at any time using the AsiaFont Studio commands but if you turn this option on UPM will be converted during the font import Save TrueType hinting information Leave this option on if you want to keep the original TrueType instructions and outlines AsiaFont Studio will keep the imported TrueType data until you change the glyph s outline or hints If you import a TrueType font to rearrange glyphs or to add some new glyphs we highly recommend saving the original TrueType
18. You will see a control box surrounding the component with four corner handles a cross in the center a centerline and the number of the component in the components list To select another component use the PAGE UP and PaGE Down keys or the Tas key To move the component position the mouse cursor inside the control box press the mouse button and drag the control box to a new location If you position the cursor on the cross in the middle of the control box you can set the position of the component more precisely because the cross will snap to the guiding elements while moving Pressing the Sutrt key will constrain the movement in horizontal or vertical directions pressing CMD SHIFT allows the component to move only horizontally When you move the component it will stick to its original position You must hold down the Option key to avoid this You can also use the keyboard to move the component Arrow keys move the component in one font unit increments and the SHirr arrow keys increase movement to 10 units 397 To scale a component position the mouse cursor on one of the handles press the mouse button and drag the mouse to change the size of the component Hold the Suirr key down to constrain the proportions of the component Just click outside the component s control box to accept the changes you can also press the RETURN or ENTER key on the keyboard or press the Esc key to reject the changes You can also
19. All font level hinting is set in the Alignment Zones page of the Font Info dialog in AsiaFont Studio 496 Alignment Zones Alignment zones are typically used to perform a process known as overshoot suppression Rounded characters and characters with sharp ends usually are created a little bit larger than flat characters Notice that the top and bottom of the O extend just a little beyond the top and bottom of the H This is called overshoot It is necessary to compensate for a visual effect that makes rounded characters look slightly smaller Usually the overshoot height is set to 3 4 of character height However at small PPM size this value may be rounded to one pixel When the PPM is small one pixel may be 15 of the character height or even more Here s how it happens Assume that the topmost position of the H character is 700 units and the top position of the O is 715 At 12 PPM 1000 font units scaled to 12 pixels the rounded height of the H will be 8 pixels The height of the O will be 9 pixels One pixel difference at this height means 8 Much more than the original 2 To avoid such an excessive difference between the rasterized heights of the two types of characters overshoots are suppressed and the size of O is forced equal to the height of H at small PPM 497 498 This is done by declaring alignment zones that define the bottom and top positions of the zone in our example the height of H and O and t
20. Collinear amp vectors Inflections on curves Weak extremum points Normal extremum points i RRARARAAAA Incorrect smooth connection 7 Here is a short description of each test and the error that it detects Empty lines and curves Vectors on closepaths Semi horizontal and vertical vectors Inflections on the curves Cusp and self intersecting curves Weak extreme points Incorrect smooth connection Contour is not closed Lines or curves that have no length I e two nodes on top of each other Curves that can be replaced with a straight vector without loss of quality I e a curve that is really a straight line Unnecessary vectors that should be removed In Type 1 fonts this error can cause problems with rasterization Two sequential vectors are collinear therefore the first vector can be removed Straight lines with extra nodes in the middle The direction of the vector is close to vertical or horizontal but is not parallel to one of the axes i e not exactly horizontal or vertical Detects curves that have inflections It is better to replace such curves with a combination of two curves e e a A E Cusp curve Self intersecting curve There are invisible extreme points on curves This error can cause problems with rasterization of the glyph n Curve with an invisible extreme point A vector and curve or two curves are connected very close to a smooth
21. For example endash emdash figuredash An example of a sequence that contains a glyph class is space endash emdash figuredash space moon This would match any of the 3 sequences space endash space space emdash space or space figuredash space during OpenType layout A feature file glyph class that contains only one single glyph is known as a singleton glyph class A feature file glyph class is also used to represent the set of alternate glyphs in an alternate substitution lookup type rule Ranges A range of glyphs is denoted by a hyphen lt firstGlyph gt lt lastGlyph gt Spaces around the hyphen are not required since hyphens are not permitted in feature file glyph names For example A Z Named glyph classes A glyph class can be named by assigning it to a glyph class name which begins with the character and then referred to later on by the glyph class name For example dash endash emdash figuredash Assignment Space dash space Usage The part of the glyph class name after the is subject to the same name restrictions that apply to a glyph name except that its maximum length is 30 Glyph class assignments can appear anywhere in the feature file A glyph class name may be used in the feature file only after its definition When a glyph class name occurs within square brackets its elements are simply added onto the other elements in the glyph class being defined For example
22. If this option in the General page of the Preferences dialog box is active M Create backup files AsiaFont Studio will create a backup copy of the existing font file before overwriting it with the new one If you are working with a new font or you want to select the destination directory or change the name of the file use the File gt Save As command After you select File gt Save As in the menu you will see the standard File Save dialog box Save As Apple Lisung Light vib Where FE Desktop Desktop sid S A Cancel Choose the destination folder enter the file name and click Save to save your font Autosave If you want to protect yourself from system or program crashes you can use the Autosave function that will periodically save the current font To activate and customize this feature open the Application gt Pre ferences dialog box and select the General page In the top part of the page you will see the Autosave controls __ Autosave fonts every 10 minutes Use the check box to activate Autosave and enter the time interval in minutes at which you want to save the font Font will be saved into the Autosave folder subfolder in the AsiaFont Studio directory and will be named using the following structure Fontfilename save vfb where fontfilename is the name of the font file to which you manually saved the font the last time If Autosave was active and you have a system or
23. Scale Rotate Contour f Rotate 15 00 CW Z Decompose pi P mnmnirmrt tea Tamna 1 Slant a 6 ka Current action is Rotate glyph Rotation angle 15 Clockwise O Counterclockwise Rotation center E Onan a Panal f Open Preview Panel Cancel i T This dialog box has several areas that control different options of the transformation 481 Transformation Range In the top part of the dialog box a Transformation Range area is situated Transformation range Selected characters HA Transformation program will affect 94 glyphs Controls in this area let you select which glyphs you want to transform Open the popup menu and you will see the available options Current character only Selected characters All characters in the font All characters in the characters list All characters which are not in the list All opened fonts Fonts in the Fonts List Current character only Transformations will be applied only to one current glyph the blue glyph in the Font window or the current glyphs in the Metrics or Glyph windows Selected characters Transformations will be applied to all the glyphs that are selected in the Font window All characters in the Only glyphs that are enumerated in the glyphs list will characters list be transformed see below All characters that are Only those glyphs that are not in the list will be not in the list transformed Thus if the list
24. There are controls to select the indexes of the linked points and the list of stem names to which the distance must be aligned 551 Double Link Examples Some examples of double link command usage Horizontal hinting of the Times H character There are two double links and two single links in this example The double links set the width and position of the two vertical stems and the single links align other points that are on the same stem Horizontal hinting of the Times o character Double links are usually used to hint characters in the horizontal directions in cases where stem position is not important As you saw in the Single Links section we used single links to set horizontal instructions in the m character because we wanted to keep the distances between vertical stems the same 552 Interpolation Most of the time the align and linking commands are enough to hint most characters but in some cases a very different kind of command is necessary Look at the enlarged middle right region of the character B in the vertical direction a lt _ Resul ing outline ee Original outline Wi hout interpolation Wi h interpdation You can see that point 11 in the original outline in the vertical direction is set exactly between points 34 and 38 But because these points are connected by a double link and point 11 is not controlled it becomes too close to point 38 In this and similar cases you can use
25. To view different parts of the font in the Font window you can either use the vertical scroll bar or the auto scroll mode if you place the mouse anywhere in the chart press the mouse button and move the mouse cursor above the top or bottom of the chart it will scroll up or down accordingly You can also use the spacebar to scroll the Font window Press the spacebar and drag the mouse to scroll the window vertically Alternatively you can use the keyboard keys to navigate in the font chart Arrow keys Moves the current glyph highlight one cell right left up or down according to the key used Home Moves the glyph highlight to the leftmost glyph on the ree OS EE E End Moves the glyph highlight to the rightmost glyph on the P AE A T e Cmd Home Moves the glyph highlight to the first glyph on the chart Cmd End Moves the glyph highlight to the last glyph on the chart 87 88 Selecting In addition to the current glyph you can select sets of glyphs in the font chart These selections behave similarly to selected text in a text editor you can copy selected glyphs to another place in the font or to a different font you can apply different effects to the selection etc Selected glyphs have inverted colors To select one or more cells press the mouse button on the first or last cell of your selection and drag the cursor across the cells you want to select You will see the selection highlighted If you drag the cursor outside th
26. Vowels lc aeiou Vowels uc AE I O UJ Vowels Vowels lc Vowels uc y Y Here the last statement is equivalent to Vowels aeiouAE IOUYy Y No square brackets are needed if a glyph class name is assigned to another single glyph class name For example Figures_lining_tabular FIGSDEFAULT Ranges glyphs and glyph class names can be combined in a glyph class For example zerooldstyle nineoldstyle ampersandoldstyle smallCaps In AsiaFont Studio you can include AsiaFont Studio classes into the list of the OpenType classes so it will not be necessary to copy the information twice We will discuss this later 653 654 Including files Including files is accomplished by the directive include lt filename gt In this AsiaFont Studio implementation an included file must be located in the Features folder A maximum include depth of 5 ensures against infinite include loops files that include each other Specifying features Each feature is specified in a feature block feature lt feature tag gt specifications go here lt feature tag gt For example feature liga aoe liga A feature file rule is a statement that specifies glyph substitution or glyph positioning A feature block may contain glyph substitution rules glyph positioning rules or both AsiaFont Studio automatically separates features into feature records and provides feature templates that simplify definiti
27. oe a Taras mee Pana e Sin e Select Interpolate command oy Select Middle Delta command Open the Options menu If you click on the i button you will see the Options menu Hinted outline v Grid lines Pixel centers Resulting image Point numbers Program panel Preview panel All the commands except the two at the bottom control the appearance of the layers that represent information about the hinting process The layers are described in the following section The two remaining commands let you open the Programs panel that previews the source code of the hinting program and the Preview panel that shows the result of the hinting 527 Layers With the TrueType tool you can see various information layers in the Glyph Window lt Grridlines Pointindexes Resulting ou tine Pixel centrs Resulting pixels Original ou tine These layers are different from the usual editing layers so we will explain them here Outline Point indices 528 The original untouched outline of the glyph always appears in the Glyph Window in black The Resulting outline which is the result of the interpretation of the instruction program appears in gray Gridlines Gridlines mark the edges of pixels that will appear in the selected PPM size Centers of pixels When the outline is filled all pixels whose centers are on the outline or inside the outline are set black This layer
28. 270 271 272 275 277 284 285 286 287 290 294 296 297 299 301 Outline Actions Creating Contours Merging and Intersecting Contours Outline Optimization Metrics Editing Metrics Baseline Properties Panel Metrics Properties Panel Grid Layer Guidelines Layer Editing Guidelines Guidelines Popup Menu Guidelines Tracking Guidelines Properties Panel Mask Layer Editing Mask Mask Operations Assigning a Mask Specifying Mask Appearance Template Layer Background Layer Background Positioning Hints And Links Layer Links Editing Hints Hints Tracking Editing Links Hint and Link Popup Menu Hint Commands Autohinting Options Hint Properties Panel Link Properties Panel Anchors Layer Moving Anchors Removing Anchors Renaming Anchors Changing Anchor Color Anchor Properties Using Anchors to Build Composites Using the Anchors Panel Creating Composites and Ligatures Aliases Table 306 308 312 313 314 315 317 317 318 319 320 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 331 332 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 345 345 346 347 347 347 347 348 349 352 354 356 Vertical Metrics Alignment Zones Sketch Mode Moving Points Changing Point Type Removing Points Inserting Points Reversing Contours Selecting Points Moving the Selection Transforming the Selection Selection Operations Breaking and Joining the Sketch Outline Converting to Outline VectorPaint Mode Freehand Se
29. 3 When your re done release the button Mets that the Meter bar en in the top part of the eyes window ely Lae in the Application Pee dialog box to prohibit the Meter bar appearing Show Meter bar when Meter tool is activated Tip You can temporarily switch to the Meter tool in the Edit mode by pressing and holding down the CMp OprTion Suirt keys Setting Guidelines Anchors and Sidebearings With the Meter tool you can not only measure angles and distances but also mark glyph elements with guidelines and anchors and set right and left sidebearings Press the mouse button while holding down the Cmp or CTRL key and measure the distance When you release the button a popup menu appears Here is what you can do Add two guidelines Two guidelines vertical and horizontal will be added The point where they will be added depends on the option selected in the secondary menu 100 means that the guidelines will be added at the end point of the measured distance 50 means that the guidelines will be added in the middle of the measured line segment and 200 means that guidelines will be added at twice the measured distance Add horizontal The same as above but only a horizontal guideline will be guideline added This command with the 50 option can be very useful in finding the middle of a glyph element Add slanted guideline A slanted guideline will be added along the meter tool s arrow Note that the next guideline that you
30. 462 468 OTF 52 646 Outline 475 Outline Actions 306 Output 44 Output Panel 671 713 P Pair Positioning 690 Panel Axis 614 624 628 Classes 441 668 Collection 106 108 Edit Macro 706 711 Editing Layers 238 315 326 Features Preview 672 Font Map 120 Fonts 127 Masters 613 628 OpenType 663 672 702 Output 671 713 Preview 277 352 Preview TrueType 531 Preview Type 1 514 Primitives 400 Program 533 Transformation 297 Panels 43 PANOSE 188 PCLT 218 PFA 49 52 137 PFB 49 52 137 PFM 15 148 410 453 455 PICT 332 PID 178 Polygon 401 Popup Menu Guideline and Hint 341 Positioning Lookups 686 PostScript 15 75 137 186 403 410 language 21 PPM 215 492 536 578 preview mode 42 Preview mode 412 selecting a string 414 Preview Panel 277 352 TrueType 531 Type 1 514 primitive properties panel 402 Primitives 44 400 Primitives Panel 400 Program Panel 533 properties panel anchor 348 baseline 317 component 399 glyph 316 697 guideline 324 hint 345 link 345 metrics 317 node 275 primitive 402 selection 296 Python 15 17 44 129 703 704 705 706 709 710 711 713 718 719 Tool 706 Python Tool 710 Q Quick Save 428 R Random 480 Rearrange Contours 393 red marks 245 reencoding 113 reference point 241 379 384 391 720 Remove Overlap 467 rename 111 Reordering Features 666 Replacement Points 511 Reverse all 466
31. 96 Copying characters 98 Copyright 181 cubic b splines 245 custom TrueType tables 57 cut 287 Cyrillic 75 79 82 99 D decompose 55 57 466 decomposing 394 396 Definition Encoding 77 Deleting Characters 102 Deleting Nodes 263 Delta Instructions 555 Descender 196 Description Fontlinfo 181 design axes 598 design coordinates 603 Designer 183 Directories 23 Double Link 549 586 Double Byte Codepages 122 Drag Drop 50 51 108 165 444 666 667 Drop TT Hints 471 Duplicate 287 dynamic range 599 635 E Echo 258 Edit 235 Edit Macro Panel 706 711 Edit mode 233 235 Edit Window change a view in 230 Editing Field 224 Editing hints 338 Editing Kerning 429 Editing Layers Panel 238 315 326 EID 178 embedded bitmaps 57 579 Embedding 182 ENC 77 Encoding 21 table 74 encoding files custom 76 Envelope 382 387 480 EPS 15 403 Eraser 235 265 362 Exceptions 684 Exchange 327 Export Options 146 Export Terminal 152 Exporting bitmaps 583 fonts 134 glyphs 403 External Programs 30 Extrapolation 605 615 extremes 306 467 F FB threshold 208 Feature Definition Language 649 Features 644 Features Preview Panel 672 fina 693 Final Delta 561 584 Find and Replace 299 font 21 class 718 reencoding 113 Font Family 21 175 Font Features 642 Font Formats 135 font height 241 Font Info 68 Font Map Panel 120 Font Metrics What are 408 Font
32. Application gt Preferences menu select the Glyph Window page and use the following option M All BCPs are fixed 261 262 Changing Connection Type The type of connection between graphical primitives is very important in maintaining the smoothness of contours Connections can be of two types smooth and sharp To make connection marks visible click on the FA button on the Show Layers toolbar If a connection is smooth the direction of the adjacent curve control vectors or of the curve control vector and line is collinear and the contour is smooth at the connection To change the type of connection 1 Make the node visible 2 1 Double click the node 2 2 CTRL Click the node and select the connection type in the popup menu Connection v Smooth Contour Fixed Properties Macro p Deleting Nodes To delete nodes using the Edit tool 1 Begin moving the node by dragging it 2 While dragging Crri click the mouse button The node will be removed 1 Move the mouse cursor onto the node and Crri click the mouse button 2 Inthe popup menu choose the Delete node command Note If you Crri click the mouse button while editing the curve using the non node editing method or while you are moving the control points of a curve the curve will not be removed Instead it will change to a straight line You can use the Edit gt Delete and Edit gt Cut commands to remove nodes and other selected elements of a gly
33. Export Options There are two methods of selecting export options The basic set of TrueType and Type 1 options is available if you press the Options button in the Generate Font or Export Mac Suitcase dialog box If you need to get access to all the options use the Type 1 TrueType and OpenType pages of the Application gt Preferences dialog box This is what you see if you click on the Options button in the Generate font or Export Mac Suitcase dialog box Export Options Type 1 Export Options vi Make PFM file Ki Make AFM and INF files Encoding options Export Unicode codepage if codepage mode is act _ Open Type 1 Export Terminal TrueType Export Options rd Export hinted TrueType fonts vi Keep existing TrueType instructions wi Export visual TrueType hints Mi Autohint unhinted glyphs Mi Use Unicode indexes as a base for TrueType encoding fe Do not reencode first 256 characters C Use following codepage for first 256 characters MacOS Roman Export only first 256 characters of the selected codepage Put MS Char Set value into fsSelection field The Export Options dialog box consists of two areas Type 1 export options and TrueType export options In the following sections we will discuss exporting options in full detail 146 Font Specific Export Options In AsiaFont Studio you can specify export options for individual fonts Use the File gt Font Info command to open the Font Info dialog box described i
34. FLM Shadow Effect Note that there is exactly one single space between FLM and the name First Steps Let s write a few basic programs The Hello World program is a typical benchmark of the simplest useful program you can write It is very easy to do in AsiaFont Studio Python 1 Open the Edit Macro panel 2 Ifthere is something there click on the button and select the New Macro command to clean the editing field 3 Enter the following code print Hello World Macro Edit 5 You will see the Output panel appear on the screen containing our text Hello World All text you output with the Python print operation appears in the Output panel There is more information about using this panel in the OpenType Fonts chapter on page 671 OK now let s do something more useful using AsiaFont Studio classes which are partially described below Suppose we want to find all the glyphs that are empty i e don t have an outline or any components The space is a good example of such a glyph First open the font that you want to check and open and clear the Edit Macro panel 713 714 Type in the following simple program for g in fl font glyphs if len g 0 and len g components print g name Run the program and check the results in the Output panel Let s talk a little about the code above for g in fl font glyphs This line starts a loop that assigns the variable g
35. In expanded default mode information about glyph metrics is previewed in a table located at the top of the editing area E FLCaslon To switch from compact to expanded mode use the Expand button l There are three possible modes of the Metrics Window Preview Metrics and Kerning The default is the Metrics mode Use these two buttons to change the mode of the window Press the M button to switch to the metrics mode glyph metrics are editable but kerning is not K button to the kerning mode kerning is visible and editable and release both buttons to return the window to the Preview mode In the Preview mode you cannot edit the metrics or kerning data of the font You can only preview the sample string and look at the glyphs alignment In Preview if the properties area is in compact mode you can edit the position of the underline line that will appear if the font that you edit is used in the underline mode Of course you can also edit the Underline position and thickness in the Font Info dialog box on the Basic dimensions page To change editing modes you can also CTRL click the editing area and select a mode for the Metrics window in the popup menu Metrics Window Toolbar This is a simple list of all buttons available on the toolbar z Opens a metrics file PFM AFM or MMM format Saves a metrics file ey r i i Opens the metrics from a temporary file saved by Quick Save x Opens
36. Minimal length Declares a critical correlation between the width of a width aspect ratio candidate for the hint and the length of the vector that builds that candidate Remove all Allows you to remove all existing hints before autohinting the existing hints glyph If this option is switched off new hints will be added to before autohinting the existing hint set Of course a hint substitution program will be built Note that all values are set for a 1000 UPM font and are automatically scaled by AsiaFont Studio according to the real UPM value 343 Some recommendations 1 If you want AsiaFont Studio to generate thin hints horizontal serif hints for example set the Min width parameter to a value less then the width of the serif Use the Meter tool to measure the width of the serif Set Min width to a value that is greater than the serif width to prevent AsiaFont Studio from autohinting the serifs the real width of the serif in the picture is 18 units Min width 10 Min width 20 2 Decrease the Min length value to generate more hints Increase the value to generate only the most important hints 3 Increase the Max width value if you are working on a black or heavy font that has very thick stems 344 Hint Properties Panel To open the hint property panel Cmp click one of the hint lines or CTRL click and choose the Properties command in the popup menu 6 Hint Properties Horizontal hint Positio
37. The implementation software will enumerate such pairs as specific pairs Thus these pairs can be thought of as class exceptions to class pairs For example Y_LC y yacute ydieresis SMALL_PUNC comma semicolon period enum pos Y_LC semicolon 80 specific pairs pos f quoteright 30 specific pair pos Y_LC SMALL_PUNC 100 class pair The enum rule above can be replaced by pos y semicolon 80 pos yacute semicolon 80 pos ydieresis semicolon 80 without changing the effect on the font 691 692 Subtable Breaks The implementation software will insert a subtable break within a run of class pair rules if a single subtable cannot be created due to class overlap A warning will be given For example pos Ygrave colon semicolon 55 line 99 In first subtable pos Y Yacute period 50 line 100 In first subtable pos Y Yacute Ygrave period 60 line 101 In second subtable will produce a warning that a new subtable has been started at line 101 and that some kern pairs within this subtable may never be accessed The pair Ygrave period will have a value of 0 if the above example comprised the entire lookup since Ygrave is in the coverage i e union of the first glyphs of the first subtable Sometimes the class kerning subtable may get too large The editor can force subtable breaks at appropriate points by inserting the statement subtable between two class kerning rules The new s
38. Use the buttons on the top of the panel to get access to options wi Click on this button to convert the OpenType kern feature into the plain pair d kerning table This operation is described in the following section lH If this button is pressed AsiaFont Studio will preview the glyph metrics so you can see how the positioning features work p If this button is pressed both source and resulting preview windows work in right to left mode This is good for working with Arabic or Hebrew fonts 673 674 Converting the Kerning If you have defined a kern feature you can convert it into the plain pair kerning table at any time Just click on the button on the OpenType Features preview panel You will see a dialog box Do you really want to convert OpenType kerning to the plain pair kerning data lf answer is Yes then select conversion option Completely replace plain pair kering data Total number of 814 pairs will be added wi Do not expand class based kerning pairs _ Cancel There are two options that you can select in the popup menu Completely replace plain pair kerning data Use this option to remove existing kerning information and replace it with the result of the kern feature interpretation Append converted kerning to the existing kerning table Only new pairs that do not already exist will be added to the existing pair kerning table Notes
39. Vertical links Horizon al link Links are extremely useful when you are working with Multiple Master fonts In these fonts each point has several layers called masters which represent different styles of the font If you try to set hints in Multiple Master fonts you will have to manually define the hints positions in each master But with links you can just connect two outline nodes and hints will be generated automatically for each master when you export your font Refer to the Multiple Master Fonts chapter for more information about links 337 338 Editing Hints Editing hints is very similar to editing guidelines You can add new hints through the ruler bar of the Glyph Window drag them with the mouse and delete them by using the menu command or by Crri clicking when dragging In contrast to guides hints consist of two lines that can be moved together or separately Hints cannot be slanted To add a new hint 1 Position the mouse cursor on the horizontal ruler bar for a horizontal hint or on the vertical bar for a vertical hint 2 Press and hold the Cmp key Press the mouse button The bar will appear pressed and a new hint will appear Release the Cop key 3 Holding the mouse button drag the hint to the desired place and release the button To move a hint 1 Move the mouse cursor onto one of the hint s lines 2 Press the mouse button and drag the hint to its new place Both
40. computing power If you feel that the Font window is slow try deactivating this feature Show note icons If this option is on Note icons will appear in the Font window Sorting glyphs that are out of the encoding Use the options in this popup to choose how AsiaFont Studio will sort glyphs that are not gray zone in the current encoding yellow zone v Unnamed unencoded first Unnamed unencoded last By the glyph index By the glyph name Hide all windows with glyphs from inactive fonts When this option is on AsiaFont Studio hides all Glyph and Metrics windows with glyphs from any font whose Font window is inactive This feature helps to avoid screen crowding with many unnecessary windows The Font Header Perhaps the most important information you need to define for a font is its header or font info data This information is mainly used to properly register the font in the operating system and in any program that uses it It is very important to carefully define all font parameters Even the best designed font is useless if it cannot be installed 168 Font Info Dialog Box The control center where you define font parameters is called the Font Info Dialog box and is accessible from the File menu Font Info F or with the button on any Font window AAAA ANNA T The Font Info dialog box consists of three parts Font Info Arial vz Names and Copyright Basic set of font names Ope
41. glyphs regardless of your selection in the Font window 459 460 After you select a transformation action and set its options press the OK button to begin transformation If you are transforming more than one glyph a warning message will appear telling you how many glyphs you will modify and asking you to confirm the transformation Transformation of many glyphs is not undoable so it s a good idea to save your font before taking this action You can repeat the last transformation by choosing the Tools gt Repeat Transformation command Below you will find a detailed description of each available transformation action A description of the more sophisticated Transform Range dialog box where you can build a transformation program that can include many actions finishes up this chapter Transformation Actions There are four groups of actions Outline The outline of a glyph is transformed Hints and Actions that are concerned with hints and links Guidelines Metrics Metrics information is transformed includes automatic metrics generation Effects A set of effects that can be applied to glyphs 461 Outline Transformation Here is a list of all the outline transformation actions Shift Shifts the glyph s outline E see eee a bate ete tite tea Oe aa DE T RDT SEEE DETA dudedete tees nae PEE gt serena Ea Eee ren ene ee eee ere a casas anianavasadaaauaas ern sagen davad asa E E E E eee RE ee a sep a E EE
42. increments To remove the guideline 1 1 Start moving or slanting the guideline 1 2 While holding down the mouse button press the Crru key and then click the mouse button again II 1 Position the cursor on the guideline and Crri click the mouse button II 2 In the menu select the Delete command You can use this option Remove hints and quides by moving out of the window located on the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box to remove any guideline or hint by simply dragging it from the editing field of the Glyph Window To remove all guidelines use the Remove guidelines command in the Tools gt Hints amp Guides menu Options of this command include Both to remove all guidelines Horizontal to remove only horizontal guidelines The same commands are available in the rulers popup menu that appears if you Crri click the vertical or horizontal ruler Note While you are editing the guideline its parameters are shown on the status bar 321 322 Guidelines Popup Menu More commands are available in the guideline s popup menu There are two different guideline popup menus one for local and one for global guidelines Both menus include Align Delete and Properties commands The Properties command as usual will open the Property panel for the active guideline The Delete command will remove the active guideline The Align command is available only for slanted guidelines and will align them to the
43. l jh l pv mn m ll jin mihini ana gunna Mim funn por m You can control how much the nodes are shifted You can set the same value for both directions if the Proportional offset option is on or you can customize the values separately Envelope Force 100 Q Randomize This last effect lets you apply one of many predefined transformations to several glyphs at once Refer to the Glyph Window chapter for more information about the Envelope effect Here is an example of what you can do with this effect Sample Arial font after circle envelope with 30 Force value The Randomize option applies some random changes to the effect to make an even more interesting result Transform Range Dialog Box There is a more advanced method of applying transformation effects to glyphs With it you can apply many transformation filters at once transform a subset of a font s glyphs see an instant preview of the programmed transformation and even save transformation programs for future use To open the Transform Range dialog box select the Transform Range command in the Tools menu Note that this command is available while any of the windows is open You will see a big and complex dialog box Transformation Transformation range f Selected characters HA Transformation program will affect 1 glyph Transformation program Convert Type 1 font to TrueType Available actions Shift Mirror
44. vertically quickly Zero point 5 297 298 Press the Apply button to apply the transformation to the selected area If you press the button the Transform dialog box will open see the Transformations chapter below Pressing this button is the same as choosing the Tools gt Transform command If you press the button the previous transformation action will be repeated It is the same as choosing the Tools gt Repeat Transformation command Find and Replace Operation In AsiaFont Studio you can perform a unique outline find replace operation that allows you to replace an identical part of an outline that occurs in many glyphs with an alternative form It is also very useful in analyzing an outline for correctness Here is a typical situation where you could use the Edit gt Find command Original glyph Modification It is relatively easy to make the change above in a single glyph but what if you want to do the same thing in all glyphs of the same font that have serifs 1 Select the element that you want to find Loe 2 Copy the selection to the Clipboard with the Edit gt Copy command 3 Modify the original shape as needed and select the new version of the serif 299 300 4 Using the Edit gt Find menu command open the Find and Replace dialog box Find And Replace Find what Replace with Replace a ST Replace amp Find J Local search only Scale to fit The left panel show
45. 1 Preview The quick brown fox Sample string tex The quick brown fox a Sample string previe z s e BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB lt Waterfall previev In the waterfall preview you can see the current character in various PPM sizes Note that if grayscale rendering text smoothing is enabled you will see grayscale previews at some PPMs In the top part of the preview window a sample of any character can appear We recommend using this sample area to compare the rasterizing results of different characters in a font You can change the PPM at which the sample string is previewed very easily position the cursor on the PPM preview in the waterfall range and double click the mouse You can also browse the PPM values by pressing the Cmp PGUp and Cmp PGDN shortcuts on the keyboard To see a preview of special characters that are not accessible directly from the keyboard use the usual AsiaFont Studio rules for entering special characters i e enter the character name after a slash character use two slashes to enter a slash AsiaFont Studio updates the preview panel every time you change something in the hint replacement program This may be a slow process on some computers but you can hide the panel edit the hint replacement program and then switch the panel back on to see the results of your work How the Type 1 Preview Panel Works For Type 1 preview AsiaFont Studio uses either Adobe
46. 558 Faster Methods to Set Delta Instruction There are two other methods to set delta instructions The simplest method is to select the Middle Delta tool position the mouse cursor over the point you want to move and drag the point in the needed direction Hold down the Suirt key to move the point only in the current hinting direction horizontal or vertical While you are dragging the mouse to set the instruction you will see its value both near the end of the line and on the Meter bar 4 7 hat Set middle delta P You can also Crri click any point on the outline and select the delta command in 8 Set final delta p zm the context menu Align point b 6 a5 4 I I P Lad Active and Inactive Delta Instructions Delta instructions may be active or inactive When the current PPM is within the PPM range of the delta instruction the instruction is active Otherwise it is inactive Active delta instruction shift up Inactive delta instruction Note if you set a new middle delta instruction at a point where a delta instruction is already set and is active the old instruction will be replaced by the new one If you set delta instructions for the same point and with the same shift distance but for different PPM ranges AsiaFont Studio will try to combine PPM ranges and unite delta instructions where it is possible 559 560 Customizing the Delta Instruction CTRL click the delta instruction mark
47. 72 in our example are always mapped to 0 and 1 blend coordinates and are used by the font interpreter to get information about the dynamic range of the axis So an axis graph is always present for each axis but in most cases it is just a single straight line We again recommend you read the Designing Multiple Master Typefaces book to get more information about the axis map 607 Multiple Master Fonts in AsiaFont Studio As we said before in AsiaFont Studio you can make Multiple Master fonts that will be completely compatible with the Multiple Master specification You can edit every aspect of the MM fonts from master outlines to metrics to kerning and font header data You can make up to four axes which means that the font will need 16 master fonts And at any time you can view an intermediate font made from the designed MM font in its current state In the following sections we will discuss MM specific AsiaFont Studio features We presume that you have read the previous chapters of this book and know all the single master features of AsiaFont Studio 608 Creation of MM Fonts in AsiaFont Studio In AsiaFont Studio you can do the following MM specific things 1 Open any existing MM font for editing 2 Convert a single master font to a MM font 3 Define additional axis in a MM font 4 Remove any of the axes of a MM font 5 Convert a MM font to a single master font You can also use AsiaFont Studio s special feat
48. Applicat ion gt Preferences Breaking and Joining the Sketch Outline You may break the sketch outline at any point with the Knife or edit tool on the node where you want to make a break To break the outline with the Edit tool hold the Option key and click the point where you want to make a break To join two contours position the starting or ending point of the first contour over the ending or starting point of the second contour Hold the Option key down while moving the point to prevent the contours from joining 366 Converting to Outline Click the 4 Replace outline button to convert the Sketch into a normal outline AsiaFont Studio will try to optimize the result using the minimum number of curves while maintaining high precision With the Bal Add to outline command you can add the contents of the Sketch outline to the normal glyph outline that the Sketch converter produced too many curves use the Optimize command in the Tools gt Outline menu to fix it a 367 368 VectorPaint Mode VectorPaint is AsiaFont Studio s unique set of tools that allow you to paint vector contours with tools that look and feel like bitmap tools You can choose brushes pens freeform selections and even enter text The idea of VectorPaint is that all the tools produce contours that combine with the existing glyph contours using our unique contour processing technology When you click the VectorPaint button in the toolbar
49. ENDINGS_SWASH a end e end z end Beginning of word swashes ignore substitute LETTER BEGINNINGS substitute BEGINNINGS by BEGINNINGS_SWASH End of word swashes ignore substitute ENDINGS LETTER substitute ENDINGS by ENDINGS_SWASH cswh If a feature targets only glyphs at the beginning or ending of a word such as the init and fina features then the application could be made responsible for detecting the word boundary the feature itself would be simply defined as the appropriate substitutions without regard for word boundary 685 686 Positioning Lookups The OpenType specification allows you to define many positioning lookups The lookup types may be separated into three groups 1 Basic lookups single and pair positioning 2 The Cursive attachment lookup that allows smooth connection of script and cursive glyphs SWe 3 Mark attachment lookups that define relative positions of glyphs and marks 2 ETET IETEEEEEIT w aa AsiaFont Studio 4 can support only the first group of lookups single and pair positioning We expect to support cursive and mark attachment lookups in one of the next releases of AsiaFont Studio As in the case with substitution positioning lookups may be context free and context dependent Context dependent lookups are the same as context free but add a context that is verified against the source sequence of glyphs Only when the c
50. Enter your desired vertical and horizontal scale factors in the edit fields Switch on the Proportional scale option to keep the vertical and horizontal scale factors the same Switch off the Scale hints option to avoid scaling hints along with the glyph s outline Scaling hints width is not always precise so if you scale hints with the outline you sometimes find that some hints now miss the nodes that they were supposed to hint We recommend converting hints to links before this transformation to keep the proper width and position of hints Here is an example of this transformation the letters of the word Sample were scaled 80 horizontally and the letters of word text were proportionally scaled to 120 of original size Sample text Rotate Rotation angle 15 Clockwise Counterclockwise Rotate around Origin point 0 0 Rotation center 0 This transformation action simply rotates glyphs You can set the rotation angle the position of the center of rotation and the direction of rotation You can rotate glyphs around the zero point around the center of the glyph s bounding box or you can specify a point that will be used as the center of rotation Here is an example of the same rotation transformation around different center points Slant Slant angle 12 Slant to the right Slant to the left Slant center Origin point 0 0 This action slants glyphs It s the quickest way to make an o
51. Heavy Alphalum r Select All 5 W KozMin Heavy Alphabetic vi KozMin Heavy Dingbats __ Unselect vi KozMin Heavy Generic wi KozMin Heawy HKana PT Sla Combine all subset fonts into one font rd Assign Unicode indexes Use embedded CMap C Use CMap file UniJIS UCS2 H cmp Select F This dialog consists of three main parts CID font information a list of subset fonts for import and importing options The CID font information field contains the full path to the font the number of subset fonts the number of glyphs in the font and the total size of the data block containing glyphs The list of subset fonts has checkboxes to let you select which fonts should be imported All subset fonts are selected by default You can switch off those of them that you do not want to be opened Click on the Select All button to switch on every checkbox To switch them all off click on the Unselect button 61 62 The popup menu below the subset fonts list allows you to control how the fonts will be imported Combine all subset fonts into one font Limit number of characters per font to Import selected subset fonts without any changes Select the first option and all subset fonts that you selected for import will be combined into single set of glyphs presented in one Font Window The Limit number of characters per font to option allows you to ente
52. Metrics assistance dialog box Metrics Assistance Class Name Copy Metrics _kernT T left right 5 units _kem A units L kernT T MiL MR Ow 5 Units HY gt Use the measurement line r E E _kernT T Yacute Ydieresis Cancel Apply and Save 5 It has a toolbar a list of the kerning classes a command area a preview panel and a class information panel that lets you change class definitions and define new classes Before you start working with the class metrics define some classes You can do that inside the Metrics assistance dialog box but adding classes with the Class panel is much easier The typical procedure to define class based metrics 1 Select the class in the list 2 Check the checkbox to the left of the class name to indicate that that class must be processed 3 Inthe control area below the list check the metrics you want to copy from the key glyph of the class to the rest of the glyphs It could be L for the left sidebearing R for the right sidebearing and W for the advance width 4 Ifyou want you can use the Adjust field at the right of the control area to change the metrics when they are copied from the key glyph of the class Enter a positive or negative value and select the units font units or percent of the original value Optionally you can measure sidebearings along the measurement line which may be very useful if you are working with a
53. Old Style Numerals Probably the best thing about OT features is that they do not change the source string of characters To explain this we need to again talk about the character glyph model The source text that you type on the keyboard or get from another source is a sequence of characters that have strong links to the codes that the computer uses to store data The picture of the text that you see on the screen is a sequence of glyphs or character images It is important to understand that there is not necessarily a one to one relationship between character and glyph it is possible to have a single glyph used as the image for more than one character Latin A and Cyrillic A for instance are different characters but use the same glyph and sometimes you may have more than one glyph serving a single character Please remember this key OpenType principle OpenType layout engine doesn t know anything about characters All the features that OpenType can have are defined for glyphs This is the process of OpenType text processing 0 Asasource we have a sequence of characters 1 Character codes are mapped to default glyphs using the Unicode mapping table In AsiaFont Studio this is what you see in the Font window when you select one of the codepages Here we have a sequence of characters replaced by a sequence of glyphs No character information is available beyond this point 2 The source sequence of glyphs is passed to the Open
54. Points The TrueType font format has a special table that can contain the widths of characters that are rendered at specific PPM sizes This helps the rasterizer to preview lines of text on screen very quickly AsiaFont Studio builds this table when it exports a font in TrueType format To do this it interprets instructions that are applied to the sidebearing points at every PMM size from 9 to 24 575 576 Hinting Composite Glyphs AsiaFont Studio 4 allows you to set TrueType hints for the composite glyphs There is not much visible difference between hinting plain and composite glyphs Glyph window and tools look as if you are hinting decomposed glyph The principle difference is that components of a composite glyph appear already hinted It means that if you have hinted glyph E and hinted glyph caron and if you want to check hinting in glyph Ecaron you will see that both components look exactly as they look in respective glyphs and the only thing you need to do is to hint their relative position Usually all you need to do to hint a composite glyph is to put a few middle delta instructions on the contours of accent components so they will get a correct and symmetric position in the composite glyph You can however completely override hinting of components and provide new hinting program for a composite glyph In this case you may take a composite glyph as a combination of all components as if it is decomposed Au
55. Specific Options Type l specific settings v Truelype specific settings Mapping Device metrics Font smoothing Font flags head table PCLT table Font identification Font metrics Codepages This section covers options that are specific to Type 1 and TrueType OpenType fonts For both destination formats you may choose font specific export options that will be used instead of globally set AsiaFont Studio options In addition for TrueType fonts you can customize some settings that are necessary for high quality rendering Type 1 Export Options Type 1 export options is i _ Use default export options W Make PFM file W Make AFM and INF files vi Use WinAscent and WinDescent as font vertical size Encoding options Export Unicode codepage if codepage mode is act I vi Automatically sort glyphs Open Type 1 Export Terminal X Reset to default Use this page to customize font export options for the current font This page copies Preferences gt Type 1 export settings so you may refer there for the detailed description Switch on the Use default export options parameter to use default export options that are not font specific 211 TrueType Export Options TrueType export options 4 i ob Use default export options Mi Ex port hinted TrueType font rd Keep existing TrueType instructions M Ex port visual TrueType hints M Autchint unhinted glyphs vi Export embedded bitmaps Do not reor
56. Subtract contour Macro b Select contour Make Parallel Path ak aa al Launch Items gt 272 Below is a description of all the commands in this menu Make node first Starts the current contour from the selected node i e makes it the startpoint This command is useful when you need to join contours since you can only connect starting and finishing nodes Convert Cycles the node type from line to Bezier curve to TrueType curve Delete node Removes the node Duplicate node Adds a zero length vector to the node I e puts a new node on top of an old one This command is useful when you are editing Multiple Master fonts Make corner Makes a 90 degree corner this operation is not always available Break contour Make cor er Connection gt Connection Popup menu with connection settings You can use it instead of double click or Option double click Contour Set of commands related to the contour to which the selected node belongs described below Properties Opens the Node properties panel 273 Contour commands Make contour Begins the glyph from the selected contour Renumbering first contours is important for hint substitution programming Subtract contour Subtracts contour from the outline Make parallel Creates a contour that is parallel to the current one After you path select a command you will see a dialog box with the path options Parallel Contour Relative position Left
57. To highlight a node click it To deselect it press the Esc key on the keyboard You can move outline nodes with the Add tools Note that if you click on the contour not on the node a new node is inserted The type of node depends on the tool you are using To prevent adding a new node hold down the Option key when you click on the contour 269 270 Converting Primitives Sometimes you may want to convert a curve to a vector or vice versa To convert a curve to a vector delete Crru click while dragging one of the control points of the curve or delete the curve while you are in the non node editing mode To convert a vector normal or closing to a curve drag an inside point of the vector while holding down the Option key or drag one of the nodes toward the middle of the vector holding down the Option key To convert a curve to a 1 4 part of an ellipse the curve s control vectors will be treated as an ellipse axis press the OPTION key and click on the curve You can also convert curves and vectors with the popup menu CTRL click the end node of the segment and select the Convert command in the popup menu With this command a line segment is converted to a Bezier curve a Bezier curve to a TrueType curve and a TrueType curve to one or more Bezier curves The last way to convert primitives is to use the selection menu 1 SuHiFtT click any point on the curve or line segment 2 Crrti click the highlighted
58. Type Manager ATM in Classic environment or ATSUI under Mac OS X When AsiaFont Studio starts in Classic it makes a connection with ATM and prepares it for work When the Type 1 preview panel is open and something is changed in the character AsiaFont Studio performs the following operations 1 AsiaFont Studio creates a very small Type 1 font that includes the empty notdef character the current character and all characters from the sample string 2 All characters in this font are mapped to codes starting at 0x3F 63 the code of the question character The empty character is not mapped 3 This font is exported in Type 1 font format and a suitcase file is created for it The font name is set for this font in such a way as to avoid conflict with names of any of the installed fonts 4 The font and suitcase files are saved in temporary directory The font is installed in System using ATM commands under Classic All previews are made with this font Previews in the Preview panel can use grayscale output if it is available in the system 7 When the font is no longer needed it is uninstalled and the font and suitcase files are removed 515 Expanding the Preview Panel The Preview panel may work in closed or expanded mode To open the panel click on the You will see the preview panel expand Type 1 Preview The quick brown fox The quick brown fox ozsEEEBRB 28 BBBBBBBBBBBBBB E 7 9 10 11 i 1 i4
59. Use Tools gt Multiple Master gt Expand Master to copy the contents of one of the masters to all other masters If this command is selected when the Glyph window is active it is applied to the currently active master If it is used when the Font window is active you will see a dialog box that lets you select the master for copying Expand Master Select a master that you want to copy to all other masters WtO Wd0 OpO ABCabc123 E a A Cancel This operation may be useful if applied when the Mask layer is in editing mode you may need to copy one of the Mask masters to all the other masters to simulate the single master Mask layer 637 638 Hinting Multiple Master Fonts As you know in AsiaFont Studio you can use hints and links to do character level hinting You can also do character level hinting of MM fonts using hints or links Hints are pairs of parallel lines that define the position and width of a vertical or horizontal stem Hints are independent from the outline they exist in a different layer And they are multilayered just like outline nodes are If you use hints to do character level hinting you will have to hint all the masters separately A better way is to use links Links connect nodes so they are not dependent on the number of masters in the font On export of the MM font the links will be automatically converted to hints and hints will be automatica
60. a TrueType glyph In TrueType and Type 1 format the default direction of the contours are opposite Nodes at Automatically inserts nodes at the extreme points of extremes curves We highly recommend that all curves have nodes at their extreme points h Snap to Guides Move all nodes on to guidelines hints or grid if they are sufficiently close to them This action will snap nodes only to the guiding layers that are currently visible f Make Parallel Creates a contour that is parallel to the existing contour Path See the next section for more information about this and previous features A Join All Contours Joins all open contours in a glyph 306 Merge Contours Combines all overlapping parts of the outline This operation and the two following operations are applied to all contours that have at least one node selected If nothing is selected they will be applied to the whole glyph Get Intersection Leaves only areas that are covered by at least two contours Delete Removes all areas that are covered by more than one Intersection contour To TrueType Converts all Type 1 34 order curves to TrueType 2 4 Curves order curves To Type 1 Curves Converts all TrueType 2 4 order curves to Type 1 3 4 order curves To get quicker access to the commands in Tools gt Outline menu select the View gt Toolbars gt Outlines option It switches on the Outlines toolbar 8 Outline 307 308
61. actual kerning positioning and the exact kerning value come from the kerning of the key glyphs of each of the kerning classes This means that if you have an _classA and a _classT which have A and T as key glyphs in each class respectively you must define the kerning for the AT pair using the Metrics window If you then checked _classA in the left list and _classT in the right list all glyphs in these classes would be kerned by the same value as the AT pair A preview panel in the bottom of the dialog box can preview the result of the class kerning Drag to scroll the preview panel and see more sample pairs When you select a class in the left or in the right list you may see some classes highlighted with the yellow background in the other list This means that key glyphs of these classes are actually kerned with the key glyph of the class you have selected Sometimes you may need to convert class based kerning into a plain kerning table To do so check the boxes of the class names that you want to decompose and click the Expand Kerning button You will see the alert dialog box that tells how many new kerning pairs will be created Do you want to expand class based kerning If you continue with this operation you may change O existing pairs and generate up to 3449 new pairs Click Yes to proceed or No to not convert When you press the Save button the informatio
62. all the font opening settings We will use some technical terms that will be discussed in more detail later but if you want to check the definitions now you can find them in the Index All the opening options are accessible through the Import Options dialog box To open this dialog box use the Options button in the middle left area of the File Open dialog box Import Options Type 1 Import Options __ Decompose all composite glyphs W Generate Unicode indexes for all glyphs TrueType Import Options Convert TrueType outlines into Type 1 outlines rd Save TrueType hinting information _ Autohint imported font _ Decompose all composite glyphs d Cancel 5 53 54 The same options are available in both Type 1 and TrueType pages of the AsiaFont Studio Preferences dialog box accessible through the Preferences command of the Application menu About AsiaFont Studio About FontLab Products Preferences Services gt Hide AsiaFontStudio 36H Hide Others dH Show All Quit AsiaFontStudio 0 Type 1 Import Options There are two options in opening Type 1 fonts Decompose all composite glyphs and Generate Unicode indexes for all glyphs _ Decompose all composite glyphs W Generate Unicode indexes for all glyphs If the first option is on then AsiaFont Studio will decompose all composite glyphs in the imported font Composite glyphs have no unique outline themselves but borrow outlines from o
63. and click on the button If you remove the last font from the suitcase then the suitcase is removed too appears where you may choose the suitcase from the disk Press the Open button in the dialog and the selected suitcase will appear in the list Click on the 444 button and select the font that you want to be added to the opened suitcase If the Font Info fields of the added font are filled properly it will appear in the corresponding style of the font suitcase You have the possibility to drag drop individual fonts between the styles in a suitcase Options Before generating a Macintosh suitcase you have to choose the font format Select Macintosh TrueType or Type 1 in the popup menu Select destination format w Macintosh Type 1 HH Macintosh TrueType When Type 1 is selected additional option is available Select destination format Macintosh Type 1 C Adobe TypeReunion compatible If this option is checked AsiaFont Studio will generate a font suitcase compatible with Adobe TypeReunion which lets the font s styles appear in the hierarchical menu of the font menu Book Antiqua Regular Bookman Old Stvle Italic Century Gothic Bold Century Schoolbook Bold Italic 141 The Finder s view of a suitcase created with the Adobe TypeReunion compatible checkbox switched off aj TimesTen w 4 items 710 5 MB available 4 TimesTen bold 10 fA TimesTen bold italic 10 4 Ti
64. and or language statement must be present before the first rule in the feature in order to indicate to the feature file parser that this feature is not to be registered under the language systems specified by the languagesystem statements The feature s lookups will be registered under the script and language attributes current at the definition of the lookup The attributes may be changed as follows script statement script lt script tag gt For example script kana When a script statement is seen the language attribute is implicitly set to DFLT and the lookupflag attribute is implicitly set to 0 The script attribute stays the same until explicitly changed by another script statement or until the end of the feature language statement The language attribute stays the same until explicitly changed until the script is changed or until the end of the feature To change the language attribute use the language statement language lt language tag gt excludeDFLT includeDFLT required The script and lookupflag attributes stay the same as before If no script assignment statement has been seen thus far in the feature block then the script attribute is set to latn but it is recommended that an explicit script statement be used in such cases for clarity Here is an example statement language DEU As a result of this statement a the language attribute is changed to DEU and b the
65. appear in the glyph cell To view the note Crrt click on the note icon You will see the note window with the text of the note The window will disappear when you release the button To edit a note double click the note icon or select the More gt Add Note command from the context menu To remove the note open it for editing remove the text and click 123 Sorting Glyphs Sometimes you may want to sort the glyphs in a font file in some order other than their current order There are two common reasons to do this 1 You may need to sort glyphs to optimize a font s performance if you place glyphs that are used most often at the beginning of the glyph collection in some cases it may improve performance 2 You may need to sort glyphs according to some logical sequence Some programs for example Adobe InDesign have a glyph insert feature that shows the collection of glyphs sorted exactly as it is in the font file Please note that sorting of the glyphs has no effect on glyph encoding or names To sort the glyphs Crri click the Font window and choose one of the options in the Sort submenu of the context menu More b EENT Ey name z By Unicode Edit in new window By encoding Edit metrics This is the list of sorting options By name Glyphs are sorted by their names in ascending order By Unicode Glyphs are sorted by the assigned Unicode indexes in ascending order Glyphs that don t have Unicode in
66. are called the top zone The 128 255 range is called the bottom zone The Adobe StandardEncoding includes very few glyphs from the bottom zone compared to the number of glyphs in the Macintosh Roman encoding When a Type 1 font in StandardEncoding is installed with ATM ATM uses a special encoding instead of the real StandardEncoding as it is documented in the Type 1 format specification This special encoding is called the Default Encoding in AsiaFont Studio So if you create a StandardEncoding font and want to see how it will work in Mac OS select the Default Encoding in AsiaFont Studio 149 Here is an explanation of the possible encoding export options Always write Always saves the custom encoding with the font Never custom encoding writes StandardEncoding The encoding currently selected in the Font window will be exported Always write Always exports the font with the StandardEncoding StandardEncoding Select encoding Exports the font with the StandardEncoding when the Font automatically window shows StandardEncoding Default Encoding or Mac Roman Exports a custom encoding if any of the other encodings is selected or if the Font window is in Codepages mode Export Unicode Exports a custom encoding based on the currently selected codepage if codepage codepage if the Font window is in Codepages mode mode is active We recommend setting the Select encoding automatically option as the default because it covers m
67. are moving a node that is connecting two Bezier curves you have the following options 1 Ifthe connection of the curves is smooth press the Suirr key before clicking the node to constrain movement to a line between the curves control points a PA 2 Ifthe connection is sharp press the OpTIoN key at any time while dragging the node to move it without the adjacent control points y 3 Ifthe connection is smooth press the OPTION key before moving the connecting node to keep the connection s curvature optimized Hold down the Cop key to involve all 4 control points in the process 257 258 4 When you are editing control points of a Bezier curve press the SHIFT key before clicking the button to keep the direction of the control vector unchanged ZZ a 5 Ifyou are moving a control point of a curve with a sharp connection press the Option key to temporarily change the connection type to smooth so that the adjacent control vector will be collinear Do not forget that you can press the key at any time to get an instant high quality preview of the glyph outline as it will print LS o Bo Normal outline High quality preview Outline Echo If you want to see how the outline looked before you moved a node switch on the Echo mode Open the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box and switch on this option Mi Leave echo while editing This is how editing field will look when echo mode is
68. be present in a lookupflag statement For example to skip over base glyphs and ligature glyphs lookupflag IgnoreBaseGlyphs IgnoreLigatures lookupflag format B lookupflag lt number gt Here the entire lookup flag value is specified simply as a lt number gt The format A example above could equivalently be expressed as lookupflag 6 Format A is clearly a superior choice for human readability when the lookupflag value is not 0 However a lookupflag value of 0 can be set only with format B not with format A lookupflag 0 The base glyphs ligatures and marks are defined in the Glyph Properties dialog This information is stored in the OpenType font file in the GDEF table Please be sure to allow export of this table in the Preferences gt OpenType if you are using the lookupflag feature in the feature definition file Export GDEF table 659 660 lookup The font editor can label a set of rules and refer to it explicitly later on in order to have different parts of the font tables refer to the same lookup This decreases the size of the font in addition to freeing the editor from maintaining duplicate sets of rules To define and label a lookup use a named lookup block lookup lt label gt rules to be grouped lt label gt To refer to the lookup later on use a lookup reference statement lookup lt label gt For example lookup SHARED lookup definition oa SHARED H lookup SHARE
69. both directions Keep glyph s dimensions is OFF Note that the size of all the glyphs has changed sample Bold 20 units in the horizontal direction sample Outline 20 units in both directions Make round corners is OFF Enter the horizontal and vertical values that will be used to increase positive numbers or decrease negative numbers the weight of the outline Switch on the Keep glyph s dimensions check box to scale the glyph so the weight increasing effect will be compensated Switch on Make round corners to make rounded corners in the new outline Note that the weight changing values are in font units so the visual effects of this effect depend on the font s UPM value College Distance to outline 10 Weight of outline 10 The best way to explain this effect is to see a sample of it samp The parameters of this effect are very simple N Weigh tof the ou tine Distance to ou ine 477 478 Shadow Horizontal shift 50 Weight of outline 10 Vertical shift 50 This is a very nice effect that can save you a lot of time Those who have tried to make a shadow font manually know what a miracle this transform ation performs Sarno The parameters set the shift of the shadow positive values are to the right and up and width of the outline Weight of the outline US Horizontal shift Vertical shift 3D Extrusion Horizontal shift 50 Weight of outline 10 Vertical
70. brackets are optional Here the lt metric gt represents an X advance adjustment except when used in the vkrn feature in which case it represents a Y advance adjustment All other adjustments are implicitly set to 0 This is the simplest feature file lt valuerecord gt format and is provided since it represents the most commonly used adjustment i e for kerning For example 3 without lt gt lt 3 gt with lt gt Value record format B lt lt metric gt lt metric gt lt metric gt lt metric gt gt Here the lt metric gt s represent adjustments for X placement Y placement X advance and Y advance in that order For example lt 80 0 160 0 gt X placement adj 80 X advance adj 160 Single Positioning A Single Pos rule is specified as position lt glyph glyphclass gt lt valuerecord gt Here the lt glyph glyphclass gt is adjusted by the lt valuerecord gt For example to reduce the left and right sidebearings of a glyph each by 80 design units position one lt 80 0 160 0 gt To shift the glyph up by 100 units position A lt 0 100 0 100 gt Note that we changed the placement by 100 units but compensated for that with a 100 change applied to advance This is needed to shift only the current glyph and not the following glyphs in the string 689 690 Pair Positioning Rules for this lookup type are usually used for kerning and must follow this format position lt glyph g
71. can customize the color that is used to render the Template layer using the Colors dialog box accessible from the Application gt Preferences gt Glyph Window dialog box Refer to the previous section for description of this dialog box 331 332 Background Layer When other methods are not adequate you can use a background bitmap template A bitmap template is a black white bitmap image that appears on the screen underneath all the other layers You can use it as a template for a glyph outline it is especially useful when working with the VectorPaint tools Create a background layer using any of the three following methods 1 Open a bitmap image file in PICT or TIFF format 2 Paste an image from the Clipboard 3 Rasterize the current outline to make an image in the bitmap background layer You can also copy the contents of the background to the Clipboard to paste it into any Macintosh image editing program save it to the image file and set its size and position on the screen To open a bitmap image select the Open Background command from the Tools gt Templates menu Templates Operations gt Create Background 6B Open Background You will see the standard Mac OS Open File dialog box where you can select the bitmap file that you want to put into the background layer Use the format selection popup menu to choose the format of the bitmap file AsiaFont Studio supports two formats PICT standard Macintosh bitm
72. characters However by using special rules you can enter non ANSI names in the sample string To enter a glyph s name begin with the slash character and finish with a space character or another slash A small T small To enter a slash type it twice The decimal code of a glyph can follow the slash instead of using its name 44 The Unicode index of the glyph can be entered if you use the prefix 0445 0448 To enter a backslash type it twice W The easiest way to fill a sample string is using the drag drop method You can simply drag any glyph from the Font Window and drop it in the Metrics Window and it will be added to the sample string If you hold the Cmp key while dropping the selected glyphs they will replace the sample string Selecting Previewing Size In the String Size combo box a 72 you can select the size of the previewed string By default Auto is selected and the size of the previewed text is calculated dynamically depending on the height of the window If the string becomes too large to fit in the window a vertical scroll bar will appear allowing you to view all the editing areas of the Metrics Window 417 Right to Left Mode If you are working on a font that requires right to left reading like Arabic or EDEN ey can change the Metrics A to the right to left moss 127s I 1135 Jeni 418 Editing an Underline In the Preview mode of the Metrics Window you
73. click another component to select it for editing Some other useful commands are available in the popup menu that appears if you Crri click the editing area while component tool is active Decompose Decomposes adds the outline to the composite glyph the current component Delete Removes the component Reset Shift Moves the component to the position 0 0 Set Scale 100 Sets the scale at 100 for the component Note that the Type 1 font format does not support scaled components The Scale 100 button in the control panel of this operation has the same effect H Mirror Mirrors the component sets the scale for x or y direction to V Mirror 100 and adjusts shift accordingly Make First Sets the component to the first place in the components list Copy Metrics Copies metrics data from the component to the composite glyph Copy Anchors Copies all anchors from the component glyph to the composite Edit Component Opens anew Glyph Window with the currently active component Properties Opens the Component Properties panel described later 398 Component Properties You can set the precise size and position of the component CTRL click the component with the Edit tool You will see a popup menu Decompose Delete Copy metrics Edit component Propelies Macro gt Select the Properties command in this menu and you will see the component Properties dialog box e Component Component circumflex Posit
74. command will be added to the hinting program If the selected point is not in the zone the free Align command will be added The AlignTop command appears as o ee Align top command Alignmentzone oe g The AlignBottom command is similar to the AlignTop command How AlignTop and AlignBottom Commands Work 1 In the prep program this program interprets every time the PPM is changed all alignment zones stored in the cvt table are aligned to the closest integer position 2 When the glyph program interprets the position of the point aligned to the zone by the AlignTop or AlignBottom command is set equal to the aligned position of the zone if the scaled distance between it and the zone is no more than 16 17 pixels The AlignTop and Align Bottom commands have two arguments the index of the point that is aligned by the command and the index of the zone In the Program panel these commands appear as AlignBottom 12 1 AlignTop 5 0 where 12 and 5 are point indexes and 1 and 0 are indexes of the bottom and top zone respectively 537 538 Hinting Alignment Zones By default the position of the alignment zones is scaled linearly Sometimes this may not be satisfactory and you may need to exactly specify the position of the alignment zones at some PPMs With AsiaFont Studio you can adjust the position of the zones around the linearly scaled position Every alignment zone has a yellow ico
75. compatible with font interpreters When you are adding a new axis to a Multiple Master font the names of the axes that are already present in the font will not appear in the popup menu The short name of the axis is used when a font interpreter needs to make a name for an intermediate font Usually the name looks something like MinionMM_245 wt 580 wd where MinionMM is the name of the MM font 245 and 580 are design coordinates of the intermediate font and wt and wd are short names of two axes Weight and Width respectively The axis type is necessary to identify a new axis As we said in previous sections there are four registered axis types Weight Variation of the font s weight Optical Size Variation of the font s design to make it more legible at different font sizes Serif Modification of the font s style Usually this is used for modification of the font s serifs For example from serif to sans serif font or variation of the serifs width Usually it is not necessary to fill in all three edit fields Just select or enter the axis name and AsiaFont Studio will automatically fill in all the other fields Check the Convert hints to links before adding new axis option to automatically apply the Convert Hints to Links action to all characters of the font We recommend converting hints to links because in a MM font it is much easier to edit links than hints Links are Multiple Master compatible by default because they
76. complex scripts Show additional information in the glyphs cells Allows AsiaFont Studio to preview glyph property information in glyph cells This information is very useful if you want to take a brief look at your font and see the state of the glyphs The two following options give you more detailed control over this feature Tuning Options Show Unicode indexes in captions in Unicode mode When this option is on AsiaFont Studio will automatically show Unicode indexes in cell captions when you switch the Font window to the Unicode mode It will restore the selected caption mode when you return to the Names mode Double click opens Glyph Window Switch this option off if you don t want AsiaFont Studio to open a glyph in the Glyph Window when you double click on the glyph cell Create new window by double click If this option is on AsiaFont Studio will create a new Glyph window when you double click a cell in the Font window characters chart When it is off double clicking a cell will create a new glyph window if there is none but if there already is a glyph window then the glyph in it will be replaced by the glyph from the cell that was double clicked Drag drop feature is turned on Switch this option off to switch off drag drop editing in the Font window 165 166 Smooth glyphs icons Activate this option to have glyph sample images in the Font window appear smooth This increases visible resolution but requires more
77. connection but not precisely I e what looks like it should be a smooth connection is labeled as a sharp connection Contour appears to be closed visually but is defined as open Use Fix button on the error reporting dialog box to automatically correct this situation You can switch off any of the FontAudit tests by switching off their check box in the FontAudit options page As you can see FontAudit testing can detect errors that are invisible without your having to do a tough lengthy analysis 255 256 Moving Nodes The most important editing operation is the modification of the contours that build each glyph You can modify contours in three ways moving nodes editing graphical primitives using non node editing and selecting several nodes and moving them together To move individual nodes 1 If nodes are hidden make the node that you want to edit visible switch nodes on with the View gt Show Layers gt Nodes menu or click near the node to make it visible If you missed and an incorrect node is highlighted use the PAGE Down and Pace UP keys to move to the correct node 446 211 Drag the node to the new place It will stick to other layers if they are visible and snap to those layers that are activated View gt Snap to layers menu Hold down the Suit key to constrain the direction of the node s movement in 15 degree increments and to snap the cursor to the original node s position Options If you
78. drag from the rulers will be parallel to this one Set left sidebearing Set the left sidebearing at the destination point Set sidebearing commands are very useful when you need to set sidebearings at given distance from some glyph element Add anchor An anchor point is added at the destination endpoint of the meter line 381 Outline Operations Operations are temporary tools that let you modify your glyph Operations are activated by pressing on their button in the Tools toolbar or by selecting a command from the Operations submenu of the Tools menu or of the Glyph Window s popup menu There is also the separate Operations toolbar available in the View gt Toolbars menu Operations 2 aje mlle When an operation is activated one or more handles appear depending on the operation After you make changes double click to accept them you can also press the RETURN or ENTER key on the keyboard or press the Esc key to reject the changes When the operation is completed the tool that was selected will be activated again As with all permanent tools you can use the zoom selection tool quick zoom keys and all the other viewing options of the Glyph Window while you are working with the operation tool Here is a list of all available operations Transform Selection Scales rotates or skews the selected portion of the outline Interpolate Modifies the outline by moving a few base points Position Background Sets the size a
79. eae an cs eadoeaaes Convert to Converts an outline to the TrueType 2 4 order curves format TrueType Reverse all Reverses the outline direction of the glyph Connections Automatically detects the connection types between a glyph s graphical primitives Make Master Automatically calculates the 4t master when 3 other masters are known Optimize Optimizes the glyph outline with a custom set of options Blend Blends the outline and mask layers 462 Shift Horizontal shift 0 Vertical shift 0 Shift the Mask layer This action shifts the outline of the glyph in the vertical and or horizontal direction Here is a sample of a font with some glyphs shifted in the vertical direction You can also shift glyphs in the vertical direction in the metrics mode of the Metrics window hold the Suirt key and drag the glyph Use the Shift the Mask Layer control to shift the mask layer together with the outline or to leave it untouched Mirror Horizontal mirror _ Vertical mirror ii Here is the result of this simple transformation csmiqls fexf The letters in the word Sample were mirrored horizontally and the letters in the word text vertically 463 464 Scale Horizontal scale 60 __ Proportional scale Garnealsesie s 100 Scale hints Scale metrics Scale center Origin point 0 0 This action lets you scale your glyphs proportionally or non proportionally
80. font units Cmd left and Moves the glyph together with the right sidebearing This changes right arrow keys the left sidebearing and the advance width Hold the SHIFT key to move by 10 font units at each key click Insert Changes the current glyph to the next glyph in the font lt a eres ee ge ery E T a eo nn oa ie ne can ee eee Re E eas E eee Any character Selects the character you have clicked as the current character for or digit editing You can also enter the glyph name if you want to access glyphs that are not assigned to any key combination By pressing the CMp PGDN and Cmp PcGUP keyboard shortcuts you can browse the sample strings quickly Using the Metrics Table Click on the button to switch the properties area to expanded mode You will see the metrics table appear in the top area of the editing field The properties line will disappear amp Review Meret FLCaslon GEW Auto ans O ma nae i CE a T ee ee pet z4 na 745 r02 427 665 e ai o ir _ oa y e y a S o5 EO sj 9 i js 25 Tod Fig fog I az7 I ERE In Metrics mode the properties area table consists of four lines ar Glyph name 4 Width d Left sidebearing ne ee ae Righ tsidebearing Click on any number in the table to enter an exact value Just use the keyboard to adjust the number and press the ENTER key when you are done The Esc key or a left click outside the cell you are editing will cancel the changes Use the up a
81. font will align exactly as the original one 195 Here is a description of each value Typo Ascender This is the typographically correct ascender value It is the topmost line of lowercase characters usually the topmost line of the b character Typo Descender The same as Typo Ascender but for the lowest line Usually it is equal to the bottom line of the character p Typo Line Gap Typographically correct line gap value distance between bottom line of the upper line of text and top line of the lower line of text WinAscent OS 2 This value defines the topmost line of all important characters in the font Important characters are all non exceptional characters For example if most of the characters have the topmost position at 900 font units and one not often used character has it at 1300 font units it s a good idea to set WinAscent at 900 units Note that in most cases portions of the characters that are above the WinAscent value will not appear on the screen or print on some printers Please note that WinAscent is NOT a typography ascender usually measured as the topmost line of lowercase characters It is mostly a technical parameter used by the rasterizer to allocate vertical space to render characters WinDescent OS 2 The same as WinAscent but for the lowest line of all normal characters Ascender hhea This value is used by the Mac OS in about the same situation as Windows uses the
82. for the problem caused by the special form of the V and A characters printed in sequence leaving too much space between the letters 409 410 Metrics Files Information about a glyph s width is usually located in font files Kerning information may also be included in the file In TrueType and AsiaFont Studio font formats both metrics and kerning data are located in a single font file In PC Type 1 PostScript fonts the metrics and kerning data are located in separate files There are two possible formats for the metrics files that are used with PC Type 1 fonts AFM and PFM AFM files Adobe Font Metrics are text files containing all the metrics and kerning information for a given font These files are legible as text and can be edited in any text editor PFM files Printer Font Metrics are metrics and kerning files used by the Windows operating system They are binary files and cannot be read without special utilities AFM files are a standard format for the exchange of metrics information for PostScript fonts This information can be read directly by several operating systems and programs In the Windows OS Multiple Master Type 1 fonts store metrics information in another format There is a binary Multiple Master Metrics file which usually has the file extension MMM and a text Multiple Master metrics file MMM files include information about the font s axes and masters multiple master data for glyphs metrics and kerning and othe
83. hinting data Autohint imported font To prepare an imported TrueType font for Type 1 editing and export you may ask AsiaFont Studio to automatically make Type 1 hints for all the glyphs AsiaFont Studio will use the current Type 1 hinting settings and will make hints for TrueType or Type 1 outlines depending on the conversion setting Convert TrueType outlines to Type 1 outlines Decompose all composite glyphs This option works exactly the same as for Type 1 fonts Import embedded bitmaps If this option is on AsiaFont Studio will read all embedded bitmaps defined for the source TrueType font You can edit them using the TrueType hinting tool and optionally export to TrueType format Embedded bitmaps may help to improve font readability at low point sizes and in some cases can be used instead of TrueType hinting Store custom TrueType tables Some TrueType fonts have additional tables that are not a part of the TrueType or OpenType specification If you want to import these tables and have them exported unchanged when the font is saved switch on this option This feature is very useful if you are working with additional tools like Microsoft VOLT or VTT programs If the Store custom TrueType tables option is active AsiaFont Studio will not change or destroy tables that these tools include in TrueType fonts 57 OpenType Import Options Special options for importing OpenType fonts can be customized on the OpenType page of t
84. into the mask layer of the current font it may be the same font If you select a Multiple Master font scroll bars and edit controls will appear allowing you to select an intermediate design of the font If you switch on Create new glyphs if they do not exist in the font option then AsiaFont Studio will create definitions for glyphs that are present in the mask font but absent in the current font The newly defined glyphs will not have an outline but they will have a mask layer that you can use as a template Specifying Mask Appearance You can customize the Mask layer s appearance using the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box Application gt Preferences command Open the Glyph Window page and press the Colors button f Colors 4 es You will see a dialog box Colors Mask J Mi Show nodes Template Components Contour direction Kd Show closepath arrows Background Outline echo Vertical metrics 329 330 Using this dialog box you can adjust the color that is used to render various layers in the Glyph window The first color selection field defines the color of the Mask layer Click on the colored bar and the standard Color Picker window will appear 1g Colors Sea l Cancel 1 e e ee a Select the color you want to use to render the mask on screen The check box to the right of the Mask layer color selector controls the appearance of the Mask layer s
85. is based on the font s appearance In the IBM system two numbers that designate the font category and sub category identify each font A font s design is compared to one of the standard and well known designs To set IBM Identification information select a Category that matches your font from the IBM Class list Then select a sub category in the IBM Subclass list A detailed description of the IBM Font Identification system may be found in the TrueType font format specification on the Microsoft Typography Web site at http www microsoft com typography tt tt htm PCL and Ventura Publisher Identification These identification systems are relatively old ones and are rarely used in modern DTP applications However to keep compatibility with all possible usage of your font we recommend setting these options They are used only with Type 1 fonts and are exported only in the INF file Both systems are based on font appearance so they are close to the IBM identification system And both systems are one level so you just have to select a well known font that is close in appearance to your font To simplify this when the Automatically link all ID values check box is active and you select one of the values AsiaFont Studio will select the a similar value in the other combo box For example if you select Helvetica in the PCL ID popup menu Swiss will be selected in the VP ID popup menu If you want you may enter PCL ID and VP ID indexes
86. is clearly too much for an original difference of only 2 units Standard widths work with stem hints When the width of a hint is close to one of the standard widths the rounded width of the hint and the real stem outline will be forced equal to the width of the rounded standard stem 501 502 Editing Standard Stems Standard stem widths are controlled through the Standard Stems page of the Font Info dialog box Type 1 hinting standard stems bi da Set stems for the master Single master r V stems 137 18 159 153 aa ae H stems 18 34 38 64 38 aaa M ForceBold Auto stems _ When ForceBold is active Type 1 font is looking bold even on small PPMs Stem width controls are in the center part of this page Vstems 137 18 155 154 i a H stems 18 34 38 64 38 tile There are controls for vertical and horizontal standard stem widths All available stems appear in the horizontal lists You can select any stem just as you would in normal vertical list controls To add a stem to the list of the standard stems press _ _ at the right side of the stems list To edit a standard stem width select it using the mouse and edit its value in the edit field to the right of the list To remove a stem from the list select it and press the button Note that AsiaFont Studio will sort stem widths in ascending order when you close the Font Info dialog box StdHW StdVW StemSnapH and Stem
87. is linked to the Unicode index AsiaFont Studio will use the one that is first in the database If some of the glyphs don t have any Unicode indexes AsiaFont Studio will try to keep their names unchanged Use the following option in the dialog box to control this feature Try to keep existing glyph names Removing Unicode Information If you want to reset the Unicode information in your font select the Clear Unicode command from the Glyph gt Glyph Names menu All Unicode information will be removed from all glyphs in the font You may selectively remove Unicode indexes from glyphs selected in the Font window 1 Select the glyphs 2 Crrt click the selection and choose the Remove Unicode command from the More submenu of the context menu Mark More gt Rename Sort Glyphs Select As Default Edit in new window Remove Unicode p Edit metrics Add Note Properties Select encoding Macro p Transform Transform Range AsiaFont Studio will remove the Unicode indexes from all selected glyphs 119 120 The Font Map Panel When you work with really big Unicode encoded fonts you may need to have an overview of your whole font AsiaFont Studio has a special panel called the Font Map which can represent the entire Unicode code space as a 256 x 256 picture where every pixel represents a double byte code Every pixel row in this picture represents a Unicode page 256 Unicode indexes which begin with t
88. is not required to put any codes into a definition encoding table so the body of the ENC file might look something like this FONTLAB ENCODING 1001 A Glyph Definition Encoding A smallcaps A heading A swash A lowered You can use this form of the encoding table as a template for your font so that you will not miss an important glyph Please remember however that you cannot use this table for any kind of encoding You must switch to one of the mapping encoding tables or to Unicode based Ranges or Codepages mode to check the encoding of your font 77 78 The Unicode Standard The Unicode Worldwide Character Standard that s the full name of the Unicode standard is a character coding system designed to support the interchange processing and display of the written texts of the diverse languages of the modern world In addition it supports classical and historical texts of many written languages In the Unicode standard a character is identified by a double byte index The standard potentially can cover 65 535 characters in a basic plane and much more using plane switching In the current version of the standard 4 0 several hundred thousand indexes are defined That covers almost all currently used languages some historical languages and many pictorial characters AsiaFont Studio can work with Unicode indexes from the SMP which potentially can cover 100 000 Unicode indexes The Unicode standard is used in True
89. k 22 602 k 22 602 T 326 2 Ah 448 wok 264 186 This is a brief description of the fields on the Meter bar 22 602 Absolute position of the point relative to the glyph zero point k 22 602 Reference distance relative to the position of the reference point i Fa 326 Horizontal and vertical distance from the beginning to the end of the metering line _h 268 186 Angle of the metering line Note that you can switch the Meter bar on or off at any time if you click on the LH button in the bottom left corner of the Glyph window 2 Position the mouse cursor on your first point 3 Press the mouse button and drag the mouse to the second point In the Meter bar you will see the vertical horizontal and direct distance between two points and the angle of the vector connecting these points Hold down the Surrt key while you drag the mouse to constrain the measurement to 15 degree increments While you are dragging the mouse you will see that the Meter tool sticks to any object that it can find in the editing field 379 380 To measure the distance from a contour 1 Put the mouse cursor on the contour from which you want to measure 2 Press the mouse button and drag the mouse to what you want to measure to Hold down the Suirtr key and the direction of the mouse s movement will be constrained to the normal direction of the contour starting point
90. keyboard combinations SHIFT OPTION 0 SHIFT OPTION 1 and up to SHIFT OPTION 9 To do so 1 Select the macro program using the two popup menus on the toolbar 2 Click on the button and select a combination in the popup menu Drops 40 empty 1 empty 2 empty Y empty 4 empty 6 empty 7 empty OB empty 9 The next time you press the key combination AsiaFont Studio will run the assigned macro program 708 Integrating into Menus You can integrate macro programs supplied with AsiaFont Studio written by you or downloaded from the Internet into many context menus in AsiaFont Studio If a menu has macro programs assigned they appear in the Macro submenu at the bottom Create OpenType Invert selection Mark problems Print font Select alphanumeric Select composites Integration of macro programs into menus is done automatically when macro programs are stored in one of the folders in the AFS Macros System folder Note that Python macro programs must have a py extension to be accepted by AsiaFont Studio Folder name Description of the associated menu Bitmap Context menu when the bitmap background manipulating tool is active Component Context menu when the component editing tool is active Font Font window context menu FontsList Popup menu that appears when you click on the button in the Fonts panel Glyph Glyph window context menu
91. kinds of Type 1 Hints font level hints and character level hints Font level hints define important vertical positions in the font the most commonly used stem widths and some other important data that helps control the hinting process Character level hints are used to declare the position and width of the most important character elements The most common use for hints is to declare the position and width of character stems These hints are scaled with the outline in the rendering stage but due to their independence from the outline they help to maintain the same stem widths for all stems of a certain width independent of how it happens to fall on the discrete raster Unhinged charace r Hinted character Notice that in the unhinted character the outline falls on the grid such that two rows of pixels would be turned on for the right vertical stem The hint forces the right stem to become the same width as the left stem in the hinted character In the following sections we will discuss font level hints and the process called hint programming that is required at times 495 Font Level Type 1 Hints Font level hints are used to keep important character elements similar at all PPM sizes There are three types of font level hints Alignment Zones Positions and width of important heights Control Data Controls the hinting process
92. manually using the edit fields at the left of the popup menus Please refer to the technical specifications for detailed descriptions of these identification systems Microsoft Identification This is the simplest identification system Just select one of the common font categories Roman Swiss Modern Script and Decorative and you are done This is the only identification system that is implemented in the PFM files that are used by Windows to work with Type 1 fonts so we strongly recommend selecting the proper value in this list box gt Note If you are building a Type 1 font for Windows take this field very seriously Do not leave Decorative in this option if the font is not decorative this will affect the font spacing 191 192 Metrics and Dimensions Metrics and Dimensions Key dimensions TrueType specific metrics Subscript and Superscript This page is used to set font dimensions that are used mostly to properly align text lines Font UPM Value Font UPM value 4 ji Ji Font s UPM is 1000 _ Scale all glyphs according to UPM change The most important field on this page is the Font UPM Let s explain what UPM is and why it is so important The UPM Units Per eM is the basis of all font dimensions The UPM is the number of font units that defines the font height and the coordinate grid on which the glyphs are drawn The bigger the UPM is the more coordinate space you have so you can set m
93. marks 244 BlueFuzz 208 504 BlueScale 208 504 BlueShift 208 504 Bold 475 Break 271 366 BTBD 197 C Caps height 193 Caret Positioning 698 cell 69 CFF flavored 135 646 662 Character 20 72 identifier 60 Character List 483 Character mapping standard 71 Character Set 201 OEM 201 ShiftJIS 201 Symbol 201 Characters deleting 102 characters cells 66 CID 15 49 52 60 117 CID font 21 importing 59 structure 59 CJK 60 class Anchor 720 Component 720 Feature 718 Font 718 FontLab 716 Glyph 720 Hint 720 Node 720 TrueTypeTable 718 Class Based Kerning 440 classes 112 Classes Panel 278 441 668 Toolbar 442 CMap 15 21 59 62 117 Codepages 82 200 Double byte 85 Codepages mode 73 Collection 106 724 Collection Panel 106 108 278 Collection Classes 44 College 477 Compiling 669 Component 397 Adding 395 properties panel 399 Composite 55 349 394 576 composite characters 394 Composites 354 connections 247 306 466 Context 682 Context Menu 23 89 Context Dependent Substitutions 682 continuous 88 97 Contours 242 creating 308 drawing 368 joining 271 merging 307 312 reversing 363 selecting 284 smoothing 249 Control marks 224 convert curve to vector 270 Convert to hints 471 instructions 470 links 471 TrueType 466 Type 1 466 Converting the Kerning 674 Coordinate Rounding 493 copy 96 287 Copy characters
94. methods of the Font class relate to AsiaFont Studio internal format Open filename opens font from VFB format Save filename saves font in VFB format These operations are not connected to the FontLab UI so you may use them with fonts created inside a Python program and not connected to the FontLab system 719 Glyph The Glyph class represents the glyph as a data structure in AsiaFont Studio The most important members are listed in the following table parent Glyph s parent object the Font index Index of the glyph in the font it is 1 if the glyph is not connected to the font nodes List of nodes Each element of the list is an object of the Node type customdata A string type data that may be attached to the glyph This data is stored to the AFS FontLab font file VFB so you can use it to define glyph properties that are not supported by AsiaFont Studio note Note defined for this glyph string type mark Color code for the glyph mark or zero if glyph is not marked anchors List of anchors Each element is of Anchor type hlinks vlinks List of horizontal or vertical links Each element is an object of the Link type width Advance width for the first master if glyph is Multiple Master ni tne A RE T E nnn T T a P eee E E EPERE S re Saas ee oe ER E Ce eer nnn TEE ae ee E a o ee eae ee ees You can get a list of operations defined for the Glyph class if you run the following line print Glyph ___doc__ 720
95. nodes When this option is on nodes on the mask layer can be seen The Mask layer without and with nodes Template Layer A template is a kind of mask that is font wide and appears in all Glyph Windows You could think of it as an additional global mask Template features and operations are very similar to those of a Mask you can copy a selected part of any glyph to the template layer copy a mask to the template layer paste the template layer to the outline layer or clean the template layer If the snap to template function View gt Snap to layers is on and the template layer is visible View gt Show layers all nodes in all glyphs will snap to the template Commands related to the template layer are concentrated in the Tools gt Templates menu Copy to Template Copies the selected area of the glyph outline or the whole outline if nothing is selected to the template layer Copy Mask to Template Copies the mask layer of the current glyph to the template layer In other words converts a local template into a global font wide template Paste Template to Mask Copies the contents of the template layer to the mask layer of the current glyph Clear Template Clears the contents of the font template layer To get access more quickly to these commands select the View gt Tool bars gt Templates option It switches on the Templates toolbar 6 Templates vefe Pa tre tas vali l iat pes ee ani Me fae pee You
96. of a larger context sub period a b c period by D Only when abc is surrounded by two period glyphs will substitution take place Note that we have marked the target glyphs with the single quote character positioned immediately after the glyph name The rule is specified as follows substitute lt marked glyph sequence gt Target sequence with marked glyphs by lt glyph sequence gt Sub run replacement sequence A lt glyph sequence gt comprises one or more glyphs or glyph classes lt marked glyph sequence gt is a lt glyph sequence gt in which a set of glyphs or glyph classes is identified i e marked We will call this marked set of glyphs a sub run A sub run is marked by inserting a single quote after each of its member elements This sub run represents the target sequences of the lookups called by this rule The lookup type of the lookup called by this rule is auto detected from their target and replacement sequences in the same way as in their corresponding stand alone i e non contextual statements Example 1 This calls a lookup The rule below means in sequences a d or e d or n d substitute d by d alt substitute a e n d by d alt Example 2 This also calls a single substitution lookup The rule below means if a capital letter is followed by a small capital then replace the small capital by its corresponding lowercase letter substitute A Z Asmall Zsmall
97. of glyphs is previewed without kerning In Kerning mode you can change pair kerning Pairs 1 Kerning 52 6 743 I 720 746 ABC 41 42 In preview mode M and K buttons are not pressed you cannot change glyph metrics or kerning but you can safely preview the font in high resolution mode In addition you can preview and modify the position and width of the underline line Mi Show underline 3 75 Fad I 60 I T amp G 450 E The editing field of the Metrics window may be in compact or expanded mode By default it is expanded To expand the metrics window use the expand button When the window is in expanded mode the bottom line of the control bar disappears and the metrics bar is expanded and contains information about the metrics of the glyphs that are currently visible Sde o ard Panels Some AsiaFont Studio operations are accessible through Panels small windows that are located in front of the main Font Glyph and Metrics windows Editing Layers 6 Collection Classes S A fe Collection nanan All layers ollection Classes C E outtine cay xs ak Guidelines Hints Mask class11 Grid class12 i 1 746 Vertical tri lt n 006s class137 class ABCDEFGHIIKLMNOPQRSTUY 1 Temp te class13 Woe Y 2 Scoron OE caron Ydieresis Agrave Aacute _ Glyph metrics classl47 Acircumflex Atilde dieresis Aring SE Ccedilla Compone
98. of the font to appear differently than the Full Name defined on the Basic Names page you can insert the Compatible Full Name Note You don t need to fill in the Preferred Family name and Preferred Style Name fields if they are the same as the Family Name and Style Name on the main naming page of Font Info Enter names there only if the names are different Non English and Special Names Non English or special font names name table pe FLCaslon 7 FLCaslon FLCaslon Regular _ Regular Bc 1 Font Family name a Platform Encoding Language 0 Roman 4 0 English fa FLCaslon The TrueType and OpenType specifications let you put many names into the font Most of them can be defined on specialized pages of the Font Info dialog box Basic Names OpenType names Copyright etc but these names are in English If you need to have non English names or names that are not covered by the AsiaFont Studio FontInfo pages you may use this Non English or special font names page Please refer to the OpenType specification to get full information about TrueType and OpenType names http www microsoft com typography otspec name htm 177 Most of the page is covered by the names list dL a TE a hits ll Silica 1 0 0 FLCaslon Regular 1 000 ADBE FLCaslon FLCaslon OTF 1 000 PS 001 000 Core 1 0 29 0 0 0 0 The Columns of the list are NID Name ID code of the name this is what we put i
99. of the panel you find a toolbar at the left a list of the features with two buttons below and a split field at the right The top part of the field contains the feature definition text for the feature selected in the list and the bottom part contains the global definition data which usually is a definition of the glyph classes You can use the separator bar between top and bottom panels to adjust their relative vertical sizes 663 664 Buttons on the toolbar mean i Opens the menu The contents of the menu are described below Finds the glyph or class When the cursor in the feature editing panel is on the glyph name you can click on this button to quickly find the glyph in the Font or Glyph windows CMD CTRL click on the glyph name does the same If the cursor is on the class name AsiaFont Studio will try to find the class in the bottom editing field or in the Class panel 3 Renames the glyph Position the cursor on the glyph name and click this button to open the glyph rename dialog box described in one of the following sections Adds an anchor This button is enabled only when the Glyph window is open and active When you click on the ET button you will see a popup menu New Features Open Features File Save Features File Commands in the menu mean New features Removes all feature definition information and allows you to start making a new set of features Open features Ope
100. origin point is the position of the left margin in the horizontal direction and the position of the baseline in the vertical direction However you can modify the position of any of the four margins If you move the baseline or left margin line you will shift the entire glyph but as a result the left margin is moved Editing Metrics AsiaFont Studio has a special window for editing glyph metrics of course but you can make small adjustments right in the Glyph Window using the main Edit tool To change glyph metrics first activate the Metrics layer in the Editing layers panel Editing Layers Ww Outline Metrics wv Guides Hints Mask Then use the mouse and drag the left or right sidebearing or the baseline In AsiaFont Studio you can define a vertical advanced vector for the glyph this information is used in fonts which may type vertically from top to bottom To define a vertical advanced vector press and hold the Suirr key before moving the base line 315 316 Using the Measurement Line By default the sidebearing values are measured from the rightmost and leftmost points of the glyph Left sidebearing Righ tsidebearing Seer Sometimes you need to measure sidebearing values from some other point on the glyph outline In AsiaFont Studio you can do that by using the measurement line a horizontal red line that defines the height of the sidebearing me
101. overshoot Then it measures the top and bottom vertical positions of these characters and detects a zone Examples of such characters are o and x O and H p and g and so on AsiaFont Studio tries to find many different characters from different languages so it is usually able to locate some examples Alignment zones are also used in TrueType manual and automatic hinting Family Alignment Zones To support the common appearance of fonts that belong to the same font family the Type 1 hinting system allows so called FamilyBlues alignment zones that are used in the whole font family To set family alignment zones switch on the Set family alignment zones check box Then edit the alignment zones as usual To return to editing local alignment zones switch on the Set local alignment zones check box 205 206 Type 1 Standard Stems Type 1 hinting standard stems 4 i Set stems for the master Single master W stems 72 92 72 H stems 36 36 dedi sa ak Forcefioid _ gt Auto stems When ForceBold is active Type 1 font is looking bold even on small PPMs Standard stem widths are also controlled through the Alignment Zones page of the Font Info dialog box To edit standard stems open the Font Info dialog box and select the Alignment Zones page There are controls for both vertical and horizontal standard stem widths All available horizontal stems appear in the horizontal lists
102. program crash you can open your last saved font from the AFS Autosave folder 95 96 Copying and Pasting Glyphs To copy selected glyphs select the Copy command from the Edit menu Note that this copies not only the glyph outline but also the glyph information such as its name The selected glyphs will be placed in the Clipboard and can be pasted into the same font or into another font by the Paste command from the same menu Glyphs from the Clipboard will be placed starting from the first selected glyph in the destination font If the destination position is occupied by existing glyphs a warning dialog box appears You have dropped glyphs at the places used by the glyphs with names listed below 4 7 7 0OODF E Keep replaced symbols under new names Cancel y If you select the Cut command instead of the Copy command the glyphs will be copied to the Clipboard but will be deleted from the source positions You can choose the Paste command when the Glyph window is active In this case the outlines layer of the first copied glyph will be added to the open glyph The Paste Special Command When the common Paste command is used all the glyphs layers are pasted from the Clipboard including guidelines bitmap background mask etc To get more control over the pasting procedure use the Paste Special command in the Edit menu The Paste Special dialog appears Paste Special Select one or more glyph layers you wan
103. red segment A popup menu appears 3 Choose one of the commands in the Convert submenu To curves to convert to a Bezier curve or To lines to convert to straight line segments Breaking and Joining Outlines To break the contour with the Edit tool hold down Cmp and OPTION and click the node where you want to break the contour To break the contour with the Knife tool just click on the node When a contour is broken its first and last nodes are highlighted by diagonal crosses J You can use the Knife tool to cut out part of the outline Beg a 1 Activate the Knife tool 2 Press the mouse button and drag the cursor to define the cutting line 3 Release the button Note that you can only cut part of a single contour like in the sample picture above Note Deleting a selection with the Edit gt Delete command breaks contours too To keep them closed uncheck the Edit gt Delete command breaks contour checkbox in the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box To join two contours you need to move the starting or ending node of one contour to the starting or ending node of another contour Hold down the Option key to prevent the contours from joining 271 Node Commands If you Crri click a node you will see a popup menu with many useful commands Make node first Convert Delete node Duplicate node Retract BCPs Reverse contour Break contour Connection gt Delete contour Properties
104. research shows that it is useful to include small middle delta commands at the end of links that connect round parts of the glyph Use this option to control this feature Add link to the right sidebearing point AsiaFont Studio can generate a single distance rounded link that will go from the rightmost hinted point to the right sidebearing point This feature guarantees at least one pixel distance between glyphs on all PPMs Interpolate positions of the double links In glyphs like B which have overlapping stems AsiaFont Studio may hint them independently or hint the first stem and then interpolate the position of the second stem using the interpolation command with the final point aligned to the grid Whether this is appropriate for your font has to be decided on a case by case basis 573 574 Single link attachment precision If an outline is not very precise you can enter a value in this field so AsiaFont Studio will have a threshold to decide when several points are located along a line For precise fonts set this value to 1 or 0 Generally speaking autohinting is a trial and error process You can get very good autohinting results if you select the correct options for your font and define correct stem and alignment zone behavior at the critical PPMs Processing Multiple Glyphs You can convert Type 1 hints to TrueType instructions for many glyphs at once if you use the Transform dialog box Open the Tran
105. s time to rename the class Use the class definition panel and change class1 to _kernA Click the Accept button or the ENTER key to accept the changes Note that the class name is changed in the list of classes Repeat the procedure to define a class for T like glyphs Key Glyph Kerning classes must include a declaration of the key glyph that is used as a kerning master for other glyphs in the class To define a master glyph add a single quote after its name in the class definition text Ala 0041 1479 0 8 agrave ooco 1479 0 D A Aacute oocl 1479 0 0 Al acircumflex o0C2 1479 0 D Al atilde ooc3 1479 0 D _kern 4 Agrave Aacute Ac reuntler Ati After you accept the changes made in the class definition string the key glyph will get a blue background in the preview panel 445 446 Editing Class Based Kerning To define kerning for a class you need to define the kerning for the key glyph of the class using the standard tools of the Metrics panel in kerning mode When you enter glyphs that are used as key glyphs into the kerning editing string and select a pair of them for kerning editing you will see two buttons appear below the glyph images 1554 Mo 1251 If you click on one of these buttons you will see a popup menu that lists all classes where the glyph works as a key glyph i _kernT Select the class name and it opens for preview in the Classes panel Similar buttons appear whe
106. segment 1 Position the mouse cursor on the beginning point and press the mouse button 2 Move the mouse to the end point and release the button Hold down the Suirt key to constrain the direction of the line to 15 degree increments 375 376 Polygon Tool The Polygon tool can be used in two modes as a tool to draw a polygon consisting of lines and curves or as a tool to draw an outline of a polygon with a selected brush The second mode can be treated as a series of applications of the line tool The mode of the polygon tool can be selected in the Paint Options dialog box To draw a polygon using the Polygon tool 1 5 6 Select the polygon tool E in the VectorPaint toolbar Be sure that the polygon tool is in the polygon mode Move the mouse cursor somewhere in the editing field and press the mouse button Holding down the button move the mouse cursor to the first point of the polygon Release the button Move the mouse cursor to the position of the next polygon point To add a line segment click the mouse button To add a curve segment press the mouse button and drag the mouse to define the control vector of a curve Hold down the Suirr key to constrain the direction of vectors to 15 degree increments If the polygon in its present state is finished by a curve the next segment that the polygon tool will try to add will be a curve To switch between adding a vector or a curve use the Tas key on the keyboard
107. selected in the editing area All Pairs in the current string or All Pairs in the following list The second popup menu allows you to generate kerning for all the pairs located in a special list file The list files are stored in the AFS Kerning folder You can create your own kerning pair files or use files placed there by AsiaFont Studio s installer 435 436 The Parameters area lets you customize the autokerning algorithm The most used option is How much white space do you want to leave between glyphs This controls how close the glyphs will be moved together while computing kerning in the pair The Allow for positive kerning check box lets the autokerning algorithm produce positive kerning in pairs Positive kerning moves glyphs apart from each other Positive kerning is usually not reeommended but there may be occasional circumstances where it is needed If you want to save the existing kerning the popup menu lets you control the disposition of the existing imported or manually created kerning pairs You can replace existing pairs by automatically generating new ones keep them unchanged or select the condition mode The Maximum number of generated pairs and Maximum absolute value for generated kerning options control the possible number of automatically created pairs and the maximum normal negative or positive kerning value Resetting Kerning To remove the kerning information for some glyphs or for the entire font y
108. several fonts that cover different scripts and want to combine them into one big Unicode font Smaller fonts are easier to manage and open save To keep your font project intact AsiaFont Studio offers some workspace management functions Saving and Opening a Workspace A Workspace is a set of fonts opened in AsiaFont Studio and information about the position and size of their font windows AsiaFont Studio will open a standard File Save dialog box where you can select a name and path for the workspace file AsiaFont Studio workspace files have the extension flw tl simply drag drop the flw file onto the AsiaFont Studio icon Note that AsiaFont Studio workspace files won t open if Python is not installed on the System AsiaFont Studio workspace files are automatically generated macro programs in the Python scripting language They are text files that you can edit with any text editor if you wish Recommended only for the knowledgeable and brave 129 130 Applying Actions You can find many actions in the Glyph and Tools menus that can be applied to the open glyph in the Glyph window see next chapter but most of them are applicable to the glyph s selected in the Font window To apply an action select the glyphs in the Font window and choose the appropriate command in the Tools or Glyph menu For example to convert glyphs from TrueType outlines to Type 1 outlines select the glyphs that you want to convert and ch
109. shape By default the reference point is located on the position of the zero point 241 242 Contours The most important and most complex information in a font is the glyph s shape All glyphs are defined as a series of contours All contours consist of a series of graphical primitives straight lines and curves Nodes points that know their type define all graphical primitives Open and Closed Contours Contours may be open or closed ee oy All known font formats require contours to be closed but during outline editing it may be useful to have some contours in an open form and later connect them to each other to build final closed contours In AsiaFont Studio it is very easy to open closed contours or to close open contours It is also possible to customize the appearance of the open contours they may be automatically filled they are automatically closed by an invisible straight line that connects their starting and ending points or not and their starting and finishing point may be optionally highlighted Filled and Unfilled Contours Contours can be of two types black or white They can also be of two directions clockwise or counterclockwise The basic rule that applies to Type 1 fonts is simple clockwise directed contours are white and counterclockwise contours are black A simpler form of the rule known as the rule of the left hand is if you face along the direction of a contour black fill wil
110. smoothing 215 Font window 33 65 67 86 89 163 224 417 Customizing 163 popup menu 89 selecting 88 FontAudit 15 253 FontDirectionHint 217 FontInfo Ascender 193 Caps height 193 Copyright 181 Created by 181 Creation year 181 Descender 193 Description 181 dialog box 168 Family Name 173 Font Name 174 Full Name 174 725 Italic 173 Italic angle 193 Menu Name 174 Notice 181 Revision 185 Slant angle 193 Style Name 174 Subscript 198 Superscript 198 TrueType Unique ID 186 TrueType Version 185 Unique ID 186 Vendor Code 186 Version 185 Weight 173 Width 173 x height 193 XUID 186 FontLab 2 5 02 3 0 52 class 716 format 135 137 Font Level Type 1 Hints 496 Fonts 44 blending 131 merging 128 Multiple Master 595 opening 52 OpenType 641 Fonts List 482 Fonts Panel 127 709 FreeHand 289 G GDEF 58 648 Generate Names 118 glyph 20 class 720 properties panel 316 697 Glyph classes 652 Glyph Geometry 687 Glyph name 22 glyph preview 485 Glyph Toolbox 225 235 236 Glyph Window 35 223 open 224 glyphs 71 exporting 403 importing 403 Glyphs bar 38 227 GPOS 58 648 Gradient 479 graphical primitives 15 green marks 245 Grid 237 318 Gridfitting 493 GSUB 58 648 guideline 324 properties panel 324 Guidelines 237 319 381 editing 320 tracking 323 H hdmx 214 head 217 Highlight Differences 582 Highlighting 104 hint propert
111. style by changing the family will be created by changing PaintType a PaintType PostScript variable to 2 Font family doesn t allow This option is switched on if the font family disallows simulation of the outline simulating the Outline style by smearing the glyph and style whiting out the middle Font family doesn t allow This option is switched on if the font family disallows simulation of the bold simulating the Bold style by smearing the glyphs style Font family simulates the This option is switched on if the font family simulates bold style by increasing the Bold style by increasing the point size point size Font family doesn t allow This option is switched on if the font family disallows simulation of the italic simulating the Italic style style Font family doesn t allow This option is switched on if the font family disallows simulation of the automatic simulation of the style Condensed condensed style Font family doesn t allow This option is switched on if the font family disallows simulation of the automatic simulation of the style Extended extended style Font family should have This option is switched on if the font family should have no additional no additional spacing other than the space character intercharacter spacing To get full information about the parameters represented in the FOND Info dialog refer to Inside Macintosh Text Font Manager http developer apple com techpubs mac Text Text 181 html 145
112. the New Edit window command or a button on the toolbar A new glyph will appear in the original glyph window If you need to open many glyph windows simultaneously just hold down the Comp key when you double click the new glyph cell or otherwise open a new Glyph window You may have as many open glyph windows as you want just close those you don t need so as not have all your workspace covered with glyph windows You may use the Cmp W shortcut to close windows If the current window is the Font window closing it will close the font Glyph Window Contents All windows in AsiaFont Studio have a similar layout control panel on the top and main area covering most of the window The glyph window is no exception Click on the small button on the top of the vertical scroll bar A and the Glyph window control area will appear The control area contains zoom selection tools a popup menu and a few toolbar buttons Actually there are two toolbars here the left one is used only to select the zoom mode of the Glyph window and to choose the Zoom in and Zoom out commands and Undo or Redo commands The second toolbar is used to select the properties of the editing tool and is hidden by default We will describe it later The main area of the window has scroll bars to change the view of the glyph and vertical and horizontal ruler bars You can switch the ruler bars on and off with the Rulers option in the View menu A quicker way is to Crri click
113. the Reset Kerning dialog box Opens the Kerning Editor dialog box sect Allows selection of special macro programs that can be used to simulate complex environments to test metrics and kerning Z Opens the OpenType Kerning Assistance dialog box Activates the support for the measurement line When it is active all metrics are measured along the line e Alternates between compact and expanded mode of the editing area 413 414 Selecting a String for Previewing or Metrics Editing If you are in the Preview mode you may want to enter a string to preview The easiest way to do this is to enter the string in the editing field of the Metrics Window and press ENTER hamburgevons a Or you can open a list of predefined strings and select one of them for editing ABCabc 123 fs SHE VERSE ASHORE hamburgevons ABCabc 123 k HAMBURGEV ONS AS AGREES RUNAS GORGEOUS NAME HAHHAAOQHAGQOAG HBHHBOHBOOBO HOHHCOHCOOCO 7 By pressing the CMp PGDN and CmD PGUP keyboard shortcuts you can browse the strings quickly All strings that appear in the list box are read from the Preview txt file located in AFS Data folder This file is an ordinary text file and can be edited in any text editor to add your own strings You can edit the contents of the strings list in the Preview Options dialog box To open the dialog box click on the button Preview Options Contents of the preview text c
114. the Style axis because there is no standard for it and it is relatively easy to set the dynamic range for Optical Size because it is usually known for this axis So we have the Weight and Width axes to choose dynamic ranges for As you know the dynamic range is the distance between the lowest and highest design coordinates so all you have to do is to choose the proper low and high edge values The best way to choose these values is to compare your font with a font that already has these values assigned properly We recommend you use one of Adobe s fonts for this comparison Another recommendation is to choose edge values so that the design coordinate of the Normal style normal weight and normal width of the font will be 500 600 units 635 636 Generating a Single Master Font You can create a regular single master font from an instance of a Multiple Master font using AsiaFont Studio Use the Tools gt Multiple Master gt Generate Instance command to open the Generate Instance dialog box Choose design position to generate instance ABCabc123 400 Weight Width 594 EET Use the controls to select the intermediate or extrapolated design The Edit controls have a white background when the selection is within the dynamic range and a yellow background when extrapolation is used Click OK and AsiaFont Studio will generate a single master font and open it in a new Font Window Expanding the Master Info
115. the popup menu above selected codepage pag When this option is on AsiaFont Studio will export only glyphs whose codes are in the 0 255 range Put MS Char Set This is a hack used in older operating systems to correctly value into handle non Latin fonts It is not required and not fsSelection field recommended but if you find that you need to use this hack to get your font to work in an old OS just switch on this option and re export the font Use the following Encoding information is stored in TrueType and OpenType codepage to builda fonts ina cmap table Every Windows TrueType font cmap 1 0 table contains at least two of these tables One is the Unicode table and it assigns Unicode information to Glyphs The other is a single byte table that is used by older versions of the Mac OS and by some non Unicode compatible Windows programs Use the control to select the codepage that will be used to build this table There are two special options Mac OS Roman which is the codepage used on the Mac and the default choice or Current codepage in the Font Window which means that AsiaFont Studio will use the encoding yellow zone currently selected in the Font window 155 156 There are two possible methods of making TrueType Unicode mapping tables Unicode mode This works when Use Unicode indexes as the basis for TrueType encoding is on and Names mode In Unicode mode AsiaFont Studio uses the Unicode indexes that
116. the popup menu to the right will automatically change FOND ID and vice versa Fixed width font If this option is switched on the font will be treated by the Macintosh system as one with characters of fixed width monospaced Otherwise the font is treated as proportional Don t use family If this option is switched on the system will not use the fractional widths global family widths table Use integer extra If this option is switched on the system will use the family widths style extra widths table Family Style Property Table Ignore FractEnable If this option is switched on the system will use the family style extra widths table Family Style Property Table even if the option Don t use family fractional widths is switched off Don t adjust This option represents the 11th bit of the family flags characters spacing which is usually set to zero Font metrics Ascent The maximum height above the baseline reached by characters in this family fonts Descent The maximum depth below the baseline reached by characters in this family of fonts The depth is usually a negative number Leading Maximum leading for the family The leading value is usually set to zero MaxWidth Maximum character width for the family 144 Style mapping flags Font Class Font name needs This option is switched on if the font name needs coordinating coordinating Font family creates the When this option is switched on the Outline style of outline
117. the ruler and choose the option in the context menu Remove Hints p Remove Guidelines p 37 38 At the very bottom left corner of the Glyph window you will find a little ae button that when clicked on opens the Glyphs bar semico less equal reater questig at E pet ied eae eee eee Beano slepim Size Fm tell Title Name This is nothing more than a slice of the Font window making it easier to access cells in the font window while the glyph window is maximized for precise editing work At the bottom left corner of the Glyph windows you will find two more buttons Lock and Meter aT The Lock button controls quick access to the font glyph when it is in the unlocked state you can use the keyboard to directly access the glyphs I e when you press a key the corresponding glyph will automatically open in the glyph window The Meter button 1 controls the appearance of the Meter bar which sits above the glyph window ruler and shows the current coordinates and other parameters of the cursor h 744 237 k 744 237 a 978 0 A 16 0 ak 940 270 We will return to a more detailed description of the glyph window properties in the Glyph Window chapter Finally let s quickly preview the last window in AsiaFont Studio the Metrics window Metrics Window The Metrics window is used to adjust glyph metrics glyph sidebearings and kerning Open any existing font from the disk e g FREESERF VFB f
118. this field Typeface family This is a family code assigned by HP Boise Division Refer to code HP manuals for more information TypeFamily This is another vendor code assigned by the HP Boise Division vendor code Choose one of values in the list 219 220 PCLT Metrics and Font Description PCLT metrics and font description ai ais Width Normal CD Posture Upright Structure Solid normal black StrokeWeight 0 Book text regular etc SerifStyle Sans Serif Square kA _ Recalculate Sans Serif Monoline Serif Contrasting WidthType O Normal Pitch 0 x Height 0 CapHeight 0 gt Recalculate Width The appearance width Select one of the options in the list Posture The slant of the glyphs Could be upright italic oblique or reversed italic Structure The structure of the glyph s interior Select one of the options in the list StrokeWeight Weight of the font This value is related to the Weight parameter on the basic names page SerifStyle Style of the glyph s serifs This is related to the PANOSE settings Use the Recalculate button to calculate values automatically using information from other pages WidthType PCL appearance width value Select one of the options in the list Pitch The width of the space in font units xHeight The height of the optical line describing the height of the lowercase x in font units This might not be the same as the measured height of t
119. this program is that it can support all the features of OpenType including those that AsiaFont Studio cannot handle VOLT is based on a completely different user interface and provides visual tools to define substitution and positioning lookups You can get more information about VOLT at this location http www microsoft com typography developers volt default htm VOLT stores OpenType features and lookups information in a text based format which during work on a font is saved in special tables in a TrueType font When work on the font is done these tables are compiled to GPOS GDEF and GSUB tables and intermediate tables are stripped from the font file If this option in the Application gt Preferences gt TrueType M Store custom TrueType tables is switched on you can open the saved font in VOLT and it will contain the special tables that VOLT uses to store intermediate data and on export these tables will be restored unchanged This means that even if you start work on a font in VOLT but then realize that some glyphs must be modified you can save the font in VOLT open it in AsiaFont Studio modify the glyphs and return to VOLT to continue your work on OpenType features 701 702 Another AsiaFont Studio feature is its ability to save simple lookups and some glyph information in VOLT format so you can start working on a font in AsiaFont Studio then continue in VOLT You can save font features defined in AsiaFont Studio in two
120. title counts Opens the Progress dialog box with counts number of ticks EndProgress Closes the Progress dialog box TickProgress tick Updates the Progress bar returns False if Cancel button was pressed This is a relatively slow operation Random hivalue Returns a random value very fast operation Random lovalue hivalue ForSelected function_name calls function_name for each selected glyph in the current font Function has the following format function Font font Glyph glyph glyphindex We will provide some examples using the functions described above when we discuss Font and Glyph classes 717 Font The Font class contains all the data that is related to the font in AsiaFont Studio internal data structures The Font class by itself has no interaction with the user interface elements You need to use other classes such as the fl object of the FontLab class to interact with the font The most important members of the Font class are classes Python list with the strings containing FontLab classes ot_classes String containing OpenType classes text that appears in the bottom control of the OpenType panel features List of OpenType features Each element of the list is an object of the Feature class customdata A string that may contain any data you want to attach to a font This data is saved in the AFS FontLab font file so you can use this member to store information that is not editable by AsiaFont Stu
121. to fill this record automatically You must have the Names and Copyright pages filled in to use the automatic features on this page Press the Apply button at the bottom of the dialog box to enter the new Font Info values into the font s header 185 Basic Font Identification TrueType Unique ID record 1 000 4ADBE FLCaslon Sd Type 1 Unique ID number 44825 Type 1 XUID numbers TrueType vendor code ADBE fs Use it as default Adobe Font creation date 1 1 70 gt 00 00 F Now TrueType This field is necessary to identify TrueType fonts Usually it Unique ID includes the creator s name font family name and creation year Record The format of this field is freeform but we recommend that you use the button to fill this field automatically Type 1 Unique An integer number identifying the font Unique ID numbers must ID Record be registered with Adobe Systems However you may leave 0 in this field or enter a value from the users Unique ID zone 4000000 to 4999999 If you enter this value and plan to export Type 1 fonts be sure not to have more than one font with the same Unique ID value because that may cause a problem with PostScript printers or Adobe Type Manager software Type 1 XUID More advanced identification codes for Type 1 fonts This number Numbers is used only in PostScript Level 2 printers Please refer to Adobe documentation for more information concerning the XUID field TrueTyp
122. to get access to the context menu E3 aie Delete command a Delta value p Remove for current PPM Use the Delete command to remove a middle delta instruction so it will be removed for all PPMs for which it is defined Use the Remove for current PPM command to remove a middle delta instruction only for the currently selected PPM For example if the delta instruction is defined for the PPM range 12 18 and the current PPM is 14 after you use Remove for current PPM you will get two delta instructions 12 13 and 15 18 The Delta value submenu lets you choose the delta instruction shift distance Another way to customize delta instructions is to use the options area in the Program panel SSS SSS rerttI os oo SSS SSS SS SS SS Ss SS SS SS SS SS SSeS Point 16 Offset TITTI BE iT 2376B4 az H H bi oo E in Ti J on Range 43 10 You can change the point number shift distance and the PPM range Final Delta Instructions Final delta instructions are applied after the final interpolation of all untouched points They are used as a last resort to shift points to remove or add pixels at PPM sizes where it is still necessary after application of zones stems and all other hints Delt 1 Dela 2 Hinted character at 12 PPM Same character with two delta without delta instructions instructions The sequence of interpretation is the only difference betw
123. to use these fonts on Windows if you are not using Windows 2000 or Windows XP Mac Type 1 On Macintosh computers fonts in this format are always called and Multiple PostScript fonts Usually they consist of two resource files a suitcase Master file with at least one bitmap font needed by the Mac OS to get information about the font family and the file with post resources containing font definition data PC TrueType The standard format for Windows fonts since version 3 1 and for the Mac OS The font is stored in a single file that has a ttf extension TrueType based OpenType fonts have the same structure but some additional information From AsiaFont Studio s point of view there is minimal difference between plain TrueType fonts and TrueType based OpenType fonts Mac OS now supports PC TrueType Mac The font is stored in a single resource Pre Mac OS X or plain data TrueType fork on Mac OS X with dfont extension file that is called a suitcase One suitcase can contain up to 4 TrueType fonts combined in a family OpenType A relatively new font format jointly supported by Microsoft and Adobe Files can have either a ttf or otf extension Mac OS X Windows 2000 and Windows XP directly support these fonts but the otf version of the format requires Adobe Type Manager on Windows 9x and ME OpenType fonts may be TrueType based which we will call TrueType fonts unless specially noted or PostScript based The latter ar
124. tool is active and the guidelines layer is visible use the View gt Show layers menu to switch it on Note that the Guidelines layer will automatically switch on if you add a new guideline To add a new guideline 1 Position the mouse cursor on the horizontal ruler bar for a horizontal guideline or on the vertical bar for a vertical guideline 2 Press the mouse button The bar will appear pressed and the new guideline will appear 3 Holding the mouse button down drag the guideline to the desired place and release the button To move the guideline 1 Move the mouse cursor onto the guideline that you want to move Be sure that no other objects such as nodes or hints are near the cursor 2 Press the mouse button and drag the guideline to the new place You may choose to activate the feature that will snap the guideline which you are moving or adding to all outline nodes Use this option in the Application gt Preferences gt Glyph Window dialog box Ww Align to all contour points if Snap to Outline is on To slant the guideline 1 Move the cursor onto the guideline near one of the sides of the editing field of the Glyph Window 2 Press the mouse button The mouse cursor will change to a pair of curved arrows amp that shows you the guideline slant direction 3 Moving the mouse slant the guideline to the angle that you want Hold down the Suirt key to constrain the slanting angle to 3 degree
125. vertical or horizontal axis i e remove their slant and make them vertical or horizontal guidelines Global guidelines have an additional set of commands located in the Guideline Is submenu By selecting the commands in this submenu you can set the font parameters Ascender Descender Caps Height x Height or Visual Ascender and Descender that are used to set 100 zoom in the Glyph Window The local guideline menu has one additional command Create Orthogonal which you can use to create a guideline that is at a right angle to the current one Ea Convert to global ri i Align Delete K Create orthogonal r Properties And naturally every local guideline can be changed into a global one by the Convert to global command Guidelines Tracking There is a special feature that lets you modify an outline by moving guidelines You switch this feature on in the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box choose the Preferences command in the Application menu to open the dialog box Tracking Options _ Hints tracking Tracking offset 5 of UPM Guidelines tracking Track global guidelines When guidelines tracking is active and you move a guideline a distance not greater than the Tracking offset parameter all outline nodes that were on the guideline will be moved with it Original outline Same outline after topmost guideline moved up If you move a global guideline and the Track global guidelines option is on then al
126. want to edit in the list and edit it in the edit fields below the list To remove an alignment zone select the zone you want to remove from the list and press the button below that list You can see a preview of the zones by switching on the Alignment Zones layer with the View gt Show Layer gt Alignment zones command When zones are visible on screen you can preview changes you make to the zones by pressing the Apply button in the Font Info dialog box You can edit zones in the Glyph window using the edit tool Make sure they are not locked by the View gt Lock layers gt Alignment zones command Press the _ Auto zones button to automatically calculate alignment zones in the Primary zones list box How AsiaFont Studio Calculates Alignment Zones To calculate alignment zones in the BlueValues list AsiaFont Studio finds characters with overshoots and characters that are flat in the position of the overshoot Then it measures the top and bottom vertical positions of these characters and detects a zone Examples of such characters are o and x O and H p and g and so on AsiaFont Studio tries to find many different characters from different languages so it is usually able to locate some examples Alignment zones are also used in TrueType manual and automatic hinting Family Alignment Zones To support the common appearance of fonts that belong to the same font family the Type 1 hinting syst
127. ways 1 Use the button in the OpenType panel to open a menu and then select the Save Features command to open a File Save dialog box Select VOLT project files vtp as the destination format and AsiaFont Studio will try to save the features in VOLT format 2 Turn on the Export VOLT data option in the Application gt Preferences gt OpenType dialog and save the font as a TrueType flavored OpenType PC TrueType AsiaFont Studio will write both binary OpenType tables and tables that VOLT can read so you can open this font in VOLT on PC and continue editing features Option 2 is the only way to open the OpenType font containing the features for editing in VOLT By itself it cannot decompile binary OpenType tables Macro Programming One of the unique features of AsiaFont Studio 4 is an integrated macro programming language With this feature you can program repeated tasks define custom font transformations create your own editing tools integrate AsiaFont Studio into a font development system which may include other tools and use AsiaFont Studio in many other powerful ways Macro programs in AsiaFont Studio are written in the well known and well documented Python programming language AsiaFont Studio uses the standard version of the language so almost all macros written in Python will work in AsiaFont Studio In addition to support of Python AsiaFont Studio provides a detailed set of classes and variables that open all the A
128. will describe them in full detail ct Outline Main layer containing the glyph s outline There is no button to switch the outline layer off q Hints Type 1 hints pairs of two vertical or horizontal lines set at a fixed distance aren eee gt ae ee ea a TEE IE AEEA E EAEE TEE een EN ca eee Sf Se ner eR ie zones Glyph metrics Glyph metrics left and right sidebearings and a baseline Vertical Font s vertical metrics such as ascender descender or cap metrics height Anchors and Anchors are special named marks and carets that define carets stop positions in ligatures You can control the layers appearance and features with the View menu Show layers Lists all layers and a few other options and lets you switch them on or off You cannot switch off hide the outline layer Lock layers Lists the layers that you can lock to protect from accidental modification Snap to layers Controls which layers have the snap to feature activated 237 238 Editing Layers Panel An alternative way to control the editing layers features is the special Editing Layers panel which you can put on the screen with the Window gt Editing Layers panel command or with this button on the Panels toolbar soy l Editing Layers kar Ww Outline C Metrics Guides Hints wv Mask Please note that you must open the Glyph Window to make it possible to use the Editin
129. you assigned to the glyphs while moving glyphs in the Unicode mode of the Font window or by entering Unicode indexes in the Rename Glyph dialog box In the Names mode AsiaFont Studio will encode all glyphs in the encoding currently selected in the Font window yellow glyphs and put them in the first 256 range of the TrueType Unicode table AsiaFont Studio will put all other glyphs into the unencoded zone of the Unicode table starting from the code E000h The Unicode TrueType exporting mode is usually used to export fonts that were imported from TrueType font files and already have Unicode information The Names mode is useful when you convert a Type 1 font to the TrueType format and do not want to worry about assigning Unicode indexes The general rule is simple if you work with the Font window in Names mode use the Names TrueType exporting mode If you work in Unicode mode use the Unicode exporting mode Actually AsiaFont Studio will show a warning message if you try to export a font in Unicode mode while you are in the Names mode of the Font window and vice versa What is the First 256 Glyphs Range When we talk about the first 256 glyphs we do not mean those with Unicode indexes in the 0x0000 OxOOFF range We mean those that system will see as having codes 0x00 oxFF when the default codepage is selected In most cases the default codepage is the Mac OS Roman codepage So even if you export a TrueType font in the Nam
130. you can also set horizontal commands that will control the length of the serifs Seri fleng single link Hinting Diagonals Hinting diagonal stems is the most complicated job in hinting There are no special diagonal commands so you have to set both horizontal and vertical commands to control the width of a diagonal stem We know two ways to hint diagonal stems 1 Define special standard stem widths Set vertical and horizontal commands attached to these widths and control the rounding of stem widths using the stems dialog box 2 Set the positions of one side of the stem using the usual commands align and link and set the position of the other side by single links that are not rounded and not aligned Adjust the width of the stem using middle delta instructions If a diagonal stem is intersected by another vertical horizontal or diagonal stem then we recommend using the interpolation instruction to set the position of the intersection points In most cases good hinting of diagonal stems is not possible without final delta hinting 591 592 Hinting Symmetrical Characters There are two types of symmetrical characters round characters like O and pike characters like V Round characters are automatically symmetrical in both directions So it s enough to set the positions and width of the vertical and horizontal stems and the center points will be interpolated and automat
131. 1 and TrueType fonts Hinting is a rather technical stage of the modern font design process It is the stage where art truly meets technology You need a lot of technical information to make well hinted fonts and this chapter will give it to you 492 Font Scaling PPM One of the most important features of outline fonts is that they can be used on many different output devices from computer monitors to image setters Because character outline shapes are defined as sequences of lines and curves it is easy to scale outlines to any size and resolution However almost all output devices have discrete elements arranged in a regular rectangular raster grid and the images that these devices produce are constructed using these discrete cells Each cell in an output image has integer coordinates and is called a pixel picture cell On a computer monitor these are individual fluorescent dots On a printer they are dots of toner or ink To measure scaled outlines in a resolution independent way it is convenient to define a quantity called Pixels Per eM PPM This is the number of pixels that can fit into the font s height From the Glyph Window chapter you know that font height is a basic font measurement unit equal to the Units Per eM UPM In TrueType fonts UPM is usually equal to 2048 and in Type 1 fonts to 1000 UPM Ou tine charac tr Rasterized charac tr So to scale a font to render at a specific point size on
132. 15 16 17 1 1 20 1 22 25 24 65 zE af 2 Tie guck brown fox 3 The quick brown fox o The quick brown fox The quick brown fox 2 The quick brown fox 2 The quick brown fox The quick brown fox gt The quick brown fox gt The quick brown fox gt The quick brown fox The quick brown fox The top part of the panel remains the same and the bottom part is the sample string rendered at multiple PPMs You close the panel by clicking the button 516 Preview Panel Options With the Preview panel options dialog box you can customize the PPMs at which the horizontal waterfall and sample string are rendered To open the dialog click on the button to the right of the sample string editing control You will see the options dialog box Hinting Preview Options List of PPMs to preview 5 36 38 40 42 48 Reset List of PPMs in expanded view B 24 d Reset Mi Use font smoothing if allowed by system Lock preview text box Contents of the preview text combo box The quick brown fox Open hamburgevons Hi iOx dle SHE VERSE ASHORE ABCDEF GHUKLMNOGPORST UV Waxy Z AS AGREES RUNAS ABCabcl2s HAMBURGEV ONS GORGEOUS NAME HAHHAACQHAOOAD HBHHBOHBO OBO 7 es a Font to use in the preview combo box Select Cancel Apply 50K At the top of the dialog box you will find two editing fields where you can enter the list of PPMs to preview in the horizontal waterfall line top c
133. 183 has different behaviors in Windows 95 and Windows NT In Windows 95 it is mapped to the Unicode index 22C5h but in Windows NT it is mapped to OOB7h So when AsiaFont Studio exports your font in the Names mode it automatically assigns both Unicode indexes to this glyph to make the font compatible with both operating systems 157 OpenType Export Options As we said before in structure there is not much difference between TrueType and OpenType fonts The key difference is that OpenType fonts contain some additional tables that allow advanced typographic and lexical features The additional data is stored in 3 tables GDEF GSUB and GPOS We will discuss these tables in full detail in the OpenType Fonts chapter so all you need to know here is that if you want to have OpenType features in your font you have to let AsiaFont Studio export these tables OpenType export features are stored in the OpenType page of the Application gt Preferences dialog box OpenType Export rd Export OpenType Tables _ Export VOLT data wi Generate kern feature if it is not defined Append OpenType name records to the names exp Hq wi Export GDEF table i Use subroutines to compress outlines in OTF fonts Export OpenType Keep this option on to export OpenType tables If it is off Tables you will get a plain TrueType font without any OT features Export VOLT data VOLT is a Microsoft tool to define OpenType features AsiaFont Studio c
134. 2 Font Parameters Because within each font it s very important that all characters have a consistent appearance some font level information is necessary for hinting There are two kinds of such information alignment zones and stem widths Alignment zones set the positions of the most important vertical positions such as the sizes of uppercase characters the position of middle lines and the top and bottom overshoot positions To minimize rounding error and to make better baseline alignment you have to suppress overshoots and maintain the same size of overshoot and regular characters at small PPMs This is very easy to do if you position and size the bottoms and tops of these characters and stick the bottom and top points to these values Stem widths define the most important stems in the font and control the rounding of these stems Here you must control the PPM at which the stem width changes from one to two pixels and from two to three pixels Refer to page 496 for more information about alignment zones and standard stem widths Visual TrueType Hints In AsiaFont Studio we use a small set of high level hinting instructions that are automatically compiled to TrueType instructions during font export Because these instructions can be set and edited visually we call them visual TrueType hints or just visual hints Visual hints are enough to define TrueType hints even in very complex situations and they are compiled in very
135. 2 Click on the outline where you want to insert a point Alternatively you can add points with the Edit tool 1 Position the cursor on the outline 2 Press the Option key and click the outline Reversing Contours Cmp click one of the contour s points to reverse its direction 363 Selecting Points As in the standard Edit mode you can select many points and perform group operations like moving the selection or copying to and from the Clipboard To select points with the Edit tool press the mouse button in an empty area and drag the cursor to surround the points you want to select with the rectangle Hold the Suirr key down to invert the selection state of the points To select the whole contour double click it Note that you must not double click one of the points this operation will change its type Alternatively hold down the Cm key and click anywhere near the contour You can use commands from the Edit menu to select or deselect parts of the outline Select All to select the whole outline Deselect to remove all selections Invert Selection to invert the selection state of all nodes Click anywhere in the empty area anytime to remove all selections 364 Using the Magic Wand Tool With this tool you can easily select multiple contours It is especially useful when your sketch contains multiple overlapping outlines 1 Activate the Magic Wand tool S 2 Click anywhere near the contour you
136. 3 M 7o M 743 D voz M27 I ase 55 i i There is now a blue area in the metrics bar at the top part of the editing area This means that kerning exists for that pair in the current preview string 429 430 Manual Kerning Editing To edit kerning manually you must drag the kerning line or right glyph of the kerning pair using the mouse If you Crri click the mouse button while dragging the glyph kerning for that pair will be removed You will see that the total number of kerning pairs decreases Using the Keyboard When a glyph is selected in the sample string you can use the left and right arrow keys to change the kerning by one font unit at each key click Hold the Suirt key to change the kerning by 10 font units Use the INSERT and DELETE keys to change the glyph in the string and PAGE Up and PAGE Down keys to move to the previous and next glyph in the string By pressing the CMp PGDN and Cmp PGUpP keyboard shortcuts you can browse the sample strings quickly 431 432 Using the Table When the properties area is expanded and kerning editing mode is activated you can see all the glyph metrics and pair kerning information in the editing field Kerning is displayed on the fifth row in the table and each value is positioned between the glyphs that form the kerning pair Background color for the kerning value is white when there is no kerning light blue if kerning is negative glyphs are shifted toward each other and
137. 4 liga Standard Replaces a sequence of glyphs with a single glyph which Ligatures is preferred for typographic purposes This feature covers the ligatures that the designer manufacturer judges should be used in normal conditions feature liga sub f f i by ffi sub f i by fi sub T h by T_h sub f f j by f_f_j sub f f l by ffl sub f f by ff sub f j by f_j sub f by fl 3 liga case Case Sensitive Shifts various punctuation marks up to a position that Forms works better with all capital sequences or sets of lining figures also changes oldstyle figures to lining figures dlig Discretionary Replaces a sequence of glyphs with a single glyph which Ligatures is preferred for typographic purposes This feature covers those ligatures that may be used for special effect at the user s preference feature dlig sub c t by c_t sub s t by uniFB06 sub longs h by longs_h sub longs i by longs_i sub longs l by longs_l sub longs t by uniF B05 sub longs longs by longs_longs dlig frac Fractions Replaces figures separated by a slash with common diagonal fractions afrc Alternative Replaces figures separated by a slash with an alternative Fractions form dnom Denominators Replaces selected figures that follow a slash with denominator figures 695 c2sc Small Capitals This feature replaces capital characters with small From Capitals capitals Caps 123 caps 123 onum Oldstyle Figures This feature changes sel
138. 4 24 a ZB aT 26 Pe 20 zi Er ao s i AHi ii in one ot Ot ag Ota HHE Wai Poot la ie om A B C D EFGHI J KLMN O a 4 a5 fa a 3 a a0 a1 a ad a5 a6 ay 44 wa b ai daia ba dbi a e T abaa a A B e D E F P OQ R 5 U V W A Y Z f fi Note that some information is colored so printing on a color printer will have some benefits Printout of the glyph properties list FONTLAB FONT PRINTOUT E Fri Deci 25 134605 1002 BalticaC ltalic Fage i i a E nice H Wee H lieh 35 U Det A Ai 22 Conk 2 B Maiki ol Caiit 3 Bar 96 0p bed dea BBa 17 0 fod Bo LEE 15 BEE 15 SL SI j LSS 17 PSS 15 emh D bi TES ra 110 wh 331 bee B mi ra eee E H Go nice 26 Lise DOS lie 37 Urad Dd Aided 17 Conk 1 Paiki 14 Cerise 2 SSE 4 11 i Sey Bede tr i cr 10 BE LEE a4 MEE 15 WEIR re LAA iT ASS 0 radh ri a6 ET fab MH width OS ba B mi 17 ee ST Miki 2 Lite DHS Mies 24 Con 1 SSE 07 Op aS See LEE 17 ABE JE Waar 14 bi 155 rab Oy ath 381 As you can see this is the same information that is displayed in the Glyph properties panel Font Window Options To change Font window options select the Font Window page in the Application gt Preferences dialog box View Options TI j ia i W Give each cell a caption Caption font Template font W Give empty cells a template glyph image i wi Use FontLab template font to preview template i
139. 6 428 429 430 431 432 435 437 438 440 441 443 444 445 446 447 450 452 10 Opening Metrics Files Saving Metrics Files Printing a Sample String TRANSFORMATIONS The Transform Dialog Box Transformation Actions Outline Transformation Hints and Guidelines Transformation Metrics Transformation Effects Transform Range Dialog Box Transformation Range Transformation Program Using the Preview Window Saving and Opening a Transformation Program Transforming Fonts HINTING Font Scaling PPM Coordinate Rounding Gridfitting TrueType And Type 1 Hints Type 1 Hints Font Level Type 1 Hints Alignment Zones Standard Stem Widths Additional Control Data Stem Hint Programming Type 1 Hinting Tool Inserting And Removing Replacement Points Adding and removing hints Editing Hints Autoreplacing Hinting Preview Panel Some Examples TrueType Instructions Font Parameters Visual TrueType Hints 453 455 456 457 458 461 462 470 472 475 481 482 484 485 486 487 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 501 504 506 509 511 512 513 514 514 519 520 522 523 TrueType Hinting Tool TrueType Toolbar Layers Options Panel TrueType Preview Panel Program Panel Alignment Instructions Alignment Zones AlignTop and AlignBottom Instructions Hinting Alignment Zones Align Instruction Links Standard Stems Single Links Double Links Interpolation Delta Instructions Middle D
140. 6 Ifyou move anchor point currently selected in the Anchors panel with the Edit tool you will see the sample string automatically updated to show the new shapes of the virtual composites The panel contains two buttons to the right of the anchors list Click this button to add a new anchor to the glyph that is open in the Glyph Window When this button is pressed the anchors panel previews text in right to left mode which is needed if you are working with Arabic or Hebrew glyphs 353 Creating Composites and Ligatures To create real composite glyphs from the base and accent glyphs use the Generate glyphs command from the Glyph menu Generate Glyphs Glyph names separated by space or comma c caron A dieresis cA _ Decompose ligatures Mark new glyphs _ Create glyphs even if they already exist vi Replace existing glyphs n E Ea In the dialog box enter the composite name using the simple syntax base glyph name mark glyph name for example C caron A dieresis You may enter more than one name separated by a space or comma With the same dialog box you may create ligature glyphs like fl ffl or others Just enter the name of the ligature using the simple syntax first component name _ second component name _ third component name _ For example f_l f_i c_t 354 99 Check the Decompose ligatures option below the preview field to paste all the components outlines and ma
141. A REAL AE TA T TCT ETAT ERAT TR F Stem name T E az qee i ae Linked pon t 38 In the Program panel a single link command appears as SingleLinkV 12 gt 38 0 1 where 12 is the base point 38 is the linked point 0 is the number of the stem to which this link is connected or ns if it is not connected to the stem and 1 is the type of alignment for aligned links or na for links that are not aligned How the SingleLink Command Works 1 First the original not grid fitted positions of the base point and the linked point are retrieved and the distance between them is measured 2 Ifthe link is connected with a stem the distance is replaced by the prepared stem width for this PPM If the scaled distance is equal to or exceeds 3 pixels it is rounded to the closest integer If the link is not connected to the stem the distance is rounded or not depending on the rounding option of the command 3 The distance of the linked point is set equal to the grid fitted position of the base point shifted by the distance 4 If alink is aligned then the position of the linked point is rounded to the grid according to the align mode stored as the last command parameter Customizing the Single Link Command There are two ways to customize the single link command the context menu and the Program panel To customize a command with the context menu Crri click the round icon in the middle of the link ava
142. AsiaFont Studio 4 for Macintosh User Manual Copyright 1992 2003 by FontLab Ltd All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic mechanical photocopying recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher Any software referred to herein is furnished under license and may only be used or copied in accordance with the terms of such license FontLab FontLab logo ScanFont TypeTool SigMaker AsiaFont Studio FontAudit and VectorPaint are either registered trademarks or trademarks of FontLab Ltd in the United States and or other countries Apple the Apple Logo Mac Mac OS Macintosh and TrueType are trademarks of Apple Computer Inc registered in the United States and other countries Adobe PostScript Type Manager and Illustrator are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated which may be registered in certain jurisdictions Windows Windows 95 Windows 98 Windows XP and Windows NT are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and or other countries IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation Macromedia Fontographer and Freehand are registered trademarks of Macromedia Inc Other brand or product names are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders THIS PUBLICATION AND THE INFORMATIO
143. BlueScale editing method and edit it in the is equal to edit field BlueScale Formulas The actual value of the BlueScale value is calculated as PPM 1 63333 800 0 The BlueFuzz value allows you to expand the action range of the alignment zones in both directions Thus if you have defined a zone like 700 715 and BlueFuzz is equal to 2 then the actual zone used will be 698 717 This is usually used when you are not sure that you correctly set all the alignment zones or when the characters are not all precisely aligned The normal value of this parameter is 0 but by default it is set to 1 It is not recommended to use the BlueFuzz value other than 0 BlueScale TrueType hinting algorithms do not use BlueScale BlueFuzz and BlueShift values 505 Stem Hint Programming Now that you know everything about font level hinting and know how to set and edit stem hints from the Glyph Window chapter It s time to talk about hint programming The Type 1 hinting system requires that stem hints not overlap each other Because stem widths have no length limits and are applied to the whole character sometimes it is necessary to give special instructions to hints in order to avoid such overlaps Overlapped hints In the left picture we have two vertical overlapping hints and in the right picture two pairs of horizontal overlapping hints 506 Each of these hints should however work only on part of the outline
144. Connections Use this action to reset and recalculate the types of connections between outline primitives It is useful after major modification of an outline when you want to review how outline primitives are connected Extremes This command is the equivalent of the Nodes at extremes outline action that was described in the Glyph Window chapter Use it to automatically insert nodes at curves extreme points as is required by the Type 1 specification Remove Overlap This action removes overlapping parts of the glyph s outline It also sets the direction of all the contours to counterclockwise as it required by the Type 1 specification Use this transformation as the final step to prepare glyph outlines for hinting Several examples of this transformation a T ES Make Master This transformation takes three known masters of a four master Multiple Master font and calculates the fourth master It uses a simple algorithm of linear extrapolation so the results are not usually precise But they may give important information about the proportions of the fourth master so you can get a close approximation of what the fourth master should look like 467 Optimize Auto alignment level Process normally HH With the Optimize action AsiaFont Studio tries to automatically adjust the outline to remove unnecessary elements and correct others With the action options you can control the optimization process Outline Cont
145. D lookup reference Since the labeled block literally defines a single lookup in the font the rules within the lookup block must be of the same lookup type and have the same lookupflag attribute The lookup block must be specified within a feature block and may not contain any other kind of block OpenType and AsiaFont Studio Implementation of OpenType features in AsiaFont Studio is based on the technologies provided by Adobe one of the two inventors and key supporters of the format OpenType support may be separated into three stages 1 Importing OpenType fonts and reading the features In this stage AsiaFont Studio tries to convert binary representation of the features into feature definition file format 2 Editing the features and previewing the results AsiaFont Studio provides a feature editor that is integrated into the AsiaFont Studio user interface and a preview panel that can show how features work without actually exporting and installing the font file 3 Feature compilation and export At this stage an Adobe library is used to convert feature definitions into binary form and build the OpenType font files 661 662 Importing OpenType Fonts There is nothing special about importing OpenType fonts use the File gt Open command to open files with ttf extension which mean TrueType flavored OpenType font or otf extension CFF flavored version of the format To read OpenType features make sure that this optio
146. D Edit mode The main mode used to move everything in the glyph from a guidelines to nodes to glyph margins A Sketch mode Used to draw new outlines VectorPaint A set of tools used to create new glyphs or modify existing mode glyphs Meter mode Used to measure contours These modes are represented by the first four buttons in the Tools toolbar which can be switched on and off in the View gt Toolbars menu Other modes include TrueType and Type 1 hinting and eight additional operations Transform Scales rotates or skews the selected portion of the Selection outline ae ra Ag ey Se a za a Se a A ae ae a a s m E a a ET ae oom ee Reverse contours Reverses the contour s direction a Set startpoints Changes the starting points of contours and rearranges contours Type 1 hinting Type 1 hinting TrueType hinting Manual TrueType hinting 233 234 These buttons are available in the Tools toolbar and separately in the Operations toolbar which can be switched on and off in the View gt Toolbars menu When the Glyph Window is switched to one of these modes you may see additional toolbars panels and dialogs They are shown and hidden automatically depending on the mode and most of them hide when the Glyph Window is deactivated Use the buttons on the Tools toolbar or keyboard shortcuts to switch modes The four most important modes are OPTION 1 Edit mode OPTION 4 Meter mode Edit Mode The
147. DFLT lookups of the current script are automatically included into the language system specified by the current script and language attributes If b is not desired as may occasionally be the case then the keyword excludeDFLT must follow the language tag For example language DEU excludeDFLT The keyword includeDFLT may be used to explicitly indicate the default DFLT lookup inheriting behavior For example language DEU includeDFLT Sameas language DEU 657 658 lookupflag The chapter Common Table Formats in the OpenType Font File Specification describes the LookupFlag field in the Lookup table The lookupflag attribute defaults to 0 at the start of a feature block The lookupflag attribute stays the same until explicitly changed until a lookup reference statement is encountered that changes it until the script is changed or until the end of the feature To change the lookupflag attribute explicitly use the lookupflag statement which takes two formats lookupflag format A lookupflag lt named lookupflag value gt lt named lookupflag value gt Here the individual lookup flag values to be set are expressed in a comma separated list of one or more lt named lookupflag value gt s in no particular order A lt named lookupflag value gt is one of the following RightToLeft IgnoreBaseGlyphs IgnoreLigatures IgnoreMarks At most one of each of the above 5 kinds of lt named lookupflag value gt may
148. Edit mode is the most important mode in AsiaFont Studio In this mode you can modify the contents of all the editing layers All operations performed with the edit tool can be undone with the Undo command of the Edit menu or just by clicking the Undo button on the toolbar at the top of the Glyph Window You can undo up to 200 operations All undone operations can be redone with the Redo command of the Edit menu or with the Redo button on the toolbar In Edit mode you can use eleven different Edit Tools You can easily choose one of the tools using the Glyph toolbox 1 Edit Main tool used to drag objects on the editing layers J and perform other operations In the following chapters we will assume that this tool is active in the Edit mode Eraser This tool is used to quickly remove unnecessary nodes Knife Tool to insert nodes and break outlines Magic Wand Tool to quickly select contours just click anywhere near the contour and it is selected Add Corner Tools to create new contours or insert nodes Add Curve Add Tangent Bezier Drawing Tool to draw the contour with the Bezier curves Rotate Tools to quickly transform outlines Slant Scale 235 236 The Glyph toolbox is available if you enter the Edit mode If you don t want it to appear use this option on the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box Do not show Glyph toolbox and VectorPaint toolbar When this option is activ
149. Feature Definition Language Language Syntax OpenType and AsiaFont Studio Importing OpenType Fonts OpenType Panels OpenType Panel Adding and Removing Features Reordering Features Entering the Glyph and Class Names Renaming Glyphs and Classes Compiling the Feature Definitions The Output Panel OpenType Features Preview Panel Converting the Kerning 595 596 598 600 603 606 607 608 609 610 612 614 617 618 628 629 630 631 633 636 637 638 639 641 642 644 645 646 648 649 650 661 662 663 663 665 666 667 668 671 672 674 Feature Development Process Substitution Lookups Single Substitution Ligature Substitution Alternate Substitution Context Dependent Substitutions Positioning Lookups Glyph Geometry Value Record Single Positioning Pair Positioning Known Features OpenType Glyph Properties Caret Positioning Exporting OpenType Fonts AsiaFont Studio and VOLT MACRO PROGRAMMING The Python Programming Language Installing Python Macro Toolbar Assign to Keyboard Integrating into Menus Macro Tool Edit Macro Panel Naming the Programs First Steps AsiaFont Studio Python Classes FontLab Font Glyph INDEX 675 676 677 679 682 686 687 689 690 693 697 698 699 701 703 704 705 706 708 709 710 711 712 713 715 716 718 720 723 13 Introduction Thank you for purchasing AsiaFont Studio 4 our font editor especial
150. Font window In order to simplify working with Unicode ranges in AsiaFont Studio all the official ranges in the Unicode standard are subdivided into subranges You can work with the whole range or select one of the subranges For example you can select the whole Cyrillic range that includes all currently used and historic Cyrillic characters or you can select just the historic letters or only the Russian alphabet 79 80 To select a range in the Font Window 1 Switch the Font Window to the Unicode Ranges mode by clicking the Ranges button or selecting Unicode ranges in the Mode popup menu in the Font window footer 2 The encoding selection popup menu will show the names of all available Unicode ranges and subranges CO Controls and Basic Latin ASCII i C1 Controls and Latin 1 Supplement ISO 8859 1 aka Latin1 Latin Extended A European Latin Latin Extended B Latin extended B Croatian digraphs matching Serbian Cyrillic letters Pinyin diacritic vowel combinations Additions IPA Extensions IPA extensions Spacing Modifier Letters Phonetic modifiers derived from Latin letters Miscellaneous phonetic modifiers Range names are aligned to the left of the list box and the subranges names are indented to the right 3 Select the range or subrange that you want to work with and you will see the Font Window change so that only characters from the selected range are in the yellow encoded area The definition
151. Ion click inserts a point Crri click when a point is being moved removes the point Click on the button to reset any changes and return the graph to the linear state 616 Previewing the Intermediate Design You can use the Preview panel to preview an intermediate design of a MM font in high quality mode Use the Window gt Preview panel command to open the panel Preview OpenType Features Preview Anchors mamago O CE hamburgevo Please refer to page 277 in the Glyph Window chapter for more information about the Preview panel 617 618 Designing Master Fonts In AsiaFont Studio you can make a Multiple Master font by raising it from a single master font by adding an axis When you have a one axis MM font you can add another axis and so on BES There is an automatic way in AsiaFont Studio to take two fonts and make a MM font from them using one as the first master and another as the second master This approach has pros and cons On one hand this process is fast and convenient On the other hand you sometimes can get an improperly made MM font There is a chance that one of the font s characters has not been converted according to MM rules We have however included several special features in AsiaFont Studio that can help you make MM fonts from different fonts Using the Blend Feature to Build MM Fonts If you have two single master fonts and want to build a Multiple Maste
152. Master for which you want to set dimensions Set dimensions for the master vf WtO WdO HA Wtl Wd Ascender 710 Desce CT S Su maitas Wt1 Wdl E Caps height 638 X hegae pem Alignment Zones and Stems Each master has its own set of alignment zones standard stems and other font level hinting information Use the master selection list to choose the master whose alignment setting you want to change Note that when you add new alignment zones they will appear in all masters so always check all the masters to be sure that the alignment information is set properly Panose Identification Enter settings in the Panose fields Weight or Width if your font has Weight or Width axes respectively 631 632 Codepages No changes TrueType TrueType fonts cannot be Multiple Master so no changes on this page WeightVector This page appears only if you are editing the Font Info of a MM font Use the sliders below the preview window to choose the default Weight Vector of the font Default WeightVector Multiple Master fonts only ania Weight x 267 Width x 585 moun ff m T Get position from the Vector panel Primary instances Press the Primary Instances button to define more default instances for the font Editing the Axis Graph You can edit an axis graph for every axis defined in a MM font As we said before the axis graph is used to set the dynamic range of the axis so it is always necessary to adjust
153. N HEREIN IS FURNISHED AS IS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE AND SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED AS A COMMITMENT BY FONTLAB LTD FONTLAB LTD ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY FOR ANY ERRORS OR INACCURACIES MAKES NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND EXPRESS IMPLIED OR STATUTORY WITH RESPECT TO THIS PUBLICATION AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY FITNESS FOR PARTICULAR PURPOSES AND NONINFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS User manual release 4 0 08 2003 Contents CONTENTS INTRODUCTION About this Manual System Requirements ASIAFONT STUDIO USER INTERFACE Basic Terms Getting Started Customizing AFS User Interface Customization of the Keyboard Links to External Programs AsiaFont Studio Windows Font Window Glyph Window Metrics Window Panels EDITING FONTS Opening Fonts Font Formats Import Options Importing CID fonts Importing Font Collection Creating a New Font Font Window Encoding Modes Characters Codes and Glyphs Names Mode The Unicode Standard Unicode Ranges Codepages 15 16 18 19 20 24 27 30 32 33 39 43 Using the Font Window Navigating Selecting Context Menu Moving Glyphs Saving the Font Autosave Copying and Pasting Glyphs The Paste Special Command Copying Glyphs to Another Font Appending Glyphs to the Font Copying Composite Glyphs Duplicating Unicode Indexes Deleting Glyphs Creating New Glyphs Highlighting Glyphs Marking Glyphs Glyph Co
154. Note that Arabic text is written right to left Please note that it is the application or the operating system that detects word boundaries and applies one of the features You are not expected to pay attention to that in the feature definition Usually these features are simple substitutions feature init sub isolated_forms by initial_forms yinit 693 Latin Features cpsp Capital Spacing Globally adjusts inter glyph spacing for all capital text feature cpsp pos uppercase lt 7 0 14 0 gt 3 CPSP pnum Proportional Replaces figure glyphs set on uniform tabular widths Figures with corresponding glyphs set on glyph specific proportional widths feature pnum sub figures by figures_prop pnum Inum Lining Figures This feature changes selected figures from oldstyle to the default lining form hist Historical Forms Replaces glyphs with their historical forms like long form of s or Fraktur form of k feature hist sub s by longs hist ordn Ordinals Replaces default alphabetic glyphs with the corresponding ordinal forms for use after figures smcp Small Capitals This feature replaces lowercase characters with small capitals sinf Scientific Replaces lining or oldstyle figures with inferior figures Inferiors smaller glyphs which sit lower than the standard baseline primarily for chemical or mathematical notation ornm Ornaments This feature lets the user access ornament glyphs in the font 69
155. O Right Both _ Remove the original Generate closed contour Contour offset vi Uniform E X b man a Select the options relative position of the path and the offset and click OK to generate new path Check the Remove the original check box to remove the contour you clicked and keep only the generated parallel contour 274 Node Properties Cmp click the node or Crri click and choose the Properties command in the menu Contour be Properties Macro gt You will see the Node properties panel 0 Node Properties Straight line 11 16 1 In this properties panel you can control the position of the node the alignment type the selection status of the node and the position of the control points of the curves The figures in the first line are the index of the primitive the node index and the contour s number 275 276 To change the position of a node 1 Select the origin point you want to use and set the coordinates of the node By default the origin is the glyph s origin point 4 With the i aa ee l buttons you can select the previous or next node as the origin point 2 Modify the coordinates of the node in the edit boxes You can use the spin buttons to increase or decrease the coordinates The new coordinates will be applied to the node when you press the ENTER key on the keyboard or move the focus from one edit control to another or when you close the property pane
156. PFM make AFM auto encoding TT OTF options hinted keep autohint visual export Unicode Check the export options in the dialog and press the Save button to export the font or Cancel to return back to font editing 137 138 Exporting for Macintosh As far as Mac OS X now supports PC TrueType and OpenType fonts you may choose these formats available in the Generate Font dialog box described in the previous section We will describe here the font suitcase generating procedure Font Suitcases On the Macintosh fonts that belong to a font family are physically combined into a single file called a font suitcase The suitcase contains information about the font family in general and refers to the records that describe the fonts style encoding metrics and kerning information and some other data that is necessary for the Mac OS to use the font Suitcases in Mac OS X are stored in a data fork of a file and usually have dfont extension When Type 1 fonts are used on Macintosh files that contain actual Type 1 font definition data are stored in a separate file that is referenced from the font suitcase AsiaFont Studio has a special dialog to compose and export Macintosh suitcases the Export Macintosh Suitcase dialog You can group several open fonts to collect them in a new destination suitcase or to add them to an existing one To build a proper suitcase one must fill in the fonts Font Info fields properly descr
157. Panel Primitives Panel You will see a panel with two pages Collection and Classes We will discuss glyph classes later so activate the Collection page now 6 8 Collection Classes H raa era tg In the top of the panel you will see a small toolbar besser ar er kj and a list of glyphs below it To add a glyph to the collection select it in the Font window and drag it to the Collection panel s glyph list The list works in Report mode by default and has several columns Name Glyph icon and name To switch the list to a different mode use this button 4 on the toolbar and select one of the modes in the menu Large Icons List w Details Other buttons on the toolbar mean IP Reset collection Removes all glyphs from a collection Select collection Selects glyphs in the Font window that are selected in the glyph list in the Collection panel iv Mark collection Marks glyphs that are selected in the list in red x Remove glyph Removes the selected glyphs in the list from the collection e Add component Adds the glyph selected in the collection to the current glyph window as a component 107 108 Using the Collection Panel You can drag drop glyphs selected in the Collection s list to the Glyph window the first glyph will be selected for editing and to other AsiaFont Studio panels If you double click a glyph icon in the Collection s list you will see a ne
158. Primary zones Secondary zones 20 0 281 272 Auto zones 410 414 417 435 450 462 666 683 708 723 20 0 281 272 There are two list boxes where alignment zones can be set the Primary zones list and the Secondary zones list In Type 1 terminology primary zones are called Blue Values and secondary zones OtherBlues BlueValues include one bottom alignment zone the so called baseline zone and up to 6 top alignment zones The baseline zone is used to control bottom overshoots that have to be aligned to the baseline OtherBlues includes up to 5 bottom alignment zones To add a new alignment zone press the Add button below the list To edit the position of the zone select the zone you want to edit in the list and edit it in the edit fields below the list To remove an alignment zone select the zone you want to remove from the list and press the Del button below that list You can see a preview of the zones by switching on the Alignment Zones layer in the Glyph Window and pressing the Apply button in the FontInfo dialog box You will see the alignment zones in the Glyph Window in light blue Press the Auto zones button to automatically calculate alignment zones in the Primary zones list box How AsiaFont Studio Calculates Alignment Zones To calculate alignment zones in the BlueValues list AsiaFont Studio finds characters with overshoots and characters that are flat in the position of the
159. Replace 509 Hints amp Guides 340 Lock Layers 239 Macro 706 Mark 105 Metrics Window 40 413 OpenType Panel 664 Operations 234 382 Outlines 307 Panels 43 Show Layers 239 Sketch 360 Standard 33 287 Stem Control 564 Templates 325 331 334 Tools 233 234 TrueType 525 526 VectorPaint 368 touched points 520 Tracking Guidelines 323 Tracking Hints 339 Transform 290 Range 481 Transformation Panel 297 Transformation Program 484 486 Transformations 457 TrueType 15 49 52 135 137 185 186 410 455 TrueType Collection 63 TrueType curves 245 TrueType hinting 15 TrueType Hinting Tool 524 575 TrueType Hints Visual 523 TrueType instructions 57 154 520 TTC 49 52 63 TTF 49 52 Type 1 15 49 135 137 185 186 336 410 455 format 21 Type 1 curves 245 Type 1 Hinting Tool 509 638 Type 1 Hints 495 Type Manager 186 Typo Ascender 196 Typo Descender 196 Typo Line Gap 196 U Underline 419 Unicode 55 71 78 155 156 417 Codepages 82 Consortium 78 duplicating 101 generate 116 indexes 116 117 ranges 79 remove 119 Unicode Ranges 79 202 Unicode Ranges mode 73 Unique ID 186 UPM 192 240 V Value Record 688 VDMX 214 VectorPaint 15 233 368 374 Brush 369 372 Contour 369 371 Ellipse 369 377 Line 369 375 options 372 Pen 369 Polygon 369 376 Rectangle 369 377 Select 369 370 Text 369 378 VectorPain
160. Right to Left 418 rotate 292 465 Rulers 37 226 S Sample String navigating 416 save current encoding 68 Scale 464 Script 656 Scripts 645 Searching 109 selection scale 292 selection move 292 properties panel 296 rotate 292 skew 292 slant 293 Set Sidebearings 473 Set Width 472 Shadow 478 Shift 463 Show Connection mode 250 729 730 Control vectors 250 Show Nodes 250 Single Link 544 586 Single Positioning 689 Single Substitution 677 Single Master Font 636 Sketch mode 233 359 slant 293 320 465 Slant angle 193 Small caps 642 Smooth 166 Snap 236 306 Sorting 124 splines 56 Standard Stem Widths 501 Standard Stems 206 543 Rounding 563 Star 401 Sstartpoint 244 Style 602 Style Name 176 Subscript 198 Subset Font 60 Subtable Breaks 692 suitcase 49 52 135 138 139 201 supercurve 246 Superscript 198 Symbol 75 T Tech Note 5014 59 5092 16 59 template 164 237 331 Terminal 152 TIFF 332 Tool Add corner 235 Add curve 235 Add tangent 235 Bezier curves 235 268 Edit 235 Edit 236 263 Eraser 235 265 362 freehand select 370 Knife 235 264 266 271 Magic Wand 235 285 365 Meter 233 379 Python 710 TrueType hinting 216 524 575 Type 1 Hinting 509 638 VectorPaint 368 Zoom 230 Toolbar 24 25 Classes Panel 442 Edit 229 236 Export Suitcase 140 Font Map 120 Fonts Panel 127 Glyph Window 224 Hint
161. Script printer To build a Multiple Master Type 1 font for Macintosh choose the File gt Generate Mac Suitcase command and refer to Exporting for Macintosh section 639 OpenType Fonts In this chapter we will discuss working with the OpenType fonts The OpenType font format jointly developed by Microsoft and Adobe allows us to combine the best features of the TrueType and Type 1 font formats For the end user there is little difference between OpenType and TrueType fonts both are stored in a single font file both are Unicode encoded and Windows and Mac OS directly support both The real difference is the support of font features that is provided by the OpenType font format Font features which can be script and language dependent can define behaviors of the font which allow better typographic layout and precise support of complex scripts For detailed OpenType specification and other documents please refer to this page http www microsoft com typography otspec default htm A good document covering OpenType glyph processing is http www microsoft com typography developers opentype default htm 642 Font Features The most important thing about OpenType technology is its ability to define font features rules that change the standard behavior of the font Here are a few examples of such features source text is on top Effluent EFFLUENT Small caps Effluent Effluent Ligature 12345 12345
162. SnapV Parameters From the Type 1 font specification you may know that in Type 1 fonts two types of standard stem widths are used Standard Width and Stem Snap Width There is one standard width for each direction and up to 10 stem snap values In AsiaFont Studio these values are united in the stem list StdHW and StdVW are taken from the first records in the stem lists StemSnapH and StemSnapV records are the remaining records in the stems list Standard stem widths are also used in TrueType hinting AsiaFont Studio also has a faster way to append stems to the list of standard stem widths Any vertical or horizontal hint may be used as a source of stem width information Just point the Edit tool at the hint CTRL Click and select the Define a Stem command in the popup menu If this command is not accessible it means that this stem is already in the list To automatically calculate standard stem widths press the _ Auto stems _ button How AsiaFont Studio Calculates Standard Stems AsiaFont Studio can calculate standard stem widths only if some characters in the font have Type 1 hints so it converts links to hints first in memory using the most important glyphs in the font 1 It builds a table of all hints that are used in the font sorts this table by frequency of usage and selects the most frequently used hints 2 All selected hints are then compared with these most frequently occurring stem widths and hints with widths that are clo
163. The left popup menu located on the Font Window header area Unicode Index Width Decimal Hex Octal ANSI Macro lets you select one of the caption modes None The caption is not shown Hex The Character code as hexadecimal number Octal The Character code as octal number ANSI The ANSI character that corresponds to the character code Macro The appearance of the caption depends on the special macro program By default this option shows the number of components in composite characters The characters cells may have a gray or white background and a gray or yellow caption A gray cell means that there is no character defined for this place in the font I e the character does not exist in this font Instead of the character a sample template character from one of the system fonts or from the AsiaFont Studio template font is shown in the empty cell Oode You can select a font for the templates or switch off the templates using the Font Window page in the AsiaFont Studio Preferences dialog box ror if k M Give empty cells a template glyph image _ Template font vi Use FontLab template font to preview template images Use template image as a bitmap layer when creating new glyphs A yellow frame and caption in a character s cell means that this character is in the currently selected encoding codepage or Unicode range see next section Characters that are not in the current encoding have a gray caption and no yell
164. Type Export options Please note that the operating system will display embedded bitmaps only when a font is rendered in black white mode If font smoothing is activated in the system and allowed for the point size in the font bitmaps will not appear 583 584 Hinting Strategies This section will give some examples of visual hinting strategies that are applicable in different situations Middle Delta or Final Delta The final delta command is the very last command of the instruction sequence This command moves only the point to which it is attached and only on PPMs for which it is set We recommend using this command in situations where only one pixel needs to be switched on or off Final delta instructon The middle delta instruction is much more flexible You can use it to slightly modify the interpretation of the hinting program because it is automatically inserted between commands and is interpreted after the command that sets the position of a point and before any command that uses that position as a basis like link and interpolation instructions But even if the middle delta command is set on an untouched point it is applied to the point before final interpolation of the untouched points This point becomes touched after interpretation of the middle delta command so the position of other untouched points will be changed proportionally to the shift of that point Middk delta instructons We recommend using t
165. Type fonts as the main character identification method In principle TrueType fonts may be encoded with other standards but in Windows Unicode is always used Until version 8 5 the Mac OS had very limited support for Unicode Only the first 256 characters in the font could be encoded which made Unicode unusable Since version 8 5 the Mac OS fully supports Unicode fonts in applications that need this support The Macintosh version of AsiaFont Studio has special TrueType export options that make possible the creation of Mac fonts that will work on both old and new operating systems We will talk about this later when we discuss TrueType exporting options which are slightly different on Windows and Macintosh We recommend visiting the Unicode Consortium official Web site at http www unicode org to get more information about this standard Unicode Ranges In Unicode the standard character space indexes 0 65 535 is divided into ranges Each range typically covers characters that belong to one alphabet or have common properties like the Cyrillic range or the Hebrew or the Extended Latin Ranges may be of various lengths from a few characters to several thousand characters in the case of Kanji characters In AsiaFont Studio you can select any Unicode range and view your font as organized by the range All characters with Unicode indexes in the selected range will be arranged in order in the yellow zone at the top of the
166. Type processing module which then applies the font features in a pre defined sequence The list of the features to apply is determined by the application for example in Adobe InDesign you can explicitly select features to apply or operating system e g the rendering of Arabic text with an OpenType font 3 The resulting sequence of glyphs is passed to the second stage of feature processing which can shift the positions of glyphs Kerning is applied at this stage 4 The sequence of glyphs accompanied by the positioning information is passed to the rasterizer which does the imaging of the features on the destination device screen or printer 643 644 Features and Lookups Every feature consists of one or more lookups A Lookup is an elementary procedure performed on a glyph sequence or positioning data For instance replace the sequence of f and T with the fl ligature glyph is a lookup A combination of similar lookups forms a feature The sequence of lookups is important They are applied in the order they are defined The sequence of features is also important but the application or operating system may make changes in the feature preference By default all features and lookups are defined for the default language of the Latin script Scripts and Languages The second great OpenType feature is support for multiple scripts and languages With an OpenType font you can define different behaviors of the font whe
167. Use the Open button to open any text file and use it as a glyph list and the Save button to save the current glyph list in a text file Note that if you open the Transform Range dialog box while the Metrics window is active the glyph list will be copied from the Metrics window s sample string and the All characters in the characters list option will be automatically selected so you can instantly apply transformations to the set of glyphs that are previewed in the Metrics window 483 484 Transformation Program In the middle of the dialog box there are two list boxes Available actions Program Contour sam Rotate 15 00 CW Z p Hints and Guidelines Metrics te Effects i i E x The left list box called Available actions includes the names of all available transformation actions The actions are grouped in categories for easier selection The right list box previews the current transformation program You may add as many actions as you want to the transformations program delete actions from the program or rearrange actions to make them execute in proper sequence To add an action to the transformations program select the action use the and 7 icons in the Actions list to expand and collapse the action categories and press the button Or double click an action name The action will be added to the bottom of the program with its default parameters To adjust an action s parameters select t
168. Using the 8 9 and 0 keys on the keyboard you may choose the type of the next segment to add Click 8 to append a line 9 to append a smooth curve and 0 to append a sharp curve Repeat steps 3 and 4 for all points of the polygon CTrL click the mouse button to finish creating the polygon The Brush Trace mode of the polygon tool works just like the normal contour mode Ellipse and Rectangle Tools The Ellipse and Rectangle tools are very similar The only difference is in the result To draw an ellipse or rectangle 1 Select the tool that you want to use O or 2 Position the mouse cursor on the spot where you want to place one of the rectangle corners or on one of the corners of the rectangle that surrounds the ellipse 3 Press the mouse button and drag the mouse to define the rectangle or ellipse 4 Hold down the Suirr key to constrain the direction of the rectangle s diagonal to 15 degree increments 5 Release the button to finish creating the rectangle ellipse 377 378 Text Tool With the Text tool you can add text to a glyph Carefully select the color mode when planning to use the text tool It is usually best to use the Empty color because in that mode the text stroke will not interact with the existing contour and you will be able to adjust its position using the Edit tool or Transform operation Select the Automatic Activation of Transform Operation o
169. WinAscent value from the OS 2 table to define the topmost position of all important glyphs Descender hhea In short the Macintosh version of the Windows WinDescent parameter If there are any pixels below this line the glyph will be squashed in the vertical direction to match metrics defined by the Ascender and Descender parameters Line Gap hhea This value is used by the Mac OS to compensate Ascender and Descender values and calculate the correct distance between baselines of the text Refer to the formulas below to see how baseline to baseline distance is calculated 196 Baseline to baseline distance calculation Windows Windows Metric OpenType Metric ascent WinAscent external leading MAX 0 LineGap WinAscent WinDescent Ascender Descender BTBD ascent descent external leading It should be clear that the external leading can never be less than zero Pixels above the ascent or below the descent will be clipped from the character this is true for all output devices Macintosh Macintosh Metric OpenType Metric ascender Ascender descender Descender leading LineGap BTBD ascender descender leading 197 198 Superscript and Subscript Superscript and subscript positions ik X pos Y pos X size YY size Subscript 0 iS 650 600 Superscript 0 330 650 600 TrueType and OpenType font format allows you to specify position and size of the supers
170. You can replace Glyph with the name of any class mentioned above to get a description of its members and operations Here are some examples Marking all glyphs with a different color depending on the number of components Non composite glyphs are not marked Glyphs that have exactly 2 components are marked green and glyphs that have some other number of components or have outline and components are marked red for g in fl font glyphs for every glyph in the current font c_len len g components store the number of components length of the components array n_len len g store the number of nodes length of the nodes array if c_len 0 if number of components is 0 g mark 0 unmark the glyph elif c_len 2 and n_len 0 if number of components is 2 and number of nodes is 0 g mark 100 Mark the glyph with green else if all conditions above are false g mark 1 Mark the glyph with red fl UpdateFont finally update the font so the Font window will refresh Selecting all glyphs that have no outline or components fl Unselect for g in fl font if len g 0 and len g components fl Select g index First thing we do is deselect the font It is faster to deselect all glyphs at once than to change the selection of all glyphs In our example we are selecting only those glyphs that comply with the condition Please refer to our website www fontlab com for more examples and information about macro programs Y
171. You can select any stem just as you would in normal vertical list controls side of the stems list To edit a standard stem width select it using the mouse button and edit its value in the edit field to the right of the list _ To remove a stem from the list select it and press the button Note that AsiaFont Studio will sort stem widths starting from the second in ascending order when you close the Font Info dialog box ForceBold when this option is switched on Type 1 rendering algorithm makes the font looking bold The quick brown fox ForceBold is OFF The quick brown fox ForceBold is OM StdHW StdVW StemSnapH and StemSnapV Parameters From the Type 1 font specification you may know that in Type 1 fonts two types of standard stem widths are used Standard Width and Stem Snap Width There is one standard width for each direction and up to 10 stem snap values In AsiaFont Studio these values are united in the stem list StdHW and StdVW are taken from the first records in the stem lists StemSnapH and StemSnapV records are the remaining records in the stems list AsiaFont Studio also has a faster way to append stems to the list of standard stem widths Any vertical or horizontal hint may be used as a source of stem width information Just point the Edit tool at the hint CTRL Click mouse button and select the Define a Stem command in the popup menu If this command is not accessible it means that this stem is alr
172. a VectorPaint toolbar will appear where you can select one of the VectorPaint sub tools If the Do not open Glyph toolbox and VectorPaint toolbar option is selected on the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog then the VectorPaint toolbar will not appear You should use the Edit toolbar which contains a subset of painting tools in this case The type of interaction between existing and new contours depends on the selected color mode This process is very fast and is completely transparent to you so if you switch on the preview mode where the glyph appears filled the illusion of bitmap like editing of a contour based glyph image is very realistic All the tools can work in 4 different color modes E Transparent Newly created vector objects that are generated by the application of VectorPaint tools do not interact with the existing glyph s contour and appear selected for easy editing I Automatic The color of the brush depends on the point where you begin drawing If you begin in a white area a white brush will be selected if in black a black brush will be selected Use this color mode to easily extend white or black areas of the glyph LI Black Generated contours are added to existing contours expanding the black area of the glyph It looks like a black brush applied to a black picture New contours are subtracted from existing contours simulating a white brush or eraser Here is an example of a
173. a device with a specific resolution we take the resolution and point size to calculate the PPM value Then we scale all the outline characters by multiplying by the PPM UPM coefficient Coordinate Rounding Gridfitting Output devices take the vector outline of a glyph and rasterize it That is they calculate from the outline data where they need to place each pixel to get an accurate output representation of the glyph Since the final output is on a discrete raster i e a grid of numbered pixels the scaled pixel coordinates need to be rounded somehow to integer values For example if you have an outline point with coordinates 120 100 and scale it down 7 times you will get the coordinates 17 1429 14 2857 After rounding to the closest integer values the resulting coordinates will be 17 14 and so the rounding error will be 0 1429 0 84 pixels for the horizontal coordinate and 0 2857 2 for the vertical coordinate If we instead scale this point down 13 times then the scaling errors will be 2 5 for the vertical coordinate and 3 8 for the horizontal coordinate You can see that the rounding error increases as the size of the final outline is reduced gt lt 4 _ Rounding error To minimize rounding errors font rasterizers use special algorithms that slightly change the scaled outlines to get better results on devices with low and medium resolution This process is called
174. a particular format select that format in the popup menu located in the center of the Open dialog box All Font Files Mac Suitcase Mac Type 1 FontLab FontLab 2 5 PC Type 1 PC TrueType PC TrueType Collection OpenType CiID keyed Fonts FontLab Workspace When you select a font file in the files area you will see the font name in the bottom of the dialog box You can open multiple fonts with a single operation just select them in the list with Suirr click or Cmp click The current import options appear below the font name field You can set the options here by clicking the Options button We will discuss the import options in full in one of the next sections To open fonts installed in Mac OS you are better off copying the font files into some other directory and then opening them in AsiaFont Studio from that directory Or you can simply drag drop the font files from the Finder window into AsiaFont Studio Most Recently Used Fonts All fonts that you recently opened in AsiaFont Studio are added to the bottom of the File menu Page Setup Print FP SignaCorr dfont Georgia otf FOODLTTF Arial Caslon otf Next time you want them just select the font file in the File menu and AsiaFont Studio will open it Opening Fonts with Drag Drop The easiest way to open fonts in AsiaFont Studio is to drag drop font files from Finder Even if AsiaFont Studio is not running you can drag drop files onto its icon on t
175. ac OS 9 1 or later classic operating system v 9 2 2 is recommended with CarbonLib 1 6 or later or Mac OS X 10 1 or later v 10 2 is recommended At least 14Mb of free space on the HDD and at least 64 Mb RAM AsiaFont Studio will start on 32Mb RAM but you will need more RAM to open bigger fonts AsiaFont Studio User Interface Before we start talking about fonts and the AsiaFont Studio font editing features let s spend some time learning the AsiaFont Studio user interface For the most part it is a standard Macintosh interface so if you know how to navigate in Mac OS you will feel comfortable with AsiaFont Studio In other parts it is unique and that is where we will focus Some of the interface elements in AsiaFont Studio 4 are completely customizable and from this chapter you will learn how to change the AsiaFont Studio interface so it will best fit your needs Please note that further in the book we will refer to menu commands toolbar buttons and keyboard shortcuts as they appear in the default AsiaFont Studio environment under Mac OS X v 10 2 prior to any modifications you may make All screenshots for the book illustration were also made under Mac OS X v 10 2 20 Basic Terms We cannot go any further without defining a few terms that are critical to understanding AsiaFont Studio and fonts in general Character The minimal unit of the written language a part of the alphabet a symbol Any picture that can be reco
176. acters like the Roman group the Numerals group the Ideograph group and so on It is very logical to keep the characters that belong to one group in one data structure called the subset font So the structure of a composite font is CID composite font lt q Composite font Subset font 1 Subset font 2 Subset fontN lt Subset fonts Characters lt q Characters level From the point of view of a composite font user for example in a word processor application the composite font is a collection of characters From the point of view of the composite font s designer the font is a collection of subset fonts that make up a collection of characters In a composite font each character needs two forms of identification an index in the subset font and an index in the complete collection of characters The latter index is called the character identifier CID As you can see from the name of the CID font format it is a format for fonts that are collections of characters with assigned identifiers CID Font Import When you select a PC CID font or Mac suitcase containing Mac CID font for open you are presented with a special CID Font Import dialog box CID Font Import CID font information You are importing CID font KozMin Heavy from file Macintosh HD Users alex Desktop AFS Test Fonts Mac CID KozMin Heavy It contains 6 20 glyphs in 3 fonts Total size of data block is 4656040 Select subset fonts to import vi KozMin
177. actually present in the composite glyph but are copied from and linked to some other character Thus whenever the original component contour is changed all the composite glyphs that copy the component also change The contour of composite components appears in dashed lines in the glyph window Composites have the advantage of allowing the user to create only one instance of a component that is frequently found in a font and reusing it without having to redraw it each time Further if the design of the component changes it need only be altered once in the original component And finally a composite takes up less room in the font than an outline allowing for smaller font files There are three operations related to composite glyphs adding a component to glyphs decomposing a component and positioning a component Adding a Component To add a component to a glyph currently open in the Glyph Window select the Add Component command from the Glyph menu You will see a dialog box that looks just like a Get Glyph dialog box Select a Component Glyph Name H begins with H ci circumflex 0206 The difference is that only those glyphs that can be used as component glyphs will appear Of course a glyph cannot be a component for itself A composite glyph can be used as a component glyph It is automatically converted to source components Another difference is that you can set the position by entering its x horizonta
178. al difference between digits uppercase and lowercase characters If you want to use this information internally in macros we recommend you use glyph classes described in the OpenType Fonts chapter but if you only want to have visual differentiation marking is OK 24 0025 OO 5 0027 i 002 faudoodannadAnnn C D E jm ie Joi JA met SIE Jee To oes a 71 0073 c TF E sae 0075 di DTE o FC jo IFTE o 7 OOFF al CUI To mark the glyphs select them in the Font window Crri click and select the marking color in the Mark submenu of the context menu More p Sort Glyphs p Red Edit in new window Green Edit metrics Magenta i Cyan Properties S Macro p r To remove marking select the marked glyphs CrrL click and select None in the Mark menu To simplify repetitive marking operations you can make the Mark toolbar visible by selecting it in the View gt Toolbars submenu BO0O0E 105 106 Glyph Collection Another method of differentiating glyphs is to put them into a glyph collection A glyph collection is a simple list of the glyph indexes visually represented in a special panel To begin working with the glyph collection open the Collection Classes panel using the command from the Window menu EUA New Edit Window New Metrics Window wM Editing Layers Panel Transformation Panel Edit Macro Panel OpenType Panel Output Panel Preview Panel Fonts Panel Font Map
179. alignment of text Caps Height The Ascender line defines the position of the top of lowercase characters usually the topmost point of the Latin b The Descender line defines the position of the bottom of the lowercase characters usually the bottom point of p The Caps height defines the height of the uppercase characters without overshoot usually it is the height of H The x Height is the height of most lowercase characters like x or v In AsiaFont Studio you can modify the vertical metrics values in the Font Info dialog box but you can also preview and change them visually in the Glyph Window Make sure that the Vertical metrics layer EJ is active and not locked In the Editing field vertical metrics appear as gray lines with a label at the left fa Ascender EB Descender Caps height lx x Height To change a metric just drag its line with the Edit tool To change the color of vertical metrics lines refer to the Colors dialog box accessible with the Colors button on the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box 357 358 Alignment Zones Most fonts have square and round glyphs Round glyphs like O and Q usually have 3 4 overshoot on the bottom and top Overshoot is the amount that a glyph extends above or below its nominal top or bottom It is used to optically correct the appearance of round glyphs which tend to appea
180. ally add middle delta commands that correct the rasterization of the curve Autohinting Options You can customize the conversion process with the Autohinting Options command Use this command to open the dialog box TrueType Autohinting Autohinting options W Generate tri ple hints Zil Direct links to center of the glyph where possible MI Automatically interpolate positions of the cusp points Til Try to automatically generate delta instructions W Add link to the right sidebearing point Til interpolate positions of the double links Single link attachement precision 7 is default value Cancel OK Generate triple hints If this option is active AsiaFont Studio will try to generate TrueType instructions that simulate Type 1 triple hints for characters like m where the distance between stems must be kept the same at all PPMs 571 572 Direct links to center of the glyph where possible AsiaFont Studio can try to hint starting from the left sidebearing and going to the right or starting from both sidebearings and going to the center of the glyph Use this option to customize the hinting direction Automatically interpolate the position of cusp points A Cusp is a point where the contour sharply changes direction a If this option is on AsiaFont Studio will generate an Interpolate command that will link the cusp point to one of the links Try to automatically generate delta instructions Our
181. an help you instantly expand your font collection This chapter gives detailed descriptions of all the transformations and their usage in AsiaFont Studio Hinting To make your Type 1 or TrueType fonts look great everywhere you have to set hints AsiaFont Studio includes hinting tools that were previously available only in high end font editing systems Hinting can be a complicated process so read this chapter carefully to get the best results Multiple Master Fonts Opening editing and exporting Multiple Master fonts adding and removing design axes editing the Design Map Graph everything you ever wanted to know about multiple master fonts is in this chapter OpenType Fonts This chapter covers AsiaFont Studio tools panels and features that deal with creation and editing of OpenType font features ligatures small caps fractions alternative glyphs etc Macro Programming This chapter includes a short description and demonstration of the Python programming language and its integration into the AsiaFont Studio user interface Python can be used to create custom tools and operations within AsiaFont Studio A brief description of the AsiaFont Studio classes exported to Python is provided 17 18 System Requirements The Macintosh version of AsiaFont Studio requires the following hardware and software configurations e a Power PC based computer capable of running Mac OS 9 1 e one of the following versions of Mac OS M
182. an try to export some of the features in VOLT format so you can open the font in VOLT and continue working on OpenType Please note that you also need to have this option activated in the Import section of the TrueType page MI Store custom TrueType tables Generate kern The typical way to store kerning data in a plain TrueType feature if itis not fontis to create a kern table that enumerates all the defined kerning pairs in the font OpenType fonts define kerning differently using the feature named kern Switch the option on to have AsiaFont Studio automatically generate the kern feature from the kerning pairs table that you created in the Metrics window 158 Name table export In AsiaFont Studio you can define a basic set of font names options that will be used if the font is previewed in an English environment In addition you can define language specific names that appear if the font is used in a system in which the environment is not English The popup menu has the following options Append OpenType name records to the names exported by default Do not export OpenType name records Export only OpenType name records ignore default names Choose one of these options to determine which names will be included in the font Export GDEF table The GDEF table defines glyph types and the position of the caret inside ligature glyphs AsiaFont Studio provides visual tools to edit this information so if you want
183. and graphics state parameters Graphics state parameters set rules that are used as settings for various commands Every character outline is scaled according to the selected PPM value Point coordinates are stored as fixed point numbers they are not integers but have a fixed precision Then the glyph program is interpreted The glyph program measures the distances between outline points uses font level constants and resets the position of some outline points These points are called touched points All untouched points usually interpolate by the last glyph program command between the new positions of touched points Original outline Hinted outline Hinted outline before interpolation after final interpolation There are several special commands that are applied to the glyph outline at specific PPMs These commands are called delta instructions and are used to slightly modify the position of outline points to improve the character s appearance We will not include here a complete description of all TrueType instructions If you are interested we recommend that you read Technical Specifications for TrueType Font Files which is available from Microsoft 521 52
184. and from the Edit menu Notes 1 AsiaFont Studio can only edit font outlines not features such as color of outline outline width or fill color Regardless of the settings you have in the vector editing application only information about outlines will be copied to AsiaFont Studio 2 To see how an outline will look in AsiaFont Studio before you copy it in the source vector editing application select the object and set the fill color to 100 black and the width of the outline to none When you paste an outline from another application into AsiaFont Studio it scales it to fit the font s UPM To prevent the outline from automatically scaling use the Do not rescale EPS files option located at the top of the Preferences gt General dialog box Do not rescale EPS files on import and export 289 Transforming the Selection Sometimes you need to scale rotate or slant a whole or part of a glyph outline In AsiaFont Studio you can do this using different methods 1 Using the Transformation panel described below 2 Using the Transform tools 3 Using the Transform Selection operation Using Transform Tools In Edit mode you have access to three transform tools rt 5 Rotate Rotates the contour I Scale Scales the contour 7 Slant Slants the contour vertically or horizontally To transform the outline 1 Select part of the outline you want to transform or undo all selections to transform the entire glyph outline
185. ange F From 0 To 8 To improve the appearance of TrueType fonts on the screen the latest versions of the Mac OS and Windows operating systems use a special technique called font smoothing With this technique edges of the characters are rendered using shades of gray Visually this decreases the dither of the characters edges so that text is easier to read This technique may be combined with gridfitting methods that optimize the character s appearance by adjusting its outline The font smoothing options let you control when to use one or both of these techniques In the list box you see PPM Pixels Per eM font size measured in screen pixels ranges with one or two letters describing the applied technique S means that smoothing will be applied G means that gridfitting will be applied SG means that both techniques will be combined to achieve the best results 215 216 To set options for a range select the range and change its settings using the controls in the dialog box Use the check boxes to select the rendering technique and the edit controls below the list to change the PPM range To define a new range select one of the existing ranges and press the Split button The range will be split into two ranges and you will be able to set different options for them To merge two ranges select a range and press the Merge button The selected range will be merged with the range that is above it To res
186. ap format and TIFF standard image interchange format Bitmap files that you import into AsiaFont Studio must be black and white line art images Neither color nor grayscale images can be imported into AsiaFont Studio Your image editing application can usually make this change if need be To copy a bitmap image from another Macintosh program into FontLab select the image in the program using its selection tools copy the image onto the Clipboard the image may be color black white or grayscale switch to the FontLab window and select the Paste command from the Edit menu To rasterize a glyph s outline and make a background layer from it select the Create Background command from the Tools gt Templates menu Below is a table containing all the commands from the Templates menu related to background bitmap layer Create Background Rasterizes the outline and makes a background layer Open Background Opens a bitmap file PICT or TIFF from the disk and places the contents of the file into the background layer You will see a standard Macintosh Open File dialog box when you select this command Save Background Saves the background layer to a bitmap file PICT or TIFF format You will see a standard Macintosh Save File dialog box when you select this command Copy Background Copies the contents of the background layer to the Mac OS Clipboard You can also use the Paste command from the Edit menu to paste the bitmap contents of the C
187. ar on the top a stem list a row of controls to adjust stem parameters and the Advanced button that gives access to some font level hinting options that we will discuss later Buttons on the toolbar mean cin Include vertical stems in the list stems measured along the X axis el co ca Import stems from another font Columns in the list mean Name Name of the stem You can use the control below the list to change the stem name The stem name appears when the stem is used in hinting program We do not recommend using long stem names 6 8 characters is enough in most cases Width Width of the stem Use the control below the column to change the value PPM2 PPM6 PPMs at which the stem is scaled to 2 6 pixels Click on the column header to sort the list by the column values A yellow background in the list highlights vertical stems It is easy to add a new stem just click on the Jor the button and a new stem will appear with the lt unnamed gt name and a width of 100 To remove a stem select it in the list and click on the button Click on the button to append Type 1 stems to the list AsiaFont Studio will append only those stems that are not already in the list 565 566 With the button you can append stems from another font Click it and select the source font from the list Select the font Select the font in the list below MinionMM Itahe When you remove stems tha
188. ard only 8 bits of information is used to represent each character so it s possible to use only 256 characters A Double byte mapping standard uses two bytes 16 bits for every character So it s possible to map 65536 characters Multibyte mapping standards use from one to four bytes for every character expanding the code space to billions of characters One byte encoding standards are enough to represent most Western languages but they run out of room if more than one language needs to be supported or in the case of Eastern languages that use very big alphabets Even double byte encoding standards cannot cover all the characters of the world The most well known and widely used double byte encoding standard is Unicode 71 72 Character and Glyph Identification To simplify access to the characters in the font each character has an identifier an integer number or a text name All font formats allow you to quickly locate a character whose identifier is known A printing or previewing program that wants to output text converts character codes to character identifiers in the font This process is usually performed using a special index table called the encoding table which defines the relationship between character codes and identifiers Note that the term character covers all possible appearances of the character in all fonts All these pictures AANAAAAA arethe same character A the first letter of the En
189. art of the page you will see the list of keyboard shortcuts currently defined for that command Current keys Cmd 2 Opt Backs pace The button at the right of the list allows removal of one of the existing shortcuts To define a new keyboard shortcut select a command and position the cursor on the editing field below the Press New Shortcut Key label Press New Shortcut Key When the editing field has focus just press the combination of keys that you want to assign A description of that combination will appear in the editing field and you can click the Assign _ button to assign that combination to the currently selected command Press the Reset All button to reset all changes back to AsiaFont Studio defaults Press the Close button at the bottom after you finish customizing the keyboard shortcuts to save changes and close the dialog box 29 30 Links to External Programs Some applications available from FontLab Ltd have a common communication interface that allows them to easily exchange font related data We call programs that can accept data from other programs FontLab Server Applications Similarly programs that can send data to FontLab servers will be referred to as FontLab Client Applications or plugins And programs that combine server and client capabilities are called FontLab Client Server Applications AsiaFont Studio itself can work as server and sometimes as client as well For example it can acc
190. asurement Measurementline You can see measured values appear above the line when you move the right or left sidebearing The same values appear in the Glyph Properties panel r Pg H 2 a anand Sidebear ings l 39 60 al 765 k B2 104 sk 579 lt Measured Sidebearings ui 39 188 2 705 709 You can drag the measurement line to any position and the information in the Glyph properties will be updated accordingly Baseline Properties Panel With this property panel you can adjust the position of the glyph s baseline To open it Crru click on the baseline and select the Properties command in the popup menu or just click the baseline while holding down the CMD key on the keyboard Baseline Properties Baseline position Position oO To change the position of the baseline 1 Select the base level of the modification It can be the old position for relative offset the top of the glyph or the bottom of the glyph 2 Change the position of the baseline relative to the base level 3 Press the ENTER key or click anywhere in the editing field to apply the changes Metrics Properties Panel To open the metrics property panel position the mouse cursor on the left or right glyph margin Crri click and select the Properties command or just Cmp click the mouse button on one of the margins o Metrics Properties Glyph metrics We 39 we 1 765 In this panel you can mod
191. ation point Delta Instructions Now you know all about the visual hinting commands that can be applied to an outline at all PPMs In addition to these commands the TrueType hinting language lets you set special commands that will work only at specific PPM sizes These commands are called delta instructions There are two delta instructions for each hinting direction middle delta instructions and final delta instructions Final delta instructions are necessary when you want to slightly change the instruction set usually to add or remove some pixels 555 556 Middle Delta Instructions A middle delta instruction can move outline points like any other instruction It can move any outline point in 1 8 pixel increments from one pixel left or bottom to one pixel right or top 8 8 4 8 0 48 8 8 8 8 4 8 4 8 8 8 Movement space of delta instruction Middle delta instructions are interpreted like other commands in the hinting program They are automatically inserted between normal instructions that move points and so can be used to modify the normal interpretation of the hinting program A Am 1 I Middle del instruc ton In the example above the vertical stem is moved one pixel to the left when the middle delta instruction is applied A middle delta instruction may be applied to a touched or untouched p
192. ative position of the reference point and the destination node in rectangular and polar coordinates as well as the absolute position of the destination node You can change any value and all the other values will automatically be recalculated After you press the OK button the destination node will be moved to the new location and you can repeat steps 1 3 to move other nodes 391 392 Reversing a Contour s Direction Sometimes you need to reverse the direction of a contour In AsiaFont Studio you can do this in one of two ways Crru click on a node of each contour that you want to reverse with the mouse button and select the Reverse Contour command in the popup menu or activate the Reverse Contour operation To activate the operation select the Reverse Contours command in the Tools menu or press the button on the Tools or Operations toolbar By double clicking you can finish the operation and accept all the changes that you just made By pressing Esc you finish the operation and reject all the changes Tip If you press Esc but change your mind and want to accept the changes of the last operation you can use the Redo command in the Edit menu When you activate the Reverse Contours operation you will see that all the contours now have arrows that show their direction You can reverse any contour by clicking on it with the mouse button Tip We recommend that you switch to the Preview mode when you use this operation The
193. ause this format is a native format of a well known contour manipulation program Adobe Illustrator another name for it is Adobe Illustrator format AI If we go deeper we see that EPS is much more common than AI but due to a well defined internal structure AI format has become a standard way of exchanging contour based graphics With AsiaFont Studio you can export any glyph as an Al compatible file and use it in any other program and you can import any EPS AI file compatible with Adobe Illustrator to add to any glyph of your font To export a glyph as an EPS AIT file 1 Select the Export to EPS command from the Glyph menu 2 Select the export folder and enter the name of the EPS AI file in the standard File Save dialog box 3 Press the Save button in the dialog box and the EPS AI file will be exported to the folder chosen To add an EPS AI file to the current glyph 1 Select the Import from EPS command from the Glyph menu 2 Choose the file that you want to import in the standard File Open dialog box 3 Press the Open button in the File Open dialog box and the EPS ATI file will be imported added to the current glyph and selected to simplify its modifications 403 404 When you import or paste an outline from another application into AsiaFont Studio it scales it to fit the font s UPM To prevent an outline from scaling use the Do not rescale EPS files option located in the Preferences gt General dialog box
194. ble character code Long codepages are called double byte codepages and are primarily used to represent codes used in Chinese Japanese Korean or Vietnamese languages Codepages are necessary because we need to somehow encode text written in different languages in the one byte code space So when we have a text file encoded according to some codepage we use the codepage table to find which characters were used in this text We may have two different texts with the same code 192 decimal but in one case it may mean the Russian A and in the other case it may mean A Agrave Codepages are used not only to identify characters but also to simplify text sorting conversion of lowercase to uppercase characters spell checking and in many other applications where it is necessary to know which characters are used in the text Because the Unicode character identification standard covers most languages it is usually used as the destination information in the codepage tables Here is an example of fragments from two different codepages that map the same codes to different Unicode indexes MacOS Roman MacOS Cyrillic OxCO 0x00BF OxCO 0x0458 OxC1 Ox00A1 OxC1 0x0405 OxC2 Ox00AC OxC2 0x00AC OxC3 0x221A OxC3 0x221A OxC4 0x0192 OxC4 0x0192 OxC5 0x2248 OxC5 0x2248 OxC6 0x2206 OxC6 0x2206 OxC7 Ox00AB OxC7 0x00AB OxC8 Ox00BB OxC8 Ox00BB OxC9 0x2026 OxC9 0x2026 OxCA Ox00A0 OxCA Ox00A0 OxCB Ox00CO OxCB 0x040B OxCC 0x00C3 OxCC 0x045B Many di
195. blique version of your font Just apply this transformation to all the font s glyphs and correct the Font Info settings to let the operating system know that this font is now oblique Here is a sample of Slant transformation Sample is slanted 12 degrees to the right and text is slanted 30 degrees left 465 466 Decompose This action is the equivalent of the Decompose command from the Glyph menu It adds the scaled and shifted outlines of component glyphs to the composite glyph where they are used Applied to a whole font it makes it free of composites Convert to Type 1 This action converts all TrueType 2 4 order curves used in the selected glyphs into Type 1 3 4 order curves Use this command if you want to manually prepare a TrueType font for conversion into Type 1 format Do not forget to check the direction of the contours to make the glyphs compatible with Type 1 format requirements Convert to TrueType This action is the reverse of the previous one It converts Type 1 curves into TrueType curves Usually it is used to prepare a Type 1 font for manual TrueType hinting Reverse all Reverse all contours Set clockwise TrueType direction Set counterclockwise T ype 1 direction This action reverses the direction of all the contours of the glyph s outline It can also automatically detect the direction of contours and correct them if necessary Just select the option that you want
196. brush stroke applied with Transparent Black and White colors qe gt Note VectorPaint tools have an option to automatically activate the Transform Operation when any of the painting operations is completed This option allows you to instantly move scale rotate or slant the newly created contour Here is a list of all available VectorPaint tools with a short description of each gt l Select Used to select non rectangular areas of a glyph It selects not the i nodes like the Edit tool but actually cuts lines and curves and selects black areas that can be moved or otherwise transformed Pen Used to create new contours or modify existing ones It is not Contour really a paint tool because it deals with contours but it is a very natural and flexible tool used to adjust the result of the application of VectorPaint tools Brush Exactly that a brush It can be round or calligraphic A a calligraphic brush can be of any size and slant angle Polygon Has two modes point by point polygon drawing with easy combination of vectors and curves or point by point definition of a polygon that will be drawn by using the selected brush T Text Used to enter text vector based using any TrueType font installed in the system 369 370 Freehand Select Tool This tool works like a precision knife You can cut part of a contour and it will be automatically selected so you can transform it delete it
197. but we recommend manual editing for the best results To define the metrics parameters automatically click on the gt button on the toolbar or select the Auto Metrics command in the context popup menu The Automatic Metrics Generation dialog box appears Automatic Metrics Generation You want to generate metrics for i Current character only How much white space do you want to leave around glyphs l Medium Hi Custom metrics 1 30 dk 30 When do you want to keep existing metrics if new metrics will differ not more than How much must the shape of glyphs inflate to generate metrics Medium H SO This dialog box includes two areas Area of application and Parameters In the first area you select the glyph s to which the automatic algorithm will be applied The possible choices are Current character This option is available and is the default if any glyph is only selected in the editing area All glyphs in the This option generates metrics for all glyphs in the current current string string in the editing area Whole font This forces AsiaFont Studio to generate metrics for all glyphs in the font and is not generally recommended This operation is not undoable AsiaFont Studio prompts you and asks that you save the current metrics information in a special file from which it may be easily restored if you are not satisfied with the results that the autometrics algorithm produced You can choo
198. by a z Example 3 This calls a ligature substitution lookup The rule below means in sequences e t c or e begin t c substitute the first two glyphs by the ampersand substitute e e begin t c by ampersand 683 684 Specifying Exceptions to the Context Rule Exceptions to a chaining contextual substitution rule are expressed by inserting a statement of the following form anywhere before the chaining contextual rule and in the same lookup as it ignore substitute lt marked glyph sequence gt lt marked glyph sequence gt The keywords ignore substitute are followed by a comma separated list of lt marked glyph sequence gt s At most one sub run of glyphs or glyph classes may be marked in each lt marked glyph sequence gt by a single quote following each glyph or glyph class This marked sub run when present is taken to correspond to the input sequence of that rule This generally means that it should correspond to the place where substitution would have occurred had the sequence not been an exception see examples below This is necessary for the OpenType layout engine to correctly handle skipping this sequence When no glyphs are marked then only the first glyph or glyph class is taken to be marked The ignore substitute statement works by creating subtables in the GSUB that tell the OT layout engine simply to match the specified sequences and not to perform any substitutions on them As a result of
199. can view and edit the position of the underline that appears in a text editing application when the underline style is chosen The position and thickness of an underline are considered a font parameter and are part of the font s design To view an underline in the Metrics Window Preview mode switch on the Show Underline check box located in the property area Be sure that the properties area is in compact mode so the properties line is visible M Show underline 3 75 s 50 T amp S I 660 I T amp G ABC You will see the underline appear in the editing area and the underline controls in the property area of the Metrics Window Ime 4m E The left control is used to edit an underline s position and the right control the underline s thickness If you change values in the control boxes you will see the underline s position and or thickness modified 419 420 Editing Metrics By metrics we refer to information about a glyph s width and sidebearings In AsiaFont Studio you can modify this information either manually or automatically To modify a glyph s metrics you must switch the Metrics Window to the Metrics mode To do this push the button in the mode selection area or select the Metrics command in the popup menu that appears if you Crri click in the editing area of the Metrics Window By default the Property area is empty To make the metrics editing controls visible click on a g
200. ccount the extension methods implemented in the Unicode 3 1 standard This is a huge code space and to manage it most efficiently it is divided into several ranges Usually a range is designed to cover a single script like Cyrillic Armenian or Thai The Unicode Ranges mode references characters Index mode This is the simplest glyph identification mode all glyphs are sorted in their sequential numerical order in the collection of glyphs 73 74 Mapping Encoding Tables The Encoding Table defines links between character codes and names assuming that all characters in the font have name based identifiers The table is loaded and stays stored in memory while the font is used Character selection processing consists of two stages conversion of the code to a character identifier and searching the font for the location of the character description with the known identifier 41 42 43 20 20 space exellam 5A 5D 6F 55 21 exclam fs 56 57 58 59 22 quotedbl quotedbl 5A 5B 5C 5D 23 nunbersi gn nunbersi gn 5E 5F 60 24 dollar dol ar 25 percent 41 A per cent 42 B AA BB Source text Encoding table Font assequence of codes ldenification of characters in the font The Encoding Table can also add more flexibility to fonts You can put many more characters into one font assign a unique name to each character and supply several encoding tables allowing you to select different sets of characters in the fo
201. ces between points to one of the standard stem values There are two types of links single links and double links Single links need to have a base point that is set by a previous command This can be any command except a final delta A double link does not need to have base points It sets the position of two points and they can be used as base points for a single link or interpolate command Standard Stems All link commands can be connected with one of the standard stems When a link is connected to a stem it sets the distance between points to the scaled and rounded width of the stem Using this technique you can implement standard stem based hinting keeping important stem widths the same in every character in which they are used Please note that Type 1 standard stems and TrueType stems are different although they function similarly There is no limitation to the number of TrueType stems and they may be named We will discuss all the different options of TrueType stems later on page 563 You can use the Options panel to select standard stem options Link to stem fw Automatic _ None mF Round distance There are three main options Automatic connection to the stem Manual connection and no connection at all In automatic mode AsiaFont Studio will automatically select the standard stem that is closest to the linking distance It will not connect the link with the stem if the difference between the di
202. command The Masters panel appears Masters Hide All Show All a Mi wai wto MO wo wel MO wel we Click on a master s radio button in the Masters panel Using the Masters panel you can also select which masters will appear in the Glyph window Use the masters check boxes in the Masters panel to show or hide masters Press the Hide All button in the Masters panel to hide all masters except the active master or press the Show All button to show all the masters 613 614 Using an Axis Panel When the Preview mode of the Glyph window is active you can display an intermediate instance of the MM font that is selected for editing Open the Axis Panel by using the Window gt Axis Panel command You will see the Axis panel appear Align _ Auto Align a Width 6 405 Weight P 600 This panel has a slider and an edit box for each axis in the MM font Use these controls to select the design coordinates of the intermediate instance that you want to preview The filled preview of the selected intermediate design will appear in the Glyph Window in gray Four masters outlines and an intermediate preview in gray If an active master is the same as the selected instance as when master Wt0 Wd0 is active and both sliders are in the leftmost positions the filled preview will appear in black because it precisely corresponds to the active master To preview the active master in black press
203. compact and effective TrueType instruction code The visual hint set includes the following commands Align Aligns moves the position of the outline point to the designated position on the grid or to the edge of the alignment zone Single Link Sets the position of the point relative to the position of another point Distance can be linked with one of the stem widths Distances also may be rounded or not Double Link Sets the distance between two points to an integer value that may be linked with a stem width Middle Delta Slightly shifts a point at a specific PPM This command works before the final interpolation of untouched points Final Delta Slightly shifts a point at a specific PPM This command works after the final interpolation of untouched points This command is used for the final outline correction All commands are available in horizontal and vertical directions There are no diagonal visual instructions Sequence of commands Visual commands may be set in any sequence but they are interpreted in a very specific order AsiaFont Studio automatically detects the logic of the hinting program and does intelligent sorting 1 Align commands are always interpreted first 2 Double links are interpreted first also except that middle delta instructions may set points that are linked by double links 3 Single links and interpolate commands are interpreted in logical sequence Middle delta commands are interpreted a
204. connect multilayered nodes while hints connect points that have different coordinates on different masters When you define an axis the number of masters will be increased twofold Therefore a single axis font will have two masters a two axis font will have four masters etc The contents of all existing masters will be duplicated as seen in the picture WeightO Weight 1 aa So WeightO Weight1 Weight 0 Weight1 Width O Width O Width 1 Width 1 611 612 Selecting a Master Font When you define an axis or open a Multiple Master font you will have more than one master font Open a Glyph window with any character and you will see several masters appear in the editing field and the master selection popup menu enabled Different masters of the multiple master font appear as outlines of different colors One master appears in black and it is the only editable master called the active master All editing tools actions and operations are applied to this master All masters are identified by their names The master name is the position of the master on the design axis WIDTH Wd gt WtO Wd0 Wto Wd1 B L Z Wt1 Wdo Wt1 Wd1 You can select the active master using the following methods 1 Double click the master outline that you want to activate or 2 Select a master in the master selection popup menu in the Glyph window header Ty wdoOWwWto Wd1 Wto wd0d Wtl Wd Wtl 3 Select the Window gt Masters Panel
205. corner of the control box to scale the background Hold the Suirt key to keep the proportions 4 Position the mouse inside the control box press the mouse button and drag the mouse to position the background 5 Use the arrow keys on the keyboard or SHIFT ARROW keys to move the background Use CMD ARROW keys to resize the background 6 CTRL Click the mouse button to open a popup menu with the following commands Fit to glyph Aligns the Bitmap background so it will fit the glyph outline Delete Remove the contents of the background layer Double click in the editing field or press ENTER to finish changing the background or press the Esc key to reject it 335 336 Hints And Links Layer Hints are used by the font rasterizer to improve a glyph s appearance on devices with low output resolution like computer monitors or low res printers A detailed description of the hinting methods and manual and automatic hinting features available in AsiaFont Studio is in the Hinting chapter For now we ll just mention that in the Glyph Window you can see font level alignment zones and Type 1 character level hints and links There are two hinting methods applied to Type 1 fonts hints for True Type fonts are always generated automatically font level hinting and character level hinting Font level hinting is generated automatically in AsiaFont Studio so you don t have to edit it manually Character level hinting is applied to the c
206. cript and subscript characters Subscript Position and size of the subscript characters in font units Superscript Position and size of the superscript characters in font units Encoding and Unicode lt Encoding and Unicode Unicode ranges As we mentioned earlier fonts may have very many characters and support a lot of different languages To tell the operating system what codepages the current font can support you set the codepages information TrueType and Type 1 fonts use different methods to identify what codepages a font supports In TrueType fonts you can identify all the supported codepages by setting bits in a special field of the font header In Type 1 fonts you select only one codepage actually encoding vector and it must be compatible with the actual font encoding 199 200 Supported Codepages Supported codepages and default character set pass aids Available codepages Supported codepages 1251 Cyrillic 0 1252 Latin 1 1255 Hebrew 1250 Latin 2 Eastern Europe 1256 Arabic 1253 Greek 1258 Windows Vietnamese 1254 Turkish a74 Thai w 1257 Windows Baltic 932 JIS Japan net 9356 Simplified Chinese 945 Korean Wansung 930 Traditional Chinese i 1361 Korean Johab 19 Character Set Information The operating system needs to know which codepages a TrueType font can support To set this information you select all the codepages that this font can cover from the list of standard codepages tha
207. cro programming and Python All Python related tools and interface components are hidden and disabled This means that if you don t want to use these tools you are not required to and AsiaFont Studio will work smoothly without any Python integration If you want to use macro programs or perhaps create some programs yourself however you have to install the Python interpreter AsiaFont Studio 4 can work with only Carbon version of the Python interpreter version 2 x First download it from the FontLab site http www fontlab com html fontlab html provides a download link or from the Python site http python org ftp python 2 2 1 MacPython221 full hqx or http www cwi nl ftp jack python mac MacPython23full hqx After you download this file run it and follow the instructions to install Python By default the installer places the Python 2 x x folder in the Applications folder under Mac OS X Make sure you have Admin rights to install there You can look for the most recent version of Python at http www cwi nl jack macpython html 705 706 Macro Toolbar You can use macro programs without any programming AsiaFont Studio includes some sample programs in its basic installation and more programs are available from our web site and from other sources The easiest way to run a macro program is to use the Macro toolbar To open the toolbar click View gt Toolbars gt Macro If this command is disabled it means that th
208. cter set ANSI The Font has all the characters necessary to represent the standard Windows Latin 1 character set No reencoding is necessary Symbol The font is symbolic with a custom encoding vector It should appear as Symbol in Windows applications and the font s own encoding vector should be used to access characters OEM The font has MS DOS characters This setting is rarely used in Type 1 fonts Bitstream This is a normal text font but it has its own encoding that should be used to access characters This setting is highly recommended for all text fonts with a non standard encoding vector Arabic The font has Arabic encoding Other values cover more codepages that may be supported by the font Choose the codepage that is the default for your font The Macintosh Script and FOND ID A Macintosh script is used to calculate the correct value of the FOND ID parameter used in Macintosh font suitcases to differentiate fonts The Script is necessary to properly identify a font in multiple language non Unicode programs You can use the list of all the possible Macintosh Scripts to automatically calculate the FOND ID in the correct range AsiaFont Studio will generate a random value or you can manually enter the FOND ID and AsiaFont Studio will automatically select the script related to that value You may change this field later when exporting your font in any of the Macintosh formats And certainly this field is not needed when sa
209. ctions let you specify the fonts to blend To select the first or second font choose the font name in the popup The Preview panel will show a sample of the font You cannot select the same font in both sections AsiaFont Studio will take care of that The bottom section lets you specify blend options fe Blend fonts Build the Multiple Master font You have two main choices to make a single master font that will contain the result of the source fonts blend or to make a Multiple Master font that will have the two source fonts as the masters Here we will describe only single master mode Please refer to the Multiple Master chapter for information about using the Blend feature to make Multiple Master fonts In the Destination font popup menu you can select the font in which to store the blended glyphs Choose New font to put the generated glyphs into a new font Further down there are two options All existing source glyphs C Selected destination glyphs Select the second option if you want to blend only glyphs that are selected in the destination font To the right there are controls to specify the blend amount Blend amount 50 z 50 Uniform Enter the blend percentage in the editing field If you want to blend fonts nonproportionally along the X and Y axes uncheck the Uniform check box and enter the blend amount for the two directions To not let AsiaFont Studio add nodes to compatible contours leave the D
210. d copy them to the Clipboard 2 Return to the first font Crru click the Font window and click on the Append command in the context menu Delete 3 The Cyrillic glyphs will be appended to the font with their correct Unicode indexes and names so you will not have to re map the font I S s Tit a O nle sit jejs t 0410 F hcl i s nk u B ir DE x 3n 0419 041 A 041B 041C 041D 041E 041F 0420 0421 0422 0423 0424 0425 0426 0427 0428 ikjajm lo njejc t y e xjuj 4 w 99 100 Copying Composite Glyphs If you copy composite glyphs instead of having their own outlines composite glyphs are built from references to other glyph outlines to another font AsiaFont Studio will try to not decompose replace references to glyph with actual glyph copies them Instead it will try to find matching components in the glyph set that was copied or if some components are not present there in the destination font If AsiaFont Studio can completely restore composites in the destination font it will even keep TrueType hinting programs for these glyphs Drag and Drop of the Composite Glyphs If you prefer to use the drag and drop method to copy composite glyphs you have one additional option when you drop a composite glyph and AsiaFont Studio finds that one or more of its components were not selected to copy and do not present in the destination font it shows a message asking you if you want
211. d Re generate all Unicode indexes E Fanral Cancel Eo Codepage version of the Reencode Font dialog box Current encoding Imported Select destination encoding Imported A Glyph Definition Encoding Adobe Cyrillic Mac Adobe Standard Encoding Adobe Symbol Encoding Default Encoding Macintosh Roman WinEnceding Arabic CP 1256 WinFneoedina Raltie OP TAS Unicode indexes will be automatically recalculated during this operation Automatically generate names for conflicting glyphs Exchange names of the conflicting glyphs rd Re generate all glyph names f Cancel M Encoding version of the Reencode Font dialog box Select the codepage or encoding table to which you want to reencode the glyphs and set the options necessary to control the reencoding process Codepages mode Move glyphs to the new Removes currently assigned Unicode indexes and codepage assigns new ones Visually this means that glyphs are moved to their new places Copy glyphs Add new Unicode indexes Visually this means that glyphs having more than one Unicode index assigned are copied to their new places Encoding mode Automatically generate If a glyph with the same name as one of the names for conflicting reencoding glyphs needs to be changed a new name glyphs will automatically be generated Exchange names of the If a glyph with the name that needs to be assigned conflicting glyphs already exists it will get the name of the ree
212. de in Description Font Info Exported in Type 1 fonts as the Copyright entry and in TrueType fonts as the Description entry 181 Font Embedding Font embedding settings iis alas Embedding settings fsType Editing of the document is allowed These settings control how the font may be embedded into documents Embedding is a feature of the operating system and some applications that allow programs to include fonts into documents to guarantee that they will be reproduced correctly However this feature may cause problems with font piracy It is not very hard to extract embedded fonts from a document so the TrueType font format includes a special setting that can control font embedding There are four types of font embedding Everything is allowed After the document is opened the font works as if it was installed in the system Only printing and The font may be embedded but editing of the previewing document it contains is not allowed is allowed Editing of the document The font may be embedded and the document that is allowed contains the font may be viewed printed and edited Copyright Note We decided to allow modification of the embedding setting only because we are sure that the users of AsiaFont Studio are professionals who respect others rights to intellectual property We assume that you will change the embedding setting only in your own fonts You are not allowed to change this setting in fonts that wer
213. defined colors More Submenu with more commands described below Sort glyphs Applies different sorting methods to the glyph collection Note that this has no effect on glyph encoding or names Only the indexes of glyphs are changed Edit in new Creates a new Glyph window and opens the current glyph in it window Properties Opens the glyph properties panel for the current glyph or selected glyphs Macro Submenu with macro commands described later Contents of the More submenu Rename Opens a rename dialog box Select as default Selects the current glyph as the default glyph that is used in Type 1 fonts to represent glyphs that are not present in the font Select encoding Selects the glyphs that are in the current encoding the yellow area at the top of the font chart Transform Opens one of the transformation dialog boxes Refer to the Transform Transformations chapter for more detailed information about Range available transformations 91 92 Moving Glyphs You can change the positions of glyphs in the font chart just by moving them to a new place To move glyphs in the font chart 1 Select the glyphs that you want to move 2 Position the mouse cursor on the selected glyphs 3 Press the mouse button 4 Drag the glyphs to the new position Release the button to finish moving or press the Esc key to abort If you move glyphs over the cells of existing glyphs you will see a dialog box promp
214. der glyphs L Copy HDMX data from base to composite glyph W Use Unicode indexes as a base for TrueType encoding Use following codepage for first 256 glyphs i Do not reencode first 256 characters H Export only first 256 glyphs of the selected codepage C Put MS Char Set value into fsSelection field Reset to default Use following codepage to build cmap 1 0 table a Mac OS Roman default i F Autohinting Options Use this page to customize font export options for the current font This page copies Preferences gt TrueType export settings so you may refer there for the detailed description Switch on the Use default export options parameter to use default export options that are not font specific 212 TrueType Mapping Settings Mapping settings cmap table pats ile Automatically add null CR and space characters If the Automatically Add option is on then AsiaFont Studio will analyze the font and add characters that are necessary for complete font compatibility In Windows only two characters are really necessary the notdef and space characters On the Macintosh a couple additional characters are required CR and NULL Note that AsiaFont Studio will generate these characters only if they do not exist in the font so you can create them manually and control their appearance We recommend leaving this option on especially if you are developing Maci
215. dexes are stored at the end of the glyph collection By encoding Glyphs are sorted according to the currently selected encoding table This option allows you to customize the sorting order using the definition encoding tables To preview the result of sorting switch the Font window to the Index mode by clicking this button in the Font window toolbar You must be in Index mode to see the sequence of glyphs 124 Working with Multiple Fonts In AsiaFont Studio you can open many fonts at once Since every font has its own Font window sometimes the AsiaFont Studio workspace becomes so crowded with windows that finding a particular font is not easy This section will explain how to use AsiaFont Studio tools that are specially designed to help you manage many open fonts simultaneously To open many fonts you can use the standard File gt Open command then select many font files using Cmp and Suirt click in the File Open dialog box You can also select font files in Finder and drag them onto the AsiaFont Studio icon all of them will be opened When you open 15 fonts the screen might look like this Fontlaba File Edit View Glyph Tools Window m 4 Thale 7 SCCOANE i Hink HirnggHkbke icle missle IE cde ace 1 IML Dice AE ii A a Font Combitemerais Macintosh HO Lsers ales Documents TestFonts Cc i i i E F wame IE imported Eae ci E Naay oe feil EBEgg ja EEEE peepee HE
216. dio Font window Represents one of the opened fonts Glyph window Used to edit glyphs Metrics window Used to edit glyph metrics and kerning In this chapter we will provide only very basic information about the main windows Please refer to the Editing Fonts Glyph Window and Editing Font Metrics chapters to get detailed information about the windows and their features Font Window As an exercise let s create a font in order to demonstrate the AsiaFont Studio Windows Use the New command in the File menu or click this button D on the Standard toolbar You will see the Font window 609e Font Untitled AECE Default Encoding Fane FA i E T AACA dollar percendamperjquotes parenteparenr asterig plus fommahyphen period slash zero one two three four five a are ae ea questiq at rs kal Size F F As you can see this window has a caption with a few buttons and options and a big table of cells that represent characters and glyphs Each cell has a caption that contains glyph identification information name Unicode index or some other data Cells can also contain little icons that show properties of glyphs but more about that later There are no glyphs in the font that we just created but the Font window nevertheless shows some pictures in the glyph cells These are template images that show which character should be placed in the cell AsiaFont Stud
217. dio are described Comments The character indicates the start of a comment the comment extends until the end of the line Special characters pound sign Denotes start of comment ee pease r E arn E DA EO mma eee eee a ee er nn Gained oe cece ate Sac et See ie ae ane ee eT eae st i ane seas Sst ee eee an ie A ne single quote Marks a glyph or glyph class for contextual substitution or positioning double quote Marks a glyph or glyph class for contextual substitution or positioning parentheses Enclose the file name to be included Number A lt number gt is a signed decimal integer without leading zeroes For example 150 1000 Glyphs These are represented by the glyph name A glyph name may be up to 31 characters in length must be entirely comprised of characters from the following set A Z a Z 0 9 period _ underscore and must not start with a digit or period The only exception is the special character notdef twocents al and _ are valid glyph names 2cents and twocents are not An initial backslash serves to differentiate a glyph name from an identical keyword in the feature file language For example a glyph named table must be specified in the feature file as table 651 652 Glyph classes A feature file glyph class lt glyphclass gt represents a single glyph position in a sequence and is denoted by a list of glyphs enclosed in square brackets
218. dio tools truetypetables List of custom TrueType tables Each element of the list is an object of the TrueTypeTable class ttinfo TrueType information mostly hinting related tables glyphs Array of glyphs Each element of the array is an object of the Glyph class So for example if you want to see the advanced width of the glyph with index 12 you would write print fl font glyphs 12 width Here fl is an object of the FontLab class that represents the AsiaFont Studio user interface font is the currently active font object of the Font class glyphs is a member of the Font class representing an array of glyphs 12 directs us to the 12t element of the glyphs array width is a member of the Glyph class representing the glyph s advance width A shorter way to access the glyphs of the font is to access the Font object as an array print len fl font print fl font 12 width 718 The first line will print the number of glyphs in the font The second line is a shorter version of the example described above With the glyphs member you may perform several operations like adding a new glyph g Glyph fl font glyphs append g This example will append a new glyph to the font To remove all the glyphs in the font use this method fl font glyphs clean Other members of the Font class represent Font Header data and you can get a list of them using the following operation print Font __doc__ Two
219. direction of a contour changes the contour s colors and in the Preview filled mode you will see the changes immediately Rearranging Contours Sometimes you need to change a contour s sequence to simplify the programming of hint substitution You can do this by selecting the Make contour first command in the node popup menu which sets contours above each other but an easier way is to use the Rearrange Contours Set Startpoints operation button on the Tools or Operations toolbar When you activate this operation you will see the yellow marks that show the sequence number of each contour To change a contour s startpoints just click on a new startpoint position To change a contour s sequence 1 Place the mouse cursor on the contour whose sequence you want to change 2 Crrti click the mouse button The selected contour will be highlighted 3 Inthe popup menu choose one of these commands Up To move the contour one step up contour 3 will become 2 Last To move the contour to the bottom of the sequence contour 3 will be the last contour in the sequence Double click to accept the changes you can also press the RETURN or ENTER key on the keyboard or press the Esc key to reject the changes 393 394 Working with Composite Glyphs Composite glyphs are glyphs made up of two or more components like a letter plus an accent One or more of the components are referenced I e their contours are not
220. e button on the toolbar You will see a dialog box Replace Name Source string foursuperior Replacement string Replace name in Classes panel ae l Cancel In the top field you can enter the name of the glyph you want to rename and in the bottom field you enter new name for the glyph Check the Replace name in the Classes panel option to rename the glyph in the AsiaFont Studio Classes panel After you click OK in the dialog box AsiaFont Studio will scan all the feature definitions and replace the old glyph name with the new one Note that you can enter a glyph class definition as a replacement string for instance to replace one by one two three Compiling the Feature Definitions When you import or create OpenType features they exist as text based definitions To convert them to the usable binary format of the GSUB and GPOS OpenType tables they must undergo a process called compilation During compilation the feature definition source code text is checked for errors and glyph references are verified When everything is confirmed OK the text is converted to the binary form which you can preview or export To compile feature definitions click on the button on the toolbar AsiaFont Studio will try to compile the features and if there are errors during the compilation they are put into a special Output panel There is one special error message if glyphs are referenced by the feature d
221. e Press the f button and select a shape in the popup menu Smooth Right Smooth Left Point Right Point Left Simple Curved me Simple Flat e Shaped Options This is an example of different brush strokes 373 374 VectorPaint Options You can also change the brush properties in the Paint Options dialog box To open the Paint Options dialog box choose the Options command in the brush options menu You will see following dialog box Paint Options Brush options Width 40 Angle 45 Roundness 100 a gt ae Cam C Join amp Og Body E LETIEZI Polygon tool options Normal contour polygon Brush trace Other options Automatically activate Transform operation after any paint action Ei Automatically switch editing layers when entering the VectorPaint mode In the Paint Options dialog box you can enter the width of the brush and change the slant angle of a calligraphic brush Additionally you can select how the brush strokes are started and finished Choose the brush s starting and finishing shape by activating one of the radio buttons You can also select the style of the connection between two sequential segments of brush strokes It can be sharp smooth or flat Select one in the Paint Options dialog box Icons near the radio buttons give an explanation of the styles of connections The Body popup menu in the Brush options area lets you to select the shape of t
222. e Tools gt Outline menu Optimization does three things 1 Removes unnecessary curve and line segments 2 Aligns vertical and horizontal lines that are not precisely directed 3 Corrects the connection types of lines and curves You can control the optimize features with the Font Audit section of the Preferences dialog box Outline simplification level Process normally Auto alignment level Process normally Outline Controls curve removal feature from do not simplify outline Simplification to extreme The bigger value you choose the more curves level AsiaFont Studio will try to remove Auto alignment Controls auto alignment feature in a range from do not align level to extreme 313 314 Metrics The Metric data of a glyph includes information about the horizontal and vertical width Glyphs have an origin point a baseline sidebearings and left and right margins lt __ Charac tr wid h an Righ tmargin Baseline poe Righ tsidebearing Left sidebearing Zero or origin point The baseline is used to align characters in a series The left and right margins are used to define the positions of sequential characters in a series when the horizontal writing mode is selected In the vertical writing mode the left and right margins are used to horizontally align characters and the top margin is used to vertically align characters In AsiaFont Studio the position of the
223. e the Glyph toolbox will be hidden so you will have to use keyboard shortcuts to access the different tools of the Edit mode You can also use the comfortable Edit toolbar available in the View gt Toolbars menu The Edit toolbar contains the most common tools from the above list Temporary Activating the Edit Tool from any other tool Just click You can temporary activate the Edit tool on the Cmp key on the keyboard Second click on the Cmp key will return the tool you were using before Snap to Distance In the following sections we will discuss how to use the Edit tools to modify the outline and other editing layers All other tools will be explicitly named When you need to select a node or any other object on any of the layers you need to click it with the mouse You don t need to click the object precisely but you must be within a certain distance which is called the snap to distance Snap to is used when you select an object for which the feature is allowed By default the snap to distance is set to 3 screen pixels but you can change it on the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box Snap o zone around a node Snap to distance 3 Editing Layers In AsiaFont Studio every glyph contains several editing layers Some of them are used when the font is exported others are AFS only and are used to help you work with the glyph Below is the list of all the layers that you can see in the Glyph Window Later we
224. e visible part of the chart it will scroll accordingly To cancel your selection click on any glyph cell Alternative Using the navigating keys on the keyboard set the current cell highlight on the first or last cell of a selection then press the SHIFT key Move the current cell highlight as described earlier to select the cells Selection does not have to be continuous If you press the CMp Suirt keys you can select cells in any order and combination Context Menu Most commands available in the Font window can be selected from the popup menu To open the popup menu Crri click mouse anywhere in the chart area Here is a sample of the Font window popup menu Width i Copy Delete Mark gt Rename Sort Glyphs gt Select As Default Edit in new window Remove Unicode Edit metrics Add Note S5 pee Select encoding Macro P Transform Transform Range 89 Here is what the commands mean Width Allows you to easily select one of the predefined widths of the Font window Copy Copies the selected glyphs onto the Clipboard Same as the Copy command from the Edit menu Paste Places glyphs from the Clipboard into the font starting from the first selected cell Same as the Paste command from the Edit menu Append Appends glyphs from the Clipboard to the current font Delete Deletes the selected glyphs Same as the Delete command from the Edit menu Mark Marks the selected glyph s with one of the pre
225. e An up to four letter length code that is assigned to most Vendor Code TrueType producers to identify their fonts An uppercase vendor code must be registered with Microsoft or Apple All registered Vendor codes known at the time of AsiaFont Studio s release are placed in the popup menu If you want to identify yourself without registering you may enter a lowercase four letter vendor code Below the vendor selection list you can see the full name of the registered vendor Click the name to open the vendor s page in a Web browser 186 Use it as default Check this option to use the current vendor code as the default in all new fonts You may make your own code the default so you will not have to enter it every time Creation date Use these controls to edit the font creation date and time Press and time the Now button to set the current date and time Vendor dat File AsiaFont Studio stores information about registered vendors in the vendor dat file located in the AFS Data folder This is a text file with a simple structure 2REB 2Rebels 39BC Finley s Barcode Fonts 3ip Three Islands Press 918 RavenType As you can see it is just a vendor code followed by vendor name A single space is used as a separator If you want to change the file or add a new entry just open it in any text editor such as SimpleText or TextEdit and make changes 187 188 PANOSE Identification PANQOSE font identification alas prs Selec
226. e FontLab programs 408 What are Font Metrics A program that aligns and spaces text calculates the total width of all the characters in a paragraph It then adjusts the widths of the space characters that separate the words and tries to put as many characters as possible into one line The information about the words that are used to make a paragraph and the information about the width of the individual characters is the only information necessary This is what is known as font metrics To position the individual characters the page layout program must have information about each character s sidebearings Righ tbearing lt q 3 Character width Using this information the page layout program positions all the characters Kerning information is also necessary in order to get the best results Kerning Kerning information is used to adjust the space between specific pairs of characters As you can see in the following picture some characters may be well spaced with just the bearings rectangle but other characters are not To fix this problem a special technique called kerning has been developed Kerning defines the modification of inter character space in specific pairs A good example is the AV pair In the following picture you can see two examples of inter character spacing with and without kerning With kerning Without kerning You can see that only the kerned image is optically correct because it can compensate
227. e Python system is not installed Exit AsiaFont Studio follow the instructions above to install Python 2 2 x and then run AsiaFont Studio again to activate the Macro features When the Macro toolbar appears it looks like this Python tool selector A Python tool is an editing tool like Edit Meter or Sketch which has all its functions defined in Python I e a AsiaFont Studio tool written in Python Macro program selectors The left popup menu allows you to select one of the categories of programs and the right popup menu selects the program within the category IF Runs the program selected in the popup described above Stops the program that is running Ei Opens the currently selected program in the Edit Macro Panel for editing You have the opportunity to use external program editor TextEdit BBEdit etc To select it go to the General page of the Preferences dialog box Ka Restarts the Python system Use this command to reload all standard libraries and free all memory allocated by the Python system 5 Assigns the currently selected program to a key combination Let s try to run one of the sample programs supplied with AsiaFont Studio 1 2 3 4 Open the B glyph in a Glyph Window Open the Macro toolbar Select Effects in the folders popup menu and Drops in the macro popup menu 707 Assign to Keyboard Using the Macro toolbar you can assign up to 10 macro programs to the
228. e also called CFF based or CFF flavored CFF is a Compact Font format designed and supported by Adobe Think of it as an improved and more compact version of Type 1 FontLab This is FontLab and AsiaFont Studio own font format that potentially AsiaFont can contain a superset of information that you can export to other Studio formats You already know how to open and save FontLab AFS fonts 135 136 Exporting for PC To save a font in PC Type 1 PC TrueType or OpenType format use the File gt Generate Font command You will see the Generate Font dialog box Generate Font Save As BaltiC ttf Where f S Documents Font Format PE TrueType HH f Options Type 1 options make PFM make AFM auto encoding z TTZOTF options hinted keep autohint visual export Unicode Cancel Th The top part of the dialog box is standard and there you choose a destination folder and enter a file name for the font file By default AsiaFont Studio will choose the folder where you saved fonts last time Below the standard part of the dialog box is format selection popup menu Choose the destination font format there PC TrueType OpenType CFF PC Type 1 PC Multiple Master UNIX Type 1 Raw ASCII UNIX Multiple Master Raw ASCII FontLab Available formats are PC TrueType ttf TrueType and TrueType flavored font format Depending on the OpenType export options discussed below AsiaFont Studio may w
229. e axis to remove Weight Width OpticalSize You have selected axis Width to be removed Select a position for the remaining masters on the removed axis 525 l l 600 l 450 4 masters will be removed if you remove this axis Remaining masters will be blended according to the selected position Fil k i mn Cancel OK Select the axis you want to remove in the axis list at the top of the dialog and use the slider to set the blending coordinate that will be used to blend the remaining masters You can use the Generate Instance feature described on the page 636 if you want to convert the MM font to single master font Sometimes it is easier to use than the Remove Axis feature Multiple Master and Font Info Here is a table of all the pages of the Font Info dialog box an explanation of specific information in a Multiple Master font Names Have minor changes 1 Multiple Master fonts usually have the MM suffix at the end of their names 2 The length of the Menu name is limited to 7 characters Use the Check button to automatically control the length of the Menu name 3 MM fonts with a Weight axis have the All value in the Weight field MM fonts with a Width axis have the All value in the Width field Copyright No changes Version No changes Dimensions Each master has its own set of Dimension values Use the master selection popup menu at the top of the page to choose the
230. e box is empty and the dummy transformation action Do not transform a glyph is selected in the actions list If you open this dialog while the Glyph window is active the transformation filter will be applied only to the glyph currently open and is undoable If you open it while the Font window is active then the transformation will be applied to all selected glyphs To select a filter use the Select an action list Select an action Contour Hints and Guidelines p Metrics gt Effects Expand one of the categories to see all the filters Contour Shift 0 0 Mirror H Scale 80 00 100 00 HZ Rotate 15 00 CW Z Slant 12 00 R Z Decompose Convert to Type 1 Select an action and you will see an action customization panel appear below the list Current action Rotate glyph Rotation angle 15 Clockwise Counterclockwise Rotate around Origin point 0 0 Rotation center 0 The contents of the customization panel depend on the action selected Note the red MM mark in the right top corner of some customization panels This mark means that the currently selected action may be applied to a single master of a Multiple Master font All actions that do not have this mark are not compatible with MM fonts You can use them but all the masters will stick together and you will lose the multiple masterness of your font Set the Apply to whole font option to apply the transformation to all the
231. e created by somebody else Even if according to the font license you can modify the font for your own use you must not increase the embedding rights for a font So if embedding is not allowed leave it as it is 182 Designer Information Information about font designer pager Designer Carol Twombly Designer URL 6 Vendor URL http www adobe com type is This page stores information about the font s designer Do not modify this data if you open an existing font to modify for personal use Designer name 9 Name of font designer Designer URL name 12 A new entry implemented only in TrueType format It is the WWW link to the designer of the font Vendor URL name 11 This TrueType only entry shows the WWW link to the site of the font vendor Use the buttons to the right of the Designer URL and Vendor URL controls to open pages in your default Web browser window This requires an Internet connection 183 License Information License information qo License NOTIFICATION OF LICENSE AGREEMENT This typeface is the property of Monotype Typography and its use by you is covered under the terms of a license agreement You have obtained this typeface software either directly from Monotype or together with software distributed by one of Monotype s licensees This software is a valuable asset of Monotype Unless you have License URL http www monotype com htm
232. e f f i by ffi A contiguous set of ligature rules does not need to be ordered in any particular way by the font editor the implementation software does the appropriate sorting So sub f f by ff sub f i by fi sub f f i by ffi sub o f f i by offi will do the same thing as sub o f f i by offi sub f f i by ffi sub f f by ff sub f i by fi Alternate Substitution Alternate substitution replaces a glyph with one of the glyphs in a pre defined list of alternatives The application that uses the font is expected to decide which glyph to choose A good example of this lookup is to provide several versions of some glyph like the ampersand Another application is the selection of several different forms of ornaments An alternate substitution rule is specified as substitute lt glyph gt from lt glyphclass gt For example substitute ampersand from ampersand 1 ampersand 2 KEF or ornament variations substitute asterisk from orn 1 orn 2 orn 3 orn 4 681 682 Context Dependent Substitutions A context dependent rule can be any of the rules described above with one important difference it defines a context that must include a target sequence of glyphs or glyph classes In the simple form of say ligature substitution we simply write sub abc byD In context dependent substitution we can declare that abc which is a target sequence of glyphs for a ligature substitution rule must be a part
233. e following notation top menu item gt sub item For example Edit gt Copy means click the word Edit on the menu bar and select the Copy command from the menu EG Undo ETa Cut Ek Copy aC Paste ae Properties a ene FETE ELATI POET Directories When we have to refer to one of the folder created during AsiaFont Studio installation we will use the following syntax AFS directory name Where AFS is the name of the folder where you have installed AsiaFont Studio 4 usually Applications AsiaFont Studio4 and directory name is the name of the folder as in the example below AFS Data Mouse Click the mouse on some Position the mouse cursor on the object and click the object mouse button Ctrli click something Position the cursor over something hold down the CTRL key on the keyboard and click the mouse button If you have a mouse with two buttons you may use the right mouse button instead of pressing the CTRL key Drag some object Position the cursor on the object press the mouse button and move the mouse to move the object Release the mouse button when you re done Context Menu Most windows and panels in AsiaFont Studio have attached context menus To open the context menu Crri click or click the right mouse button if present an empty area in the window or panel Some context menus may have the Macro submenu at their bottom if the Python system is installed 23 AsiaFont Studio 4
234. e following sections we will discuss the different types of substitution and positioning lookups Please note that you may combine substitution and positioning lookups in the same feature 675 Substitution Lookups Substitution lookups deal with the replacement of the source glyph s with some other glyph s The simplest example of a substitution lookup is the replacement of lowercase characters by small caps versions Lookups may be context dependent or context independent Context independent lookups are applied every time the source sequence of glyphs is present like when you want to replace the f and T sequence with the fl ligature In other cases you may need to apply a substitution only when a source sequence of glyphs is surrounded by some other glyphs For instance you may want to replace an uppercase character with a lowercase when it is followed by another lowercase character The OpenType specification declares the following types of basic substitutions Single Replaces a single glyph with another single glyph a gt A Alternate Replaces a single glyph with one of the glyphs in a list A gt A version1 or A version2 All these substitutions may be context independent or context dependent AsiaFont Studio supports all of the substitutions except the multiple substitutions 676 Single Substitution This is the simplest substitution it replaces a single glyph with another glyph or a class of glyphs wi
235. e font family typeface you should follow these simple rules Enter the name of the font family in the Family Name record Enter the same name in the Menu Name record but control the length of the Menu Name by pressing on the Check button The Family Name and Menu name should be the same for all fonts of the family Select the correct styles for all fonts Choose Normal or Regular weight for the normal style check the Font italic option for the italic or oblique style and use the Font is bold option to define a style as bold It is recommended but not required that you select the proper weight and width names You can enter any name but we highly recommend using only the standard names from the list Fill in the Style Name field We recommend using the Build Style Name button Fill in the Font Name FOND Name and Full Name fields The best way is to press the Build Names records button and let AsiaFont Studio fill in all the fields automatically Note 1 Fonts in both Type 1 and TrueType formats may include only 4 styles in a family These styles are normal bold italic and bold italic and their names are very standard If you have more than four styles in your typeface you must create several families You may put all condensed styles into a Condensed or Narrow sub family like Arial Narrow Arial Narrow Bold Arial Narrow Italic all black styles into a Black sub family Arial Black Arial Black Italic and all normal styles in
236. e name of every imported character and looks for it in the names database If it locates the name there it takes the associated Unicode index and adds it to the character s list of indexes Note 1 The Names database has about 3000 records and includes almost all Known names for all European Cyrillic Arabic and Hebrew languages and for most symbol and dingbats fonts Note 2 The names database is a text file that can be edited You can add new records to this file at any time Be very careful when you edit this file because incorrect records may make exported fonts unusable in some environments Note 3 It is possible to link more than one Unicode index to a name and more than one name to a Unicode index If AsiaFont Studio finds several indexes linked to the name it will assign all the indexes to the character Refer to the Encoding Modes section for a description of the multi Unicode indexing method If more than one name is linked with the Unicode index then AsiaFont Studio will take the first one it finds as the name for the known index 55 56 TrueType Import Options The Import Options dialog box that appears if you click the Options button has the basic set of TrueType import options __ Convert TrueType outlines into Type 1 outlines i Save TrueType hinting information _ Autohint imported font Decompose all composite glyphs The full set is available on the TrueType page of the Application gt Prefer ences dialog box
237. e or codepage If you want to rename more glyphs press the Rename Next Glyph button A new name will be assigned to the current glyph as if you had pressed the OK button and data from the next glyph will appear for editing Reencoding the Font In AsiaFont Studio you can assign names from the encoding vector to glyphs that are sorted in the Font Window according to a different encoding vector Or you can assign Unicode indexes from one codepage to the currently selected different codepage if the Font window is in Codepages mode In this operation AsiaFont Studio takes encoded glyphs glyphs that are in the yellow area of the Font window s glyph chart one by one and assigns names or Unicode indexes from the encoding vector or codepage that you select To reencode glyphs select the Encoding or Codepages mode in the Font window Select the Encoding mode to assign new names and the Codepages mode to assign new Unicode indexes Then select the Reencode glyphs command from the Glyph gt Glyph Names menu 113 114 Depending on the selected mode you will see one of the following dialog boxes Current codepage MacOS Roman Select destination codepage MacOS Roman MacOS Arabic MacOS CentralEurope MacOS Chinese EUC TW MacOS Croatian MacOS Cyrillic MacOS Devanagari MacOS Dingbats Marl Farsi Glyph names will be automatically recalculated during this operation Move glyphs to the new codepage O Copy glyphs r
238. e retrieved and the distance between them measured 2 Ifthe link is connected with the stem the distance is replaced by the prepared stem width for the PPM If the scaled distance is equal to or exceeds 3 pixels it is rounded to the closest integer If the link is not connected to a stem the distance is rounded to the closest integer starting from 1 The grid fitted positions of the two linked points are stored Both points are aligned to the closest grid line Rounding errors for both points are calculated by comparing original and rounded positions D u e w The point whose rounding error is less remains in place and the second point is set at the distance calculated in step 1 If the rounding errors are equal then the point with the lower coordinate value is set 7 The distance of the linked point is set equal to the grid fitted position of the base point shifted by the distance Customizing the Command CTRL Click the middle icon on the double link to open the context menu j Delete command Distance alignment p Convert to single link gt Align left bottom point Align right top point The Delete command and Distance alignment options are the same as in the Single link menu An additional command is Convert to single link Use it to replace the double link command with the combination of the align and single link commands Program panel options for the double link command are simple From 71 To 16 Stem X31
239. e started with a new font that doesn t have any glyphs To create a glyph double click on any cell in the Font window You will see that the gray cell which means there is no glyph defined is replaced by a white one which represents a glyph that is defined but contains no image When you draw or paste something into it the white cell will show a small picture of the glyph After the glyph cell is created we are ready to open the Glyph window Select the glyph cell Gust click on it with the mouse button and double click it to open the Glyph window It will immediately appear on screen 0 amp Glyph 65 A from unnamed font k 1346 641 ka 1348 641 l l l l l l l 4 l l l l l l e iH p ee ee jH 35 36 Instead of double clicking you can also use several other methods to open the Glyph window 1 Crrti click the glyph cell and select the Edit in new window command in the context menu 2 Select the glyph and choose New Edit window in the Window menu 3 Select the glyph and press on the Panels toolbar 4 And finally select the glyph cell and just press the ENTER key on the keyboard If you have more than one glyph in your font which is normal when you open an existing font and have a glyph window already open when you double click another glyph in the Font window or use any other method of opening a glyph window except
240. eady in the list To automatically calculate standard stem widths press the Auto stems button How AsiaFont Studio Calculates Standard Stems AsiaFont Studio can calculate standard stem widths only if some characters in the font have Type 1 hints 1 It builds a table of all hints that are used in the font sorts this table by frequency of usage and selects the most frequently used hints 2 Allselected hints are then compared with these most frequently occurring stem widths and hints with widths that are close together are combined into a single record 3 The list is then sorted again The most frequently used elements are then selected and used as standard stems 207 Global Hinting Parameters Type 1 hinting global hinting parameters 2 ae Set values for the master Single master i FB threshold 0 5 Blue Scale as itis is equal to 0 039625 BlueShift 7 BlueFuzz 1 Some additional data may be set to control the hinting process FB threshold ForceBold threshold this parameter is used only in Multiple Master font and controls when the Force Bold parameter is ON in an intermediate design BlueScale Controls PPM when overshoot depression is switched off BlueShift Gives more precise control over overshoot description see below BlueFuzz Expands alignment zones in both directions You can set all these values in the right part of the Alignment Zones page of the Font Info dialog box BlueScale is the PPM
241. ease metrics distances or kerning or a negative value to decrease them Normally metrics are measured from the bounding box You can change this however if you want to measure from a measurement line by using the check box A measurement line is horizontal line defined in the Glyph Window that defines a slice which is used to measure the distance from outline to sidebearings Please refer to page 316 in the Glyph Window chapter Effects Increase your font library with this set of professionally designed effects From outline to 3D shadow to gradient fill these transformation filters always produce good results Bold Outline Increases the glyph s weight or creates an outline version of the glyph a eee eer e E ee ee eee as iste Se a ene ee ea eer ne eee are Seeeeeee E aa er as rene ener ener en enen eres een ene eee nen ee eae oe s a ee eee Fanner ee een TT eer netmerer tert errant tener Sane R A E E E EE i E T ee oe Bold Outline Hor weight 2000 Keep glyph s dimensions Vert weight 77 _ Make round corners Change weight of the glyph C Make outline version of glyph This is one of the most used actions in AsiaFont Studio With it you can precisely change the weight of the glyph s stems make an outline version of the glyph or change the contrast sample Original glyphs Sample Bold 20 units in both directions Keep glyph s dimensions is ON 475 476 Sample Bold 20 units in
242. ecrease Normally metrics are measured from the bounding box You can change this however if you want to measurement from a measurement line by using the check box The measurement line is a horizontal line defined in the Glyph Window that defines a slice which is used to measure the distance from outline to sidebearings Please refer to the page 316 in the Glyph Window chapter for more detail Press the OK button to transform the selected glyphs 439 440 Class Based Kerning Some glyphs in a font may have a similar shape and may be kerned equally For example A and Acaron will have the same kerning value if kerned with T or Tcaron With the standard kerning system this will require 4 kerning pairs If the number of similar glyphs in the group increases the number of necessary pairs will rise dramatically A better way to handle the kerning of similar glyphs is to define glyph groups or classes In our example the first class will contain the glyphs A and Acaron and the second T and Tcaron Then we will need to define only one pair and all glyphs in both classes will be covered Kerning classes may save a lot of time if you need to kern a font that contains a lot of similar glyphs The typical number of class kerning pairs which define kerning between classes is a few hundred Compare this to several thousand pairs that are necessary to define the same kerning data u
243. ected figures from the default lining style to oldstyle form sups Superscript Replaces lining or oldstyle figures with superior figures and replaces lowercase letters with superior sinf Scientific Replaces lining or oldstyle figures with inferior figures Inferiors 696 OpenType Glyph Properties The OpenType format allows you to define a glyph s type This can be one of the following values Unassigned Glyph type is not defined Simple Single character Ligature Multiple characters Mark Non spacing glyph used as a mark Component Part of a character Glyph type is used in a lookup when you need to limit it to the glyphs of a particular type using the lookupflag command page 658 You define the glyph type using the glyph properties panel Select one or more glyphs in the Font window and open the panel with the Edit gt Properties command e Glyph Properties Font FLCaslon HE A grawe si goco kd _ Replace existing glyphs OT Unassigned Ligature Mark Si Component gra aree Classes Apply Select the glyph class in the popup to the right of the M icon If multiple glyphs were selected the new type will be assigned to all of them 697 698 Caret Positioning When several characters are replaced by a ligature glyph using the ligature substitution lookup a text layout application may keep the positioning cursor inside a ligature as if it still was a set of characters With AsiaF
244. een middle and final delta instructions They work exactly the same way To set final delta instructions select the final delta tool and follow the same instructions as above for middle deltas Some recommendations 1 Delta hinting is a very time consuming operation because you have to check the rendering results at many PPMs So always try first to get the best possible results from normal linear hinting 2 Use the waterfall preview in the Preview panel to see where delta hinting is necessary 3 Set up font smoothing in the General panel to see a real rendering preview The General panel is accessible through System Preferences 4 Try to set as few delta instructions as possible They increase font size and complexity 5 It s better to set one delta instruction with a larger range than two less comprehensive delta instructions 561 562 Removing Instructions You can remove any instruction using two methods 1 Select the instruction in the Program panel and press the Delete button Position the cursor on the hotpoint of the instruction hold down the CTRL and Cop keys and click the mouse AlignTop AlignBottom Align MiddleDelta and FinalDelta instructions have hotpoints on the point to which they are applied SingleLink and DoubleLink instructions have hotpoints on the mark in the middle of the line that connects the two points The Interpolate instruction has a hotpoint near the point that is int
245. efinition but do not exist in the font AsiaFont Studio will show the warning message Some glyphs do not exist in the current font Do you want FontLab to create those glyphs if W No If you click Yes AsiaFont Studio will try to create the glyphs using their names as the source of information The same algorithm is used in the Generate Glyphs operation described on page 354 If you hold down the Cmp key when you are clicking the button to compile the features AsiaFont Studio will compile the features and decompile the resulting binary tables as if you had imported them from an OpenType font file 669 670 Compiling the Classes There are two set of classes text based class definitions made in the feature definition language and located in the bottom field of the OpenType panel and AsiaFont Studio glyph classes that are represented in the Classes panel for more information about the Classes panel please refer to page 441 It is natural to provide a link between these classes Use the following option in the Application gt Preferences gt OpenType dialog box OpenType Editor Add all glyph classes to OpenType feature definition code to automatically include all AsiaFont Studio classes into the compiled feature definition code Please note that AsiaFont Studio will import all OpenType classes when an OpenType font is imported and will place them in the OpenType panel and AsiaFont Studio Classes pa
246. election the number of selected nodes the number of selected contours and the selection bounding box s bottom left and top right corner coordinates You can click on the Deselect button to discard the selection and get the Glyph Properties panel instead Transformation Panel The Transformation panel allows you to apply several simple transformations to the selected area or to the whole glyph To open the Transformation panel you can select the Transformation Panel command in the Window menu or click on the button on the Panels toolbar EN Center of select L Ole Apply 7 Center To transform the glyph or the selected area Select the type of the transformation by clicking on one of the buttons in the left and the transformation options in the right area la Shift Shift x y Enter a distance to move the 0 See Se selection Rotate fotate Enter the rotation or slant angle 0 e degrees clockwise and select a center of rotation Zero point Center Center of selection Reference point Scale Stale x y Enter the scaling factor and select 100 lioo ll a center point of transformation Use the Uniform option to scale J Uniform proportionally Center Zero point a A Mirror Mirror axis Enter the direction of the mirror g oo e axis and select the center point of te al the transformation Use the hame Sa buttons to mirror horizontally or Center
247. elete Transform Convert to component Retract BCPs Align points Reverse contours Convert fe Connection amp Properties Macro gt 294 Some commands are just copies of the Edit menu commands but others are much more interesting Cut Copies the selection to the Clipboard and removes it Copy Copies the selection to the Clipboard and leaves original untouched Delete Removes the selection Transform Activates the Transform tool Convert to Tries to convert the selection into a link to a component glyph This component extremely powerful command is described in full detail in the Editing Composite Glyphs section Retract BCPs Removes the control vectors of the selected points making them sharp Align Points Aligns the selected nodes vertically or horizontally Convert Converts all selected segments to lines Bezier curves or off curve points Connection Changes the connection mode of the selected points If the mode is changed to smooth all connections are forced to be smooth Properties Opens the Selection properties panel 295 296 Selection Properties Panel To make the Selection Properties panel visible choose the Properties command in the selection context popup menu or use the OPTION RETURN keyboard shortcut The Selection Properties panel is very simple 44 nodes selected Contours selected 7 Ei 32 357 Mm 335 711 Deselect It contains the following information about the s
248. elta Instructions Final Delta Instructions Removing Instructions Standard Stems Advanced Options Context Menu Hinting Sidebearings Hinting Composite Glyphs Automatic TrueType Hinting Working With Bitmaps Importing Bitmaps Editing Bitmaps Highlight Differences Exporting Bitmaps Hinting Strategies Middle Delta or Final Delta Single Link or Double Link Hinting White Space Hinting Serifs Hinting Diagonals Hinting Symmetrical Characters Interpolate or Not 524 526 528 529 531 533 536 536 537 538 539 542 543 544 549 553 555 556 561 562 563 568 569 575 576 577 578 379 580 582 583 584 584 586 588 590 591 592 593 11 12 MULTIPLE MASTER FONTS Multiple Master Fonts Theory Design Axes and Dynamic Range Standard Axes Design Coordinates and Weight Vectors Extrapolation Anisotropic Interpolation The Axis Graph Multiple Master Fonts in AsiaFont Studio Creation of MM Fonts in AsiaFont Studio Defining an Axis Selecting a Master Font Using an Axis Panel Previewing the Intermediate Design Designing Master Fonts Multiple Master Metrics Editing Axis Settings Removing an Axis Multiple Master and Font Info Editing the Axis Graph Generating a Single Master Font Expanding the Master Info Hinting Multiple Master Fonts Generating a Multiple Master Type 1 Font OPENTYPE FONTS Font Features Features and Lookups Scripts and Languages OpenType Font Formats OpenType Tables
249. ely see the result of the changes in the Metrics window l selected pair will be duplicated and you can change it This is very useful when you want to add a kerning pair that has a value equal to an existing pair but the right glyph is different as in the Ta and T pairs button Automatic Kerning Generation The easiest way to apply kerning to a font is to use AsiaFont Studio s auto kerning algorithm This algorithm analyses the shape of the glyphs in the given pairs and automatically kerns them You can control the pairs list that the autokerning algorithm processes as well as other parameters To define kerning automatically press the gt button on the toolbar or select the Auto Kerning command in the popup menu The Automatic Kerning Generation dialog box appears Automatic Kerning Generation You want to generate kerning for Current pair only Pairs list Standard How much white space do you want to leave between glyphs Custom Custom 40 When do you want to keep existing kerning Never Allow for positive kerning Maximum number of pairs to generate 1024 Minimum absolute value for generated kerning 10 E by E This dialog box consists of two areas the Area of application and Parameters In the first area you select the pairs for which the algorithm will compute kerning values You can choose between Current pair only available if one of the pairs is
250. em allows so called FamilyBlues alignment zones that are used in the whole font family Typically the alignment zones of the regular weight are used as Family Blues in all members of the family To set family alignment zones switch on the Set family alignment zones check box Then edit the alignment zones as usual To return to editing local alignment zones switch on the Set local alignment zones check box Standard Stem Widths Typically many characters in a font use the same few standard stem widths As examples let s take the H B and F characters shown below All of them have the same width for the straight vertical stems and the same width for the horizontal stems The most widely used stem widths are stored in the font header in order to force the rasterizer to render these stems at the same width This information is used to control at what character size the rounded stem width goes from one to two pixels and from two to three pixels A step from one to two pixels means a 100 width increase and a step from 2 to 3 pixels a 50 increase This means that near this value rounding errors will be maximal and control over stem widths will be necessary If one stem has a width of 74 units and another a stem width of 76 units and the UPM is 1000 units then at a PPM of 20 pixels the first stem will be rounded to 1 pixel and the second stem to 2 pixels Scaled back to the original coordinates this difference will be 50 units That
251. en you move the cursor of the Contour tool onto an existing contour or node it changes If you begin drawing without holding down the Cop key the new contour will be inserted into the existing one If the finishing point of your drawing is on an existing contour also and the starting and finishing points are on the same contour then the new drawing will replace the part of the existing contour that lies between the starting and finishing points How to draw a single curve Hold the Surrr key down when you release the mouse button after drawing a new line Your drawing will be approximated by a single curve This is a good way to draw a new contour step by step 371 372 Brush Tool The brush tool works like the usual bitmap brush that you find in any bitmap editing program You begin a brush stroke by pressing the mouse button Draw the stroke by dragging the mouse and finish drawing it by releasing the mouse button To change the color of the brush use the color selection buttons on the VectorPaint toolbar for the empty color in for the black color L J k E for the white color Other brush options are accessible in the VectorPaint options menu v Round brush Flat brush 20 units v 40 units 80 units 120 units Options You can paint with round or calligraphic brushes of different widths Round brush 120 unit wide line You can also specify a brush stroke shap
252. ent new kerning pairs from the metrics file font Add new kerning Import information about the glyphs that form each pairs but autokern them kerning pair in the metrics file and apply an autokerning algorithm to these pairs The What do you want to do with other data option controls the font header importing option AsiaFont Studio can import the Font Info data from the metrics file and replace the current font info data if the Replace this data in the current font option is selected Note that when you open a metrics file while editing the metrics of a Multiple Master font only the metrics and kerning of the currently selected master will be replaced Be careful 454 Saving Metrics Files When you export a font file in PC Type 1 font format the metrics files in AFM and PFM formats are automatically written The TrueType font format includes all metrics information so it is not necessary to export additional files However if you want to export a metrics file alone you can always do so by using the Metrics Window Just press the button on the Metrics Window toolbar The Standard Save File dialog box appears Save Save As Untitled afm Where E Desktop desktop a Format l Adobe Font Metrics ral Save the INF file when AFM is saved Sa Cancel Select the destination format Adobe Font Metrics or Printer Font Metrics for single master fonts and Adobe MM Font Metrics or MM Font Metrics f
253. ept bitmap and outline data from BitFonter our bitmap font editor or send outlines to BitFonter for rasterization To make AsiaFont Studio communicate with plugins installed locally and to have instant access to them from the AsiaFont Studio menu you have show AsiaFont Studio where they are Use the Tools gt External Tools gt Settings command to find other applications that can work together with a FontLab Server The Plugins Settings dialog box appears Plugins Settings Installed Plugins pes en re ee D ma mo m e aea e e m S SETETE Cancel There is a list of the installed plugins in the dialog and it is empty by default Click this button L to add a link to the program that you know to be a plugin Select the plugin application in the standard Open File dialog box and press Open The application name will appear in the list An easier way is to let AsiaFont Studio find the plugins itself Press the button at the right of the list and AsiaFont Studio will automatically search for plugins on the available disks The button at the right of the list allows removal of the link to the plugin selected in the list Press the Reset All button to clear the list of plugins After you press the OK button the plugins added to the list will appear in the Tools gt External Tools menu to let you quickly launch them when needed 31 AsiaFont Studio Windows There are only three types of Windows in AsiaFont Stu
254. er 467 Mapping Encoding 74 Marking 104 Mask 237 325 Assigning 328 621 Mask to Master 623 master font 595 designing 618 selecting 612 Masters 44 Masters Panel 613 628 measure 380 measurement line 316 425 medi 693 Menu 22 Merge 307 Merging Fonts 128 727 Meter bar 379 tool 379 Meter Mode 379 Metrics 314 assistants 15 automatic generation 426 editing 420 files 410 manual editing 421 mode 41 Opening Files 453 properties panel 317 Saving Files 455 Metrics window 39 224 411 Kerning mode 429 Metrics mode 420 modes 412 Preview mode 42 412 Microsoft Identification 191 Middle Delta 556 584 middledot 157 Mirror 306 462 463 MM 598 MMM 455 628 move 292 Move characters 92 Moving Nodes 256 Multiple Master 15 52 135 337 595 Expand Master 637 Font Info 631 metrics 628 N name record 179 Names Non English 177 Special 177 Names mode 73 75 NID 178 node 244 properties panel 275 Nodes Deleting 263 Inserting 266 Moving 256 selection 284 Non nodes editing 260 Note 91 123 Notice 181 O Old Style Numerals 642 OpenType 15 44 49 52 135 158 176 177 641 Full Name 176 OpenType Glyph Properties 697 OpenType Panel 663 672 702 Operation Bitmap Positioning 335 Component Positioning 397 Curve 390 Envelope 387 Interpolation 383 Set 391 Set Startpoint 393 Transform 290 Operations 382 Optical Size 601 Optimize 306 313
255. ern feature if it is not defined Export GDEF table i Use subroutines to compress outlines in OTF fonts Export OpenType Tables OpenType features will be exported only when this option is active Export VOLT data If this option is switched on AsiaFont Studio will try to export feature definition data in a format supported by Microsoft VOLT Visual OpenType Layout Tool Not all features can be exported in this format Refer to the next section for more information 699 700 Generate kern feature if it is not defined If the font contains a pair kerning table but no kern feature and this option is switched on AsiaFont Studio will automatically generate the kern feature so programs that need this feature to make kerning will work correctly Export GDEF table Turn on this feature to save information about the glyph types and caret positions to the font file Note that this is a requirement if you have used the lookupflag operator in feature definitions After all options are set correctly use the File gt Generate Font command to save the OpenType font file Select PC TrueType ttf to save a TrueType flavored OpenType font or OpenType CFF otf to save a CFF flavored font AsiaFont Studio and VOLT Microsoft VOLT Visual OpenType Layout Tool is an OpenType feature editor program developed and supported by the Microsoft Typography group The big benefit of
256. erning tables of some OpenType fonts in a comfortable environment that excludes most repetitive pairs When you finish edit kerning pair values in the Metrics window you need to create a kern feature that will build kerning into the final OpenType font You can use the special macro program available in the Macros submenu of the Metrics window context menu or you can simply remove the kern feature and AsiaFont Studio will automatically generate a new one on export of the OpenType font Opening Metrics Files AsiaFont Studio allows you to import metrics and or kerning information into the current font Using this feature you can create metric and kerning information once and use it in several similar fonts To import a metrics file into AsiaFont Studio click the button on the Metrics window toolbar You will see the standard Mac OS Open File dialog box Select the metrics file that you want to import in PFM or AFM format and press the Open button The Import Metrics File dialog box appears Import Metrics File Import results Import of metrics file Macintosh HD Users alex Documents TestFonts Arial atm was successful i It contains metrics for 2435 glyphs 241 of which exist in the current font Overall metrics compatibility is 99 54 Average width difference is O Metrics file includes 101 kerning pairs 0 Y What do you want to do with metrics data Replace only metrics that are close to c Allowed differe
257. erpolated Standard Stems There are two sets of standard stems in AsiaFont Studio Type 1 standard stems and TrueType stems Type 1 stems are used by the Type 1 font rasterizer and have some limits For example it is possible to define only 12 stems for each direction TrueType stems have no limits and also have some additional properties They may be named and their rounding may be specified for selected PPMs In AsiaFont Studio you can control the rounding of the standard stem widths You can set the PPM size at which any standard stem width is changed from to 2 pixels from 2 to 3 pixels from 3 to 4 from 4 to 5 and from 5 to 6 pixels We call these critical PPM sizes jump PPMs because here the stem width makes a jump from to 2 pixels from 2 to 3 pixels and so on up to 6 pixels wide By default standard stems are scaled linearly and are rounded to the closest integer value When you add a new Type 1 stem it is added to both stem lists Type 1 editable with Font Info and TrueType 563 564 To control the TrueType stems properties you open the TrueType stems dialog box Link to stem Automatic Press this button to open the Stems dialog None i Ma atl soe vi Round distance You will see the following dialog box TrueType Stem Control Th ee Name width Po 18 44 48 64 18 Te l Advanced gt gt n ECAP eee 1 i The dialog box consists of a toolb
258. es mode the Unicode indexes for the encoded glyph will be selected from the Mac OS Roman codepage We recommend opening a TrueType font switching to the Codepages mode of the Font window and selecting the Mac OS Roman codepage to better understand what the standard Macintosh glyphs are Windows Symbol Encoding If you want to have full control over glyph codes and you want to occupy all 256 glyph cells of the first byte range you should create your font using the Windows Symbol codepage The Symbol codepage begins from Unicode index FO00h and continues to FOFFh All glyphs in this range are mapped to the 0000h O000FFh range So the glyph with code F041h will be seen in Windows as A and so on To make a font using the Symbol codepage you have two options 1 Switch the Font window to the Codepages mode select the Windows Symbol codepage and place all glyphs in the codepage Export the font in TrueType format in Unicode mode 2 Switch the Font window to the Names mode select any encoding vector place glyphs as you want in the yellow area and export the font in Names mode Use Unicode indexes as the base for TrueType encoding should be off In either case select Symbol Microsoft Glyph Set in the Codepages page of the Font Info dialog box Without this the font will not be exported as Symbol and you will not have access to the glyphs at all The Problem of Glyph 183 middledot The glyph cell with decimal code
259. es with every font You can find two one serif and one sans serif royalty free non copyrighted fonts that you can use as a basis for your own fonts or characters in the AFS Samples folder on your CD or on our website www fontlab com To open a font for editing select the File gt Open command or click the button on the Standard toolbar You will see the standard Open File dialog box in which you can select a font file to open Note that in this dialog box you will see all the fonts that can be imported e Mac Suitcase without extension or dfont with TrueType or CID e Mac Type 1 PC TrueType TTF PC TrueType font collection TTC PC CID CID PC Type 1 in binary PFB and ASCII form PFA PC OpenType OTF and e fonts in FontLab AFS formats VFA and VFB From TestFonts CombiNum CombiNumBol A CombiNumerals bmap 4 FLCaslon dtont A FOOD LTTF A FuturBooC otf 4 FuturBooCObl otf i Georgia otf 4 GeorgiaBlt otf Kind Document Size 24 KB Show All Font Files HH Font name Georgia f Type 1 options make Unicode Options TTYOTF options keep instructions Go to Add to Favorites Cancel 1 To see the preview of the font in the Open dialog box use the Enable font preview in Font Open dialog option located on the General page of the Preferences dialog box _ Enable font preview in Font Open dialog 49 50 If you want to list only fonts in
260. et the font smoothing settings press the Auto button and they will be calculated as advised by the TrueType specification Font smoothing on Macintosh The gasp table is not used when fonts are rendered on Macintosh So you will not see the results of these settings in the TrueType hinting Preview window when the TrueType hinting tool is active Refer to the Hinting chapter for more information head Table Settings head table settings LowestRecPPeM E fontDirectionHint 2 B These entries are specific for TrueType rendering We do not recommend you modify them if you are not sure of what you are doing LowestRecPPem This parameter controls the lowest PPM at which the TrueType rasterizer is allowed to apply instructions FontDirectionHint This head table parameter defines font direction which may have the following values 0 Fully mixed directional glyphs 1 Only strongly left to right 2 Like 1 but also contains neutrals 1 Only strongly right to left 2 Like 1 but also contains neutrals A neutral character has no inherent directionality Spaces and punctuation are examples of neutral characters 217 218 Basic PCLT options Basic PCLT options i t C Export the PCLT table The PCLT table is used when a TrueType font is printing on a PCL printer PCL Printer Control Language is a page definition and printer control language developed by Hewlett Packard and is used in their prin
261. etween the lines of the hint that you want to remove Currently active hints are shown in green 2 CTRL Click the mouse and select the Remove this horizontal or vertical hint command from the popup menu Editing Hints With the Type 1 hinting tool you can also add edit and delete Type 1 hints and links To add a new hint hold the Cmp key and drag it from the vertical or horizontal ruler line in the left and top parts of the Glyph Window and position it where you want the hint to be To add a new link select the Add new vertical horizontal link command from the Tools gt Actions gt Hints and guides menu or from the popup menu that appears if you Crru click the mouse on an empty area of the Glyph Window Click the mouse cursor on the first node of the pair you want to link and drag it to the second node and then release it To edit a hint or link position the mouse cursor on the hint s or link s line press the mouse button and move it to the new position Refer to the description of the Edit tool on page 338 for more information about hint editing To remove a hint or link position the mouse cursor on one of the hint s or link s lines and Crri click the mouse Select the Delete command in the popup menu Select the Reverse command from the same menu to reverse the hint s direction Correct direction of hints is left to right and bottom to top Incorrectly directed Type 1 hints may cause the problems with some older font
262. f the character hold the Option key on the keyboard and drag the mouse cursor to the right to define a cutting line Release the mouse button SOUS CU w 3 Click on each inserted node to break the contour i 301 4 Select the bottom half of the T Temporarily activate the Edit tool click on the Cmp key on the keyboard and Cmp click near the bottom area of the glyph 5 Copy it to the Clipboard with the Edit gt Copy command 6 Go to the F character Use the Glyph gt Reset command to remove the contents of all editing layers 7 Open the Preferences gt Glyph Window dialog box and set the Copy Paste offset to zero and Duplicate offset to 400 x 0 Duplicate offset 400 x 0 Copy Paste offset 0 x10 8 Close the Preferences dialog box and use the Edit gt Paste command to place a copy of the T bottom a a 9 Use the Edit gt Duplicate command to make a second copy L 302 9 10 e it again and drag it to a place above the first segment Use the contour snap function to position the segment Activate the contour snap with the View gt Snap to Layers gt Outline We also recommend that you activate the feature that will snap a point which you are moving to all outline nodes by X and Y direction independently Use the Application gt Preferences gt Glyph Window dialog box v Align to all contour points if Snap to Outline is on Use t
263. f the control box press the mouse button and drag the handle to a new location You will immediately see the results of the transformation d 4 Double click to accept the changes you can also press the RETURN or ENTER key on the keyboard or press the Esc key to reject the changes 388 You can select one of the predefined envelopes Crri click the mouse button in the free space of the Glyph Window and choose Select predefined command in the popup menu You will see a dialog box with several predefined envelopes Select an Envelope OORT OHO Force 100 Randomize Yo 4 Dl _ F S Choose the envelope in the Effect list that you want to apply and fill in a Force option A force of 100 will make the envelope look as it is in the selection list A value of 0 will make a plain rectangle Check on the Randomize option to apply the envelope with random force When you select one of the predefined envelopes you can still modify it using envelope handles 389 390 Curve Using this operation you can approximate a segment of the glyph s outline with a single Type 1 curve i e remove excess nodes in a curve hes __ Original outline Outline after manual approximation To approximate part of the outline 1 WwW Activate the Curve operation Select Curve in the Operations submenu of the Tools menu or press the button on the Tools or Operations toolbar Position the mouse cursor on the o
264. fferent codepages have been defined for many languages and different operating systems AsiaFont Studio 4 includes descriptions for 124 codepages all the known Mac OS Windows OS 2 MS DOS codepages plus a few others like the Polytonal Greek Russian KOI 8 and NeXT Step codepages In AsiaFont Studio a codepage is a filter through which you can look at your font to see how it will work in different environments For example you might include many Unicode characters in your font and see how it would work if it was installed in OS 2 with the Arabic language selected This gives you the opportunity to easily create fonts that will be properly encoded and will always work correctly 83 84 To select a codepage in the Font Window 1 Switch the Font Window to the Codepages mode by clicking the Codepages button in the header or by selecting Codepages in the Mode popup menu in the Font window footer 2 The encoding selection popup menu will show the names of all available codepages y MacOS Roma MacOS Arabic MacOS CentralEurope MacOS Chinese EUC TW MacOS Croatian MacOS Cyrillic MacOS Devanagari MacOS Dingbats MacOS Farsi MacOS Greek MacOS Gujarati MacOS Gurmukhi Punjabi MacOS Hebrew MacOS Icelandic MacOS Romanian F Mac OS codepages come first MS Windows codepages follow All other codepages are sorted according to their names 3 Select the codepage that you want from the list and you will
265. fine the outline are positioned on the outline There are no Bezier control points or TrueType off curve points There are 3 types of points corner curve and tangent AMS 359 When points of known types are set AsiaFont Studio automatically draws the outline to match their positions If you want to change the shape of the outline just move the points or add more points to increase the precision When you enter the Sketch mode you will see an additional Sketch toolbar The buttons on the Edit toolbar are available too and have the same meaning as in Edit mode Here is a short description of the commands available on the Sketch toolbar e Show outline Displays the real glyph outline in the background of the sketch outline New sketch Used to create a new empty sketch I e delete the 7 current sketch Ext Add to outline Adds the sketch outline to the glyph outline The same commands are available in the popup menu that appears if you CTRL click the empty space of the Glyph window 360 Visualization of the Sketch Outline Every point in Sketch mode can have 2 marks The Node icon which is similar to how nodes are shown in Edit mode The Direction mark which shows the curve direction the mark is on the convex side of the curve at the point Direction marks are different depending on the type of the node Short mark x Curve point Mark with an arrow K Starting point of the contour
266. fixed and you have to press SuiFT key to free it You may click Apply button to immediately see results of the new options in the Preview panel Context Menu If you Crri click the mouse in the free space of the Glyph Window edit field you will see a popup menu Reset program Remove horizontal commands Remove vertical commands Remove final deltas Remove all deltas Convert hints to instructions Autohinting options Macro The commands available in this menu are Reset Program Removes all instructions Remove Horizontal Removes all horizontal commands including delta Commands instructions Remove Vertical Removes all vertical commands including delta instructions Commands Convert Hints to Tries to convert Type 1 hints and links to visual hints You Instructions can use this command as a kind of TrueType autohinting If a glyph doesn t have any Type 1 hints use the Tools gt Hints gt Autohint command to generate them Follow with the Convert Hints command to generate a TrueType hinting program for the glyph Autohinting options Opens the Autohinting options dialog box that lets you customize the process of converting Type 1 hints to TrueType instructions This dialog box is described below Macro Opens the list of macros available from the AFS Macro System TTH folder 569 570 Autohinting Process When you select the Convert Hints to Instructions command in the popup menu or apply the same ac
267. font so that your font will be compatible with various environments Encoding Selection Options The dialog has a list of possible encoding export options Encoding options v Always write custom encoding Always write Standard Encoding Export Unicode codepage if codepage mode is active Select encoding automatically When a Type 1 font is exported you have the choice of including a custom encoding vector in its body or just exporting a StandardEncoding key word that means that the font has the standard set of glyphs and that the standard system remapping tables may be applied to it StandardEncoding is the recommended choice if your font is a typical Latin font If the font is in a non standard encoding like Cyrillic Greek or Arabic you must export it with the specific encoding In this case the encoding that is currently selected in the Font window will be saved with the font and system will use it to access glyphs If your font contains many glyphs that can cover more than one encoding then system will take the main encoding if present in the font or if assumed as in the case of StandardEncoding as the base encoding and will take all the other possible encodings from it How ATM Interprets a StandardEncoding When a Type 1 font has StandardEncoding ATM assumes that this font includes all the glyphs from the first 128 glyph range digits alphabet and basic punctuation and the European glyphs 128 255 range The first 128 glyphs
268. fonts this idea gives us the following In this picture we used two styles of the same typeface Light and Black as ends and as you can see we have many more styles in the middle Fonts that are used to define end designs are called master fonts A combination of several master fonts into one font file is called a Multiple Master font In the example we used only two master fonts and we changed only one property of the font using interpolation But we can define more master fonts and get even more choices for changing the design of the font For instance here s what happens when we use four master fonts now we can vary both the fonts width and weight Narrow Light Wide Light Narrow Black Wide Black The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The text sample typed with different instances of the same Multiple Master font 597 598 Design Axes and Dynamic Range It is possible to define a number of properties of a MM font using master fonts These properties are called design axes or simply axes for short You can define as many of these design axes as you want but four axes in a single MM font is the practical limit since there is no program as of this printing that can use more than that The
269. formation o gt Created by Adobe Systems Incorporated Creation year 2000 Copyright 2000 Adobe Systems Incorporated All Rights Reserved Trademark Adobe Caslon is either a registered trademark or a trademark of Build Copyright and Trademark records Notice Description On the copyright page you can enter information about the creators of the font If you have created a new font you should enter your copyright notice here If you have edited an existing font that was not your creation you must not remove the information contained on this page or you may violate copyright laws Created by name 8 Name of the company or person that created the font If you are creating a new font enter your name or the name of your company here Creation year Year when the font was created This is used by AsiaFont Studio to automatically fill in the Copyright field and is exported in TrueType fonts as the Creation year entry Copyright name 0 Copyright message Must include the sign or the word Copyright the name of the company or person that owns the copyright and the copyright year In Type 1 fonts this information is stored in the Notice entry and in TrueType fonts in the Copyright entry Build Copyright Press this button to create the standard Copyright record based and Trademark on the Created By and Creation Year fields Records Notice name 10 Additional information that you want to inclu
270. ft in the Preferences gt Glyph Window dialog box Application gt Preferences command Copy Paste offset 50 X50 287 gt Note When you paste the glyph outline copied in the Font window it is always pasted without a shift On the same page you can adjust the amount of shift during the Duplicate operation Duplicate offset 100 x 100 Because the Clipboard is used as a buffer for copying contours you can paste glyphs and their parts not only to the current font but to any glyph of any font of any application that is compatible with AsiaFont Studio 288 Copying an Outline to Other Applications With AsiaFont Studio you can exchange outline data with other vector editing programs Supported programs are Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia FreeHand To copy part of the glyph s outline to a vector editing program use the usual copy procedure The selected portion of the outline will be copied to the Clipboard Then switch to your vector editing program and select the Paste command from the Edit menu You can change the size of the copied outline using the scale transformation that is supported by your vector editing application To copy an outline from a vector editing program into AsiaFont Studio select the outline object that you want to copy and choose the Copy command from the Edit menu in the source application To place the copied outline in AsiaFont Studio switch to AsiaFont Studio Glyph Window and select the Paste comm
271. fter commands that set positions of the points for which they are set but before commands that are based on these points 5 Final delta commands are interpreted after final interpolation of the untouched points 523 524 TrueType Hinting Tool With the TrueType hinting tool you can set and modify visual TrueType hints and preview the real resulting TrueType font using the system TrueType rasterizer To activate the TrueType Hinting Tool select the TrueType Hinting command from the Tools gt Operations menu or press the button on the Tools or Operations toolbar When you select the TT Hinting Tool you may see the message Do you want to correct outline problems before continuing Current glyph doesn t match TrueType requirements 3rd order curves are present Contour direction is wrong __ Always do correction Ignore the direction warning al y Cancel This message appears if the current character has 3 4 order curves that should be converted to 2 4 order curves to set Visual TrueType hints or if the contour direction is wrong The TrueType specification requires that contours in TrueType fonts to be directed clockwise Most rasterizers will correctly render TrueType fonts with incorrectly directed contours but it is not guaranteed so we recommend directing contours according to the specification If you don t want AsiaFont Studio to check the contour direction check the Ignore the direction warning
272. g Layers panel To activate the layer just select it in the list When you do it this layer becomes unlocked and all other layers are locked If activated layer was hidden it will appear until it is deactivated Use check boxes to the left of the layer names to control layer appearance For example to edit the glyph metrics just select the Metrics in the list Glyph and font metrics layers will appear in the glyph window and will be available to edit while all other layers outline hints guides and mask will be locked To edit the Mask layer just select Mask in the list The outline layer will be shown as a mask and will be locked hints will disappear and the mask layer will be set to front and open for editing The Editing Layers panel may be opened in the expanded mode Use this button to switch the panel between simple and expanded mode Editing Layers So a B S all layers LJ H H outline w vi Guidelines J wi Hints MM 2 Mask M4 Grid Vertical metrics JA Template RIARI pajta pa JI Glyph metrics Components i Eal ga Anchors and carets rh f wi Alignment zones The left column of checkboxes controls the layers appearance in the Glyph Window The middle column controls the snap to feature and is equivalent to the View gt Snap to layers menu The right column lets you lock layers and is equivalent to the Vie
273. g it close to the screen or another panel s edge To prevent the panel from sticking hold down the Cmp key while dragging the panel s title bar or switch off the option in the Preferences dialog box vi Panels can stick to each other With this button you can quickly enlarge a panel Click the button again to return the panel to its original size Some panels are available only under certain conditions You may choose to hide those that are out of use or leave them always open Use the checkbox in the Preferences dialog box to control the panels behavior _ Hide unused panels Every time you exit AsiaFont Studio the positions of all toolbars and panels are stored in preferences file so when you run AsiaFont Studio the next time the environment will be restored 45 Editing Fonts In this chapter we will discuss the editing of fonts A font is a collection of glyphs with similar design and some encoding and header information The information includes font identification names copyright data character encoding information and other data that is necessary for font usage 48 Opening Fonts With AsiaFont Studio you can create new fonts or open existing fonts for modification When you open an existing font however please be sure that modifying it does not violate copyright laws some fonts are copyrighted as software so it is not legal to change them in any font editor Carefully read the license agreement that com
274. g the Edit Macro panel Use Window gt Edit Macro panel to make it visible Macro Edit print Hello World This is basically a simple text editing control with a toolbar at the top The buttons on the toolbar mean Opens the menu that contains New Open and Save operations gt Runs the currently edited program m Stops the program that is running lt Restarts the Python system Use this command to reload all standard libraries and free all memory allocated by the Python system Launches the external program editor if selected in the Preferences dialog le fae When you click the button you will see a menu _ ee New Macro Open Macro Save Macro Save Macro As The commands in this menu let you perform standard file operations on your current macro program 711 712 Naming the Programs When you are saving a program and want it to be used in the Macro toolbar or to be integrated into one of the AsiaFont Studio menus you need to name it There are two ways to name a program you can store the name in the file name followed by the py extension or you can embed the name into the program code The latter way is recommended it allows you to keep the filename small but descriptive To name a program put the following line at the very beginning of the program FLM lt program name gt where the lt program name gt is the name of the program as in the following example
275. ge 1 1 H ALLJ JABBA w J0 w 0B w ahi we j wade w J048 with with w Hii wi J05 w 2046 a x L CIFT Esl wW DAE w 20E w 2b w AM we da we w IS wi w 2MB waa w dw e 0da ta tF RPAH w IE ow AAB w 20i w AA wi di w SOR e SOM w 20B Transformations In AsiaFont Studio you can transform glyphs in many ways You can edit glyphs and glyphs metrics manually using the Glyph and Metrics windows described in previous chapters Or you can use AsiaFont Studio s transformation filters to edit glyphs or metrics automatically Transformations may be applied to one glyph to a range of glyphs selected in the Font window to a special set of glyphs only to letters or only to digits for example or to a whole font All the filters are carefully designed and always produce high quality results that usually do not require manual control or correction In this chapter we will show you how to use the transformation filters and give a detailed description of each available filter 458 The Transform Dialog Box The easiest way to apply transformations is to use the Transform dialog box It is accessible from the Tools menu while the Font or Glyph window is active Select the Transform command from the Tools menu and you will see a dialog box Transformation Select an action t Contour p Hints and Guidelines b gt Metrics b gt Effects Current action Cancel OK C Apply to whole font By default th
276. glish alphabet Instances of characters that have a unique design are called glyphs But note that the same picture A may mean different characters the first letter of the English alphabet the first letter of the Russian alphabet and the first letter of the Greek alphabet can be the same glyph but are not the same character Precise character identification methods are really necessary There is a difference between character and glyph identification When we need to identify a character it means that we are identifying all glyphs that may be used to represent that character If we are identifying a glyph it is unique Characters are identified by integer number To support exchange of information this number must be assigned according to some standard In AsiaFont Studio all characters are identified according to the Unicode standard A glyph is identified by its name or by its index its sequential number in the collection of glyphs in the font Since the index may vary for instance if we remove the glyph with index 5 the indexes of all glyphs that have larger numbers starting from 6 will change it is not very convenient so in most cases glyphs are identified by names It is very important to understand that there is no one to one relation between characters and glyphs It is possible to have several characters and character identifiers refer to a single named glyph On the other hand some glyphs in the font may n
277. gnate the position of an intermediate MM design in the design axis space A very natural way to define the position of the intermediate font is to use its position on each design axis These coordinates are called design coordinates Width axis M y s n D g Q o O There is also another type of coordinate called blend coordinates Blend coordinates are normalized to the given dynamic range of the axis If an axis has a 50 400 dynamic range then the design coordinate 50 equals the blend coordinate 0 0 The design coordinate 400 equals the 1 0 blend coordinate Intermediate design coordinates are converted to the blend coordinates using linear calculation by default or a non linear axis graph described in the next section When we know the design coordinates we can calculate what proportion of each master font we need to build the intermediate font This process is called blending 603 604 Simple formulas are used to make these calculations and as a result we get an array of values that define the weight of each master in the final interpolation that produces an intermediate font 0 13 0 77 for a one axis font two masters are blended 0 02 0 24 0 11 0 63 for a two axis font four masters are blended Note that the sum of all weights is always equal to 1 This array of masters weights is called the weight vector and is used internally by the font interpreter to build the intermedia
278. gnized as having the same meaning represents the same character AAGARA All the pictures above mean the character A Please note that sometimes pictures that look the same represent different characters A Latin A A Cyrillic A A Greek Alpha Characters have codes that are used to store text data on a computer Glyph The basic element of the font literally an image that is printed All glyphs are unique even if they represent the same character Glyphs are used to represent characters Please note that many different glyphs may be used to represent the same character even in the same font ttt Font An organized collection of glyphs and font header information Usually glyphs that are united in a font have some similarities in design and other properties In the past a font was defined as a single size of the characters of a particular typeface Now since fonts are scalable the term font covers all possible sizes of the same typeface design CID Font The CID Character Identifier font format was developed by Adobe Systems creators of the PostScript language and Type 1 font format It was designed to simplify the usage of fonts with very big character sets Such fonts are used in Far Eastern countries to print text on PostScript printing devices or to display it on screen using special software CID font files are only an enumerated collection of characters CMap files add ma
279. gridfitting Algorithms that gridfit outlines use additional information stored with an outline s definition These instructions are referred to as hints Hints usually define the most important proportions of characters the positions of critical elements of characters and a set of rules for outline modification For perfect looking fonts it s not enough to define the characters outlines you must also provide hints The process of specifying the hints is quaintly called hinting 493 494 TrueType And Type 1 Hints The two most commonly used font formats are Type 1 and TrueType However they use very different hinting instructions and it is not always possible to automatically convert Type 1 hints to TrueType hints Type 1 hinting oS TrueType hinting In Type 1 fonts hints define the most important dimensions in the characters like the position and width of the crossbar of the letter H Font hints in TrueType usually called instructions directly control the movement of points and the rounding of point coordinates A TrueType hinting program is written in a special programming language This makes TrueType hinting very flexible and powerful but also too complex to program directly Usually a smaller set of higher level instructions is used to define hints These instructions are compiled to native TrueType hinting language during font export Type 1 Hints As you know from the Glyph Window chapter there are two
280. haracters stems Vertical s ms Horizontal s em All important stems in a glyph should have stem hints a pair of vertical or horizontal lines The information in the hint includes not just the position of each of the two lines that build the hint but also the position of one major line and the width of the hint You can declare stem hints in AsiaFont Studio just by dragging them and modifying their width Because hints in AsiaFont Studio are very intelligent they automatically snap to the contour minimizing your work In most cases the autohinting algorithm that is included in AsiaFont Studio produces good results usually not any worse than the results of manual hinting There is a special feature called Hints Tracking that can be used with hints It will be described later when we discuss editing hints Links Stem hints are not connected to the outline they exist in a different layer This allows you to use hints as pairs of guidelines while you work on an outline But if you change the outline after hints are set you have to set all the hints again to reflect the outline changes Another kind of stem hint called a link may help in this case Links connect two outline nodes using the position of the nodes and the distance between them to define a stem hint If you move one of the nodes connected by a link the link will automatically reflect the changes Links can also be either vertical or horizontal
281. he alignment direction bottom or top Top alignmentzone Bottom alignment zone At small PPMs all points that have vertical positions inside the zone will be aligned to the primary line i e moved in the direction of the alignment zone Editing Alignment Zones To set or edit alignment zones open the Font Info dialog box and select the Hinting settings item in the list at the left Type 1 and TrueType hinting alignment zones pepp Set alignment for the master Single master Set local alignment zones D Set family alignment zones Primary zones Secondary zones 20 0 sia dis ANV Auto zones 410 414 csi 417 435 450 462 666 683 r08 723 20 0 281 272 There are two list boxes where alignment zones may be set the Primary zones list and the Secondary zones list Primary zones Secondary zones 20 0 261 272 410 414 417 435 450 462 666 683 O08 723 20 0 Pts 281 2 72 FPH In Type 1 terminology primary zones are called Blue Values and secondary zones OtherBlues BlueValues include one bottom alignment zone the so called baseline zone and up to 6 top alignment zones The baseline zone is used to control bottom overshoots that have to be aligned to the baseline 499 500 OtherBlues includes up to 5 bottom alignment zones To add a new alignment zone press the button below the list To edit the position of the zone select the zone you
282. he Application gt Preferences dialog box OpenType Import Import OpenType tables Import kerning from the kern feature Import OpenType If you want AsiaFont Studio to read OpenType tables tables GSUB GPOS and GDEF keep this option on Import kerning from In OpenType fonts kerning data is stored as feature named the kern feature kern This option lets you import kerning data from that feature and to convert it to plain pair kerning format You can perform this operation later using AsiaFont Studio s OpenType editing tools but we recommend doing it during font import Name reading options To support multiple languages OpenType and TrueType fonts often have several versions of the font names Use the choices of this control to select one of the options to read those names Importing CID fonts To help you understand how AsiaFont Studio handles CID fonts we will give you some information about their internal structure More information about CID font formats may be found in Adobe s documents CID Keyed Font Technology Overview Tech Note 5092 and Adobe CMap and CID Font Files Specification Tech Note 5014 We strongly recommend that you read the first document for a better understanding of this technology Both documents can be found on the Fontlab website www fontlab com in Adobe Acrobat format Acrobat Reader software can be found on the website also Structure of CID Fonts To help you unders
283. he Tools gt Outline gt V Mirror command to flip the selected segment 8 303 11 Duplicate the top segment and locate the copy above the bottom right segment 12 Click on an empty area of the Glyph window and then click on the top left node of the top left segment to highlight it xT 13 Activate the Add Corner tool t click somewhere and drag the line to connect the left line of the top left and bottom left segments 304 14 Then click on any other starting or ending node of the contour segments and use the Add Corner tool to connect them 2 io eed Jet an You ll notice it takes more time to read the instructions than to actually perform the procedure 305 Outline Actions You can find the actions described below in the Tools gt Outline menu E H Mirror Makes a mirror transformation in the horizontal direction This operation is applicable to a selection or to a whole outline if nothing is selected la V Mirror Makes a mirror transformation in the vertical direction This operation is applicable to a selection or to a whole outline if nothing is selected a Check Analyses an outline and detects the types of connections Connections between outline primitives lines and curves ca Reverse All Reverses the direction of all contours of the glyph This Contours action can be useful if you want to completely convert a Type 1 glyph to
284. he action in the program list and enter new parameters in the Action s options area The actions parameters dialog boxes are described in the previous sections To remove an action from the program select the action that you want to remove and press the _ button Or double click the name of the action in the program list To remove all actions from the program press the _ button To move an action one step up in the program select it and press the button or press the button to move an action one step down Using the Preview Window When you make a program that includes several actions you can see an instant preview of the transformation program that you have made Press the Open Preview Panel button to open a preview window e Preview Glyphs Glyph to preview oe eee I Original Rotate You see that this panel includes a sample glyph that is incrementally transformed You can see the results of each step of the transformation so it s very easy to control how your transformation program works With the Glyph to preview list box you can select the glyph that is used to preview the transformations Use the scroll bar at the bottom of the window to see further samples of the transformation actions program Press the Close button to close this window 485 486 Saving and Opening a Transformation Program You can save the transformation progra
285. he brush stroke Other options relate to the Polygon tool described later and the option for automatic activation of the Transform operation To choose one of the Polygon tool modes use the options in the Polygon tool field If you choose Normal contour Polygon the polygon tool will create a simple contour that can include vectors and curves If you choose the Brush trace option the current brush will be applied to the created polygon s contour In the Brush trace mode you cannot draw curves while defining a new polygon If you mark the Automatically Activate Transform Operation check box and select the Transparent painting color the Transform operation will be activated and applied to the contour that you created after the completion of any paint action The last option Automatically switch editing layers allows you to automatically switch editing layers when you enter the VectorPaint mode To set this option first turn it on then enter VectorPaint mode for the first time and switch editing layers to create the most comfortable environment For example in Edit mode you may use an unfilled outline with all nodes switched on In VectorPaint mode you may switch on the preview mode and switch off all nodes Now when you enter VectorPaint mode the next time the editing layers will be switched automatically to your preferred environment Line Tool The Line tool allows you to apply brushes to straight line segments To draw a line
286. he current PPM it looks different If you want to add a bitmap for the current PPM Crri click anywhere in the Glyph window and select the Generate bitmap command in the context menu Generate bitmap _ Remove bitmap Import bitmaps You can edit the bitmap with the mouse just click and drag the mouse To remove the bitmap for the current PPM use the Remove bitmap command in the menu When there are bitmaps defined for the glyph they are highlighted in the Preview panel s EBBEBBEBBEEBEB 10 11 i2 15 id 15 16 17 FR 19 581 Highlight Differences You may highlight the differences between the result of the rendered and hinted outline and a bitmap Enter the Bitmap mode and select the Highlight differences command in the context menu Generate bitmap Remove bitmap Import bitmaps Highlight differences When you leave the bitmap mode click on the E button or select any other TrueType hinting tool you will see that all pixels that are different in the rendered outline and in the bitmap are highlighted in red You can use this feature to separate the artistic and technical parts of the hinting process make good bitmaps activate the Highlight differences feature go into hinting mode and set hints so there are no red pixels 582 Exporting Bitmaps To export embedded bitmaps make sure that this option Export embedded bitmaps is active in the Application gt Preferences gt TrueType gt True
287. he desktop or in the Dock to run AsiaFont Studio with those fonts open 51 52 Font Formats AsiaFont Studio can import outline fonts in any of following formats Format Extension Description Mac Suitcase none or dfont CID or TrueType fonts in Macintosh compatible resource based form or Mac OS X compatible data fork based form Mac Type 1 none Single Master or Multiple Master PostScript fonts in Macintosh compatible resource based form PC Type 1 Binary PFB PostScript fonts in Windows compatible binary form PC Type 1 ASCII PFA PostScript fonts printer downloadable form this format is also used in most Unix based operating systems PC CID CID PostScript CID keyed fonts used on PC ce EEEE ee T aoe Master or ASCII form ne EPEE a or ers ee eee eet eee ee E EEEE T E O cake E T Pe that are standard in Windows and Macintosh operating systems PC TrueType TTC TrueType based fonts collection collection FontLab 2 5 VFA Fonts in FontLab 2 5 internal format FontLab 3 0 VFB Native format of FontLab 3 0 4 0 and 4 6 and AFS 4 0 If you have fonts in a different font editor s own font format and you want to open these fonts in AsiaFont Studio 4 export the fonts in the Type 1 Binary format using the other font editor and then open the Type 1 fonts in AsiaFont Studio Import Options Before opening font files you may want to set some options that can help you get started more quickly In the following sections we will discuss
288. he information from the current page or the whole font info Make a selection and click OK to complete 171 172 Font Names lt Names and Copyright OpenType specific names Additional OpenType names Copyright information Embedding Designer information License information The names section includes the most important font registration information All programs use the information on this page to refer to a font Be sure to enter all the values very carefully and use the automatic features where available Basic Identification and Names Basic set of font names 4 Family Name Arial Weight Normal 400 Font is italic S Font is bold Width medium ee More Styles Style Name Regular Build Style Name Font Name ArialMT Full Name Arial Menu Name Arial 4 FOND Name Arial Build Names Family Name name 1 this mark is the ID of the name in the TrueType and OpenType specification http microsoft com typography otspec name htm The name of the typeface to which the font belongs All fonts that are from the same typeface must have the same Family Name field The Family Name is used as the root of the Font Name so we recommend that you fill in this field first Weight Weight of the font You may enter a custom value in this field or select one of the predefined weight names in the popup Values in this list are sorted by increased weight value Choose Normal or leave this field empty if
289. he lowercase x CapHeight The height of the optical line describing the top of the uppercase H in font units This might not be the same as the measured height of the uppercase H PCLT Codepages PCLT supported codepages as hie Typeface Recalculate File name Character Set Undefined Character Complement OOOO000000000000 Typeface This 16 byte ASCII string appears in the font print of PCL printers Care should be taken to insure that the base string for all typefaces of a family are consistent and that the designators for bold italic etc are standardized Times New Times New Bd Times New It Times New Bdlt File name This 6 byte field is composed of 3 parts The first 3 bytes are an industry standard typeface family string The fourth byte is a treatment character such as R B I The last two characters are either zeroes for an unbound font or a two character mnemonic for a symbol set if a symbol set is found Examples TNRROO Times New text weight upright TNRIOO Times New Italic Character Set HP Boise Division assigns symbol set values Unbound fonts or typefaces should have a symbol set value of 0 See the PCL 5 Printer Language Technical Reference Manual or the PCL 5 Comparison Guide for the most recent published list of codes In most cases all you need to do is to select one of pre defined values in the popup menu to the right of the manual field See below for more information Character T
290. he middle delta command with untouched points when it s necessary to shift several points at once Usually you have such a situation on diagonal and curved stems 585 586 Single Link or Double Link We recommend using the double link command only in situations where only the width of the stem is important not the position Doule links Here is a good example of the situation where double links should be replaced by a chain of single links 22 oS 22 nmmmmmmmmmm mmm mm mm mm m mmm m mmm mmm mm mmm m m m m m m mmmm MI Another possible application of the double link is hinting a character s middle horizontal stem If the position of the middle stem in different characters is different you cannot be sure that the hinted position will be the same at all PPMs even if the difference is very small There is always a chance that at some PPM the rounding of linked points will be different and the link will be shifted top or bottom Be ready to set a number of middle delta instructions or better yet set a special middle line alignment zone and use a combination of align and single link instructions 587 588 Hinting White Space Sometimes it s necessary to set the width of the white space inside a character especially with a narrow character that has more than one vertical stem Take the character H as an example With normal fonts we usually use two double links to set the widths of vertical stems
291. he same code For example codes A700 A7FF will form one row Every pixel in the row represents an individual code To open the Font Map panel use the Font Map panel command in the Window menu You will see a panel that consists of the code picture toolbar and status bar Font Map The buttons on the toolbar mean Turns on off zoom mode Changes the Font Map to double byte codepage mode Updates the contents of the Font Map By clicking the button on the toolbar you can zoom in on part of the Font Map Font Map In this mode it is much easier to manage individual codes To scroll a zoomed Font Map press the mouse button and drag the cursor beyond the Map borders If you click the Font Map you will see the current Unicode index appear on the status bar below the Map picture The current code is highlighted with a cross hair Double click any code in the Map to jump to the glyph that is mapped to it Font Map automatically tracks changes you make to the font If you are not sure that it is correctly updated this may happen with some macro programs click on the S button to manually update the Map 121 122 Managing Double Byte Codepages If you are working on a CJKV the acronym for Chinese Japanese Korean and Vietnamese font you may want to look at your font in a double byte codepage Open the Font Map panel and in the Font window of your font select one of the double byte codepages enabled in
292. he top of the vertical scroll bar You will see the header collapses leaving more space for characters Font Window Footer At the bottom of the Font Window you see a footer with one popup menu and two buttons at the left end Use these controls to customize the font window view Select the desired size of glyph cell in the Size popup menu Possible sizes vary from 16x16 up to 64x64 pixels Smaller cells occupy less space but hide details If you select the smallest size 16x16 you will not be able to see the additional marks which are visible in cells at larger sizes A sample of the different cell sizes 16x16 24x24 32x32 48x48 64x64 Use the Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons to enlarge or reduce the cells size When the font window s header is switched off the footer shows three additional popup menus The Title popup menu is used to change the cells caption contents The Mode popup menu corresponds to 4 buttons in the window header And the third popup menu is the synonym for the Encoding menu in the window header 69 70 Encoding Modes Support for almost all known character indexing methods is one of the key AsiaFont Studio features Here s how it works A font is just a big collection of glyphs that are used to represent many characters more about that in the following section On an average screen the Font Window can show just a few hundred character cells so we need to have some method to b
293. hint lines will move together To move a hint s lines separately hold down the Suirr key while dragging one of the hint s lines Using this procedure you can change the width of the hint Note While you are editing the hint its parameters are shown on the status bar To remove a hint 1 1 Start editing the hint 1 2 While holding the mouse button down press the Crru key and then click the mouse button II 1 Position the cursor on the hint and Crri click the mouse button 11 2 Select the Delete command from the popup menu Hints Tracking If the Hints tracking option of the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box is on Tracking Options Hints tracking Tracking offset 5 of UPM Guidelines tracking Track global guidelines and you move hints a distance less than the Tracking distance setting all nodes that are on the hint will be moved with it Use this feature to keep an outline on the hint when you want for example to modify the hint s width Note that this feature also works when you change a hint through the property panel described below 339 340 Editing Links Links connect two nodes The only way to edit links is to connect them to different nodes of the outline To add a new link 1 Select the Add new Horizontal EJ or Vertical h link command in the Tools gt Hints amp Guides menu or in the Hints amp Guides toolbar wh a Hints Guides zber fial
294. his 8 byte field identifies the symbol collections provided by Complement the font each bit identifies a symbol collection and is independently interpreted Symbol set bound fonts should have this field set to all F s except bit 0 221 222 File Name Treatment Flags Text normal book etc Italic oblique slanted etc Bold Bold Italic Bold Oblique Demibold Demibold Italic Demibold Oblique Black Black Italic Black Oblique Light Light Italic Light Oblique Condensed Condensed Italic Condensed Oblique Bold Condensed Bold Condensed Italic Bold Condensed Oblique Semibold lighter than demibold Semibold Italic Semibold Oblique AWNTMNSONVOIOAMOCW7D Character Set Table AsiaFont Studio stores the list of pre defined character set codes with descriptions in a special text file named pclset dat located in the AFS Data folder This file has a simple structure Undefined 19M Adobe Symbol OV Arabic McKay s Every line contains a Character set code followed after a single space by a description of the character set You can open this file in any text editor like SimpleText and make any changes you want The Glyph Window The Glyph Window is a standard tool in all FontLab based applications It is a universal and very powerful contour editing module that also allows you to perform many font specific operations 224 Glyph Window Contents Open the Glyph Window by double clicking any character
295. hs You can set new values for the left or right sidebearings or change these values by entering the amount in font units So if you think that your font needs some more white space just select this action choose the Increase by option in the popup menus and enter the value by which you want to increase the sidebearings Here is a sample of increased glyph widths Center glyph This action simply centers the glyph in the width vector Before centering After centering 473 474 Autospacing white space around glyph 7 inflate on metrics This action analyses the glyph s outline and automatically calculates its sidebearings It uses the same algorithm that is used to automatically calculate metrics in the Metrics window Refer to the Editing Font Metrics chapter for more information about the autospacing algorithm and options Adjust Metrics Left sidebearing P Adjust by 0 2 Right sidebearing Width Kerning x Use the measurement line C Shift the Mask layer This action lets you change metrics or kerning by some given value or percentage of the original value In the options area select the metrics that you want to change Left sidebearing i Right sidebearing Width P vi kerning 7 Enter the amount by which you want to adjust the values and select the units which can be font units or a percentage of the source value Enter a positive number to incr
296. ialog box and described later in the chapter After you finished managing suitcases in the list press the OK button and select the destination for the fonts in the standard Save dialog Name the suitcase file if needed and press the Save button to generate fonts Family Info To view and edit the font family information select the suitcase in the list and click on the button The FOND Info dialog box appears FOND Info FOND name FOND ID Script Roman HH Ascent 0 _ Fixed width font Descent Don t use family fractional widths Use integer extra width 0 Leading 0 2 Ignore FractEnable 0 i Max Width Don t adjust characters spacing rd Font name needs coordinating rd Font family creates the outline style by changing Paintlype wi Font family disallows simulating the outline style rd Font family does not allow simulation of the bold style Font family simulates the bold style by increasing point size Mi Font family disallows simulating the italic style _ Font family disallows automatic simulation of the condense style _ Font family disallows automatic simulation of the extend style Font family should have no additional intercharacter spacing 143 Besides the FOND name you may edit parameters in the following groups Font family properties FOND ID and Script FOND resource identifier or family ID number lying in the range of the particular script Changing the script in
297. ibed in full detail in the Font Header chapter There are several basic rules 1 One suitcase can contain fonts from only one font family This means that the FOND Name and FOND ID fields of all the included fonts must be the same 2 AsiaFont Studio designates the Macintosh s bold style for a font if the font s Weight field is set to DemiBold or more 3 AsiaFont Studio designates the Macintosh s italic style for a font if the Font is italic checkbox is set 4 Amaximum of 4 fonts can be combined as linked styles style Plain or Normal Mac font style nr 0 style Bold Mac font style nr 1 style Italic Mac font style nr 2 and style BoldItalic Mac font style nr 3 Building Font Suitcases To save a font in traditional suitcase based Mac Type 1 or TrueType format use the File gt Generate Mac Suitcase command You will see a special suitcase managing dialog box Export Macintosh Suitcase gt CA Arial Select destination format Macintosh Type 1 _ Adobe TypeReunion compatible l Options Cancel 139 The Export Macintosh Suitcase dialog box consists of 4 parts a toolbar on the top a list in the middle an options area and three buttons at the bottom In the simplest case you can just press the OK button and get a font but usually some management is needed By default the list already contains a suitcase that will be generated from the font that was active when yo
298. ically set in the central position oaog so 00000 000000000000000Q0 For pike characters this is not good enough because the position of the pike point is important At most PPMs you must set the width of the pike to one pixel Automatic interpolation of the outline may set the pike point to a position where the pike will disappear So in the case of pike characters we have to begin by positioning the pike point with the align to pixel center command and then set the positions of all other points by linking to this point ee Y VY VY WWVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV V Interpolate or Not As you already know all points that were not positioned by commands untouched points are interpolated automatically by the final interpolation command Final interpolation sets the position of any untouched point proportionally to the closest untouched points But sometimes you may want to control the interpolation process and directly set the base points of the interpolation Usually this happens when a point is geometrically between two touched points that belong to different contours The only way to keep point 10 between points 31 and 34 is to set an interpolation command in the vertical direction It s a good idea to interpolate the same point in the horizontal direction too 593 Multiple Master Fonts With AsiaFont Studio you can make a special type of font called a Multiple Master font Multiple Master fonts contain several font sty
299. ies panel 345 513 Hinting 203 233 491 character level 336 composite 576 Diagonals 591 font level 336 Multiple Master Fonts 638 Serifs 590 sidebearings 575 Strategies 584 Symmetrical Characters 592 White Space 588 Hints 237 336 Editing 338 Tracking 339 TrueType 520 Type 1 495 IBM 190 IBM Identification 190 Identification IBM 190 Microsoft 191 PANOSE 188 PCL 191 Ventura Publisher 191 Illustrator 289 403 Importing glyphs 403 Including files 654 Index 66 Index mode 73 INF 148 init 693 Instructions Removing 562 Integrating 709 Interpolate 382 Interpolation 383 521 553 593 627 Intersection 307 ISO Latin 1 75 isol 693 Italic angle 193 J Join 271 366 K kern feature 674 Kerning 40 408 409 674 assistants 15 automatic generation 435 editing 429 manual editing 430 mode 41 resetting 437 Key Glyph 445 Keyboard 28 Knife 235 271 Knife tool 264 266 L Language 656 Languages 645 languagesystem 655 License 184 LID 178 Ligature Substitution 679 Ligatures 354 Line Gap 196 link properties panel 345 513 Links 337 542 Editing 340 Local Toolbar 224 lookup 660 lookupflag 658 Lookups 644 LowestRecPPem 217 M Mac 195 Mac Name 176 Macintosh 18 19 24 27 52 75 78 115 135 138 144 157 179 196 201 213 216 332 410 595 639 Macro 66 Macro Tool 710 Macro Toolbar 706 Magic Wand 235 285 365 Make Mast
300. iew 16 About this Manual This manual covers the Macintosh version of AsiaFont Studio 4 We strongly recommend that you read CID Keyed Font Technology Overview Tech Note 5092 by Adobe Systems located on the Fontlab website to better understand the structure of CID fonts and CMap files The following chapters describe all of AsiaFont Studio s features in full detail They are organized to cover all the functions in their usual sequence AsiaFont Studio User Interface This chapter covers the basic definitions of the AsiaFont Studio user interface and its customization and gives a short description of all the AsiaFont Studio editing windows and panels Editing Fonts This chapter explains how to modify fonts copy characters change encoding tables select characters for editing and edit font info fields The Font Header This chapter provides a detailed description of the Font Header data and the AsiaFont Studio tools intended to manage it The Glyph Window AsiaFont Studio includes powerful outline editing tools that are described in this chapter Editing Font Metrics If you want to create a professional looking font you have to edit the font s metric data The glyphs widths sidebearings and kerning can be edited in AsiaFont Studio automatically or manually This chapter shows you how Transformations From scale to drop shadow from autohinting to autospacing more than 25 transformation filters c
301. if necessary Build Style Press this button to automatically generate the Style Name field Name Style names are based on the Width Weight and Italic information Font Name name 6 PostScript name This name will be used by a PostScript print driver to reference the font Do not include spaces in this name Full Name name 4 More detailed font name It may include spaces as well as any other characters this is the name that is exposed to users when the font is installed in Windows and sometimes in Mac OS Menu Name The name used to access the font in applications This name must not include style information bold italic or similar The length of this field is limited to 31 characters for TrueType or single master Type 1 fonts and to 7 characters for Multiple Master fonts To ensure that the current Menu name is made properly press the Check button FOND Name This name is used by the Mac OS to organize fonts into font families Windows does not use it We recommend you fill in this name if you plan to use your font on Mac Build Names Press this button to automatically generate the Font Name FOND Name and Full Name fields If you are creating a new font we recommend that you fill in the Family Name field generate or manually fill in the Style Name field and press this button to create the Font FOND and Full names If necessary you can edit the names later 174 How to Make a Font Family If you have several styles of on
302. ify a glyph s sidebearings and or width 317 318 Grid Layer This layer is very simple if the Grid is on you will see a grid of vertical and horizontal lines in the Glyph Window If snap to grid is on which it is by default any node that you move will snap to the gridlines You can adjust the grid frequency on the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box Application gt Preferences command Grid step 100 x 100 Guidelines Layer Guidelines are straight lines that are used to guide the drawing of specific elements of a glyph Guidelines can be vertical horizontal or slanted Guidelines can be slanted at any angle from 45 to 45 from the vertical or horizontal direction Slanted guidelines can help to mark italic characters or specific slanted elements in normal characters like the inner bar in the letter N You can see little numbers giving the position and slanting angle of each guideline near the edges of the editing field of the Glyph Window where the guidelines cross the rulers There are local and global guidelines Local guidelines appear only in the glyph where they were set Global guidelines appear in all glyphs of the font Global guidelines are very useful to mark important levels in the font by using horizontal global guidelines or to set the base direction of an italic or oblique font using slanted vertical guidelines 319 320 Editing Guidelines Be sure that the Edit
303. ighted with a small diagonal cross contour i i i ie Do not fill open When this option is on the open contour appears unfilled in contours preview mode i i Bezier control When this option is on and Show Layers gt Control Vectors is points are visible in off the control points become visible when the curve is selection selected FontAudit FontAudit is a set of algorithms that analyses a glyph s outline to find errors that may decrease glyph rasterization quality To switch on FontAudit press the button on the Show Layers toolbar If FontAudit finds what it thinks is an error it shows an error mark in the editing field of the Glyph Window Fon Audit error mark To see a description of the error activate the Edit tool position the mouse cursor on the mark and click the mouse button 253 254 You will see a FontAudit error message Extremum point We recommend placing a node at this extremum point Ge A This message has two buttons Fix and Fix All which you can use to try to automatically fix an error Fix button or all errors in the glyph Fix All Sometimes correcting one error causes others and when you press the Fix or Fix All button you will see even more errors so use this feature carefully You can customize the FontAudit algorithms using the FontAudit page of the Preferences dialog box FontAudit Empty lines and curves Vectors on amp closepaths Flat curves
304. igures by propfigures Replace lowercase glyphs by small caps sub lowercase by smallcaps Small SMALL Ligature Substitution The ligature substitution rule replaces several glyphs in sequence with a single glyph A Ligature substitution rule is specified as substitute lt glyph sequence gt by lt glyph gt lt glyph sequence gt must contain two or more lt glyph glyphclass gt es For example substitute one oneoldstyle slash fraction two twooldstyle by onehalf Since the OpenType specification does not allow ligature substitutions to be specified on target sequences that contain glyph classes the implementation software will enumerate all specific glyph sequences if glyph classes are detected in lt glyph sequence gt Thus the above example produces the same effect in the font as if the font editor manually enumerated all the sequences substitute one slash two by onehalf substitute oneoldstyle slash two by onehalf substitute one fraction two by onehalf substitute oneoldstyle fraction two by onehalf substitute one slash twooldstyle by onehalf substitute oneoldstyle slash twooldstyle by onehalf substitute one fraction twooldstyle by onehalf substitute oneoldstyle fraction twooldstyle by onehalf 679 680 Almost all fonts contain at least two ligatures fl and fi which can be easily encoded as substitute f l by fl substitute f i by fi Some fonts add longer ligatures substitut
305. includes all the digits and you select this option all glyphs except the digits would be transformed All opened fonts Transformation program will be applied to all glyphs in all opened fonts Fonts in the Fonts List Transformation program will be applied to all glyphs in all fonts that are added to the fonts list see below If you are editing a Multiple Master font the master selection popup menu will appear below the range list and you can select the master that will be transformed Note that only transformation actions that have the red MM mark in the right top corner may transform a selected master All other actions always transform all masters 482 Glyph List You may select which glyphs will be transformed by entering a list of glyphs This is handy for repetitive or recurrent transformations To create a glyph list select the All characters in the characters list or All characters that are not in the list options in the ranges selection popup and press the _ button which will be enabled You will see a dialog box St l qwertyuiop asdfghjkl zxcvbnm a t Enter all the glyphs that you want to transform into the Glyph list editing field You can use special character commands to enter characters that are not included in the standard Roman character set used in Mac OS by default Use a prefix to enter a glyph s name or use a decimal code and a prefix to enter a glyph s Unicode index
306. ing Use the zoom selection buttons to enlarge the sample character J11 z Zoom buttons B fe 14 Sau CC if All other options that can be set in this panel will be described later TrueType Preview Panel In the preview panel you will see a waterfall preview of the current character and a preview of a string at the current PPM size TrueType Preview The quick brown fox Sample string edit fie The quick brown fox Preview window ue EB BBB BBBBBBBBBBBBBBB 91011121314 i5 16 17 PR is 20 21 22 23 Waterfall preview To open the Preview panel if it s not already open press the button on the TrueType toolbar If you enter any characters in the edit field you will see these characters appear in the top of the preview window Use the usual AsiaFont Studio rules to enter special characters enter the character name after a slash character or two slashes to enter a slash You may also drag selected characters from the Font Window and drop them in the Preview window With the waterfall preview you can quickly select the current PPM Just move the cursor to the sample PPM you want to select and double click the mouse You can also browse the PPM values by pressing the Cmp PGUP and CmMD PGDN shortcuts on the keyboard 531 532 How AsiaFont Studio Previews TrueType Fonts AsiaFont Studio uses the real Mac OS TrueType rasterizer ATSUI to give an exact preview of
307. ing a New Font If you want to create a new font from scratch you select the New command from the File menu AsiaFont Studio will create an empty font that will not have any characters and will open an empty Font Window You may then add new glyphs To make your font usable you must also fill in the important Font info fields See the Font Header chapter Font Window The Font Window is used to display an entire font It opens automatically when you open an existing font for editing or choose to create a new font In AsiaFont Studio you can open many fonts at once and every font will have its own Font Window The Font Window is a representation of the font so when you close this window the font will also close You can do a lot of things using the Font Window from browsing a font for a desired character to rearranging and remapping the font to editing the Font info fields The following sections of this chapter will tell you how to use this window 80 8 Font FOOD Macintosh HD Users alex Documents TestFonts FOOD TTF SE ABCD e Name M ig MacOS Roman M fane HOM NEE Ph 2 EE a cg The Font Window consists of the header which includes a few buttons and two popup menus a footer and a table of characters character chart where a single cell represents each character Each cell has a caption showing the name of the character or its code in various forms 65 66
308. inition Language Information about OpenType features is stored in a binary form inside the font file This is not easy to modify and not easy to handle with visual tools like the tools that AsiaFont Studio provides to edit outlines that are also stored in a binary form To define features in human readable form Adobe has developed the feature definition language It is very easy to read and it is the most compact way to represent OpenType font features Let s take a simple example a ligature feature that covers the basic fi and fl ligatures that are present in almost every Western font In feature definition language this feature will be defined as follows feature ligaf sub f i by fi sub f l by fl liga Other possible features are defined in a similar way keeping the feature definition both compact and readable When AsiaFont Studio opens an OpenType font file that contains features it tries to reconstruct the feature definition file With a few exceptions it works for most possible combinations of substitution and or positioning features In the following sections we will describe the feature definition language in more detail The next section covers the basic rules of the language 649 650 Language Syntax Information in this section is partially taken from the official Feature File Format specification by Adobe with their permission Only those parts of the language that are supported by AsiaFont Stu
309. io has templates for thousands of characters so you will usually know where to place new characters 33 34 We ll discuss navigation in the Font window later in the Editing Fonts chapter so let s talk about the Font window command bar which is located at the top of the window On the command bar you can easily find a button on the left which is a duplicate of the File gt Font Info command which is described later in this manual Right of the buttons there is a popup menu which allows you to change the information that appears in the character cell s captions Next is a popup menu that allows you to change the encoding table of the current font imported We will talk about encodings later but you could choose a couple different ones from the popup menu and see how the Font window changes At the right of the encoding list there are four buttons that allow a choice of encoding modes Again a detailed description of this follows Just a few words here any glyph in the font may be identified by a name Unicode index or just its order in the glyph table Four buttons in the command bar allow you to choose one of four modes Names Unicode Ranges Codepages or Index The last button controls the saving of custom encoding file That s all about the Font window for now so let s open the Glyph window Glyph Window To open a Glyph window for editing individual glyphs you need to create one Remember w
310. ion m 554 Apply In this dialog box you can select a different glyph to be used as a component and set the component s position and scale The component position is the distance between the composite zero point and the component s zero point gt Tip You may just double click on the component to get the component Properties dialog box 399 Using the Primitives Panel In AsiaFont Studio you can add predefined customizable graphical primitives to glyphs There are five primitives included with AsiaFont Studio and it is possible to add more You can select a primitive from the Primitives panel To open the Primitives panel select the Primitives Panel command in the Windows menu The panel consists of a primitives list and a Place button that you click to add a primitive to the outline Here is a brief description of each primitive Grid Simple grid a customizable set of rectangles or squares TI Ellipse Circle or ellipse Cr D amp Free Rectangle that can be freely rotated rectangle p 400 Star Star with customizable number of rays Polygon Polygon with customizable number of vertices To add a primitive to a glyph s outline select the primitive that you want to add and press the Place button on the Primitives panel Or just double click the primitive s name in the primitives list E E Rectangle Ellipse Free Rectangle Star Polygon When you press the Place button you wi
311. is very useful for delta hinting Resulting pixels AsiaFont Studio uses the real TrueType rasterizer to preview a filled glyph at the selected PPM after interpretation of the instruction program Point numbers There are also two special points that mark the left and right sidebearings of the character You can apply any commands to any of these points Options Panel The main control center of the TrueType hinting tool is the Options panel Current FPM E Current PPM size Link to stem Automatic Alignment of distances J None vw Round distance Round position Md Og OF Point alignment options E Pa _ Center _ Double Round destination Delta PPM range Delta instruction settigns Delta offset PTT Tr rrt FePFebdsrEl ar Preview of the current glypt Preview zoom button The main use of this panel is for selection of the current PPM size Use the drop down combo box to select one of the predefined values or enter your own value in the edit field Current PPM 18 a You can also browse the predefined PPM values by pressing the Cmp PGUP and CmMp PGDNn keys on the keyboard 529 530 In the options preview window you can see a sample of the current character AsiaFont Studio uses a real Mac OS TrueType rasterizer to render the character so this preview is exactly what you will see when you export a TrueType font and use it in an application in a black white mode without smooth
312. it To edit an axis graph select the Tools gt Multiple Master gt Edit Axis Graph command The Axis Graph dialog box appears Axis Graph Choose the axis to modify Weight HH 400 450 345 Current position X 35q 633 634 To edit a graph 1 Select an axis whose graph you want to edit in the axis popup menu located at the top area of the dialog box Position the mouse cursor on the leftmost point of the line in the graph and click the mouse In the Current position editing fields enter the lowest design coordinate for this axis or position the cursor on the leftmost point and drag it Do the same with the rightmost point to define the dynamic range If you want to define a more complex graph you can add points To add a point position the mouse cursor on the line segment where you want to add the point and Cmp Option click the mouse To move a point position the mouse cursor on the point press the button and drag the point to a new position To enter the position of the point click on the point and enter the position of the point in the Current position editing fields Press the Apply button to accept any changes that you have made Choosing Dynamic Range When you define a design axis you should choose the proper edge design coordinates and dynamic range for it It is important to make your font compatible with Multiple Master fonts made by other manufacturers Dynamic range is not so important for
313. it to appear in the exported font leave this option switched on 159 160 Recommended Export Options We recommend selecting different export options in different situations In addition to the export options we also suggest particular import options that will produce the best results in specific situations Source Destination Import options Export options TrueType TrueType Keep instructions donot All hinting options on convert outlines do not Unicode export do not decompose do not autohint reencode TrueType Type1 Keep instructions convert Write PFM AFM and INF outlines do autohint do not files Select encoding decompose automatically Before export switch the Font window to the Names mode and select the desired encoding vector Type 1 Type 1 Do not decompose Write PFM AFM and INF Generate Unicode files Select encoding automatically Type 1 TrueType Do not decompose All hinting options on Generate Unicode Names encoding export mode do not reencode first 256 glyphs Of course you can choose other options but when you just want to convert a font from one format to another these recommended combinations of import and export options will usually give you fonts that will work fine in most environments Printing Fonts To print the font table select the Print command in the File menu You will see a dialog box that asks you to select one of the printing modes You can print a font table or a list of g
314. k is red it means that the character has overlapping hints The hint replacement program will be removed if you insert or delete a hint or a node or apply any transformation operation to the character Consequently we recommend that you set advanced hinting information only after you finish editing the character s outlines at the last stage of font development Type 1 Hinting Tool Use the Type 1 Hinting Tool to create a hint replacement program To activate the Type 1 Hinting tool select Type 1 Hinting in the Tools gt Operations menu Or just click on the button in the Tools or Operations toolbar If the glyph that you are hinting contains TrueType curves AsiaFont Studio will open the warning dialog box Do you want to correct problems before continuing Current glyph doesn t match Type 1 requirements Contours have wrong directions or 2nd order curves are present Always do correction Cancel Click Cancel to avoid activating the Type 1 hinting tool or OK to convert the glyph to Type 1 curves Check the Always do correction option to convert all glyphs that are opened for Type 1 hinting When the Type 1 hinting tool is successfully activated you will see a small Hint Replace toolbar Hint replace gt The buttons on the toolbar mean gt Auto Automatic hinting E 3 Hint V Allows vertical triple hints when pressed 509 When the Type 1 hinting tool is active the contents of the Glyph windo
315. ke a decomposed glyph oo oy I I I I 1 r 1 r a If you click on the button you can choose and open the text file with glyph name definitions prepared in advance Check the Mark new glyphs option to mark created glyphs in the Font window with color Check the Replace existing glyphs option to place created glyphs in the occupied cells of the font chart An old glyph will be moved to the end of the chart in this case 355 356 Aliases Table AsiaFont Studio comes with an alias dat file located in the AFS Mapping folder which is the text file that defines the decomposition of common composite glyphs Here is a part of the alias dat file F ONTLAB ALIASES nbspace space hyphen minus periodcentered middot onesuperior one ordmasculine o onequarter one_slash_four onehalf one_slash_two As you can see every line of the file contains the real name of the component glyph followed with a single space as the separator by the decomposition name onequarter one_slash_four This means that when you request the glyph named onequarter in the Generate Glyphs dialog box AsiaFont Studio will create a new glyph named onequarter but built as a ligature using the one slash and four components as if you had entered the name one_slash_four You can modify this table to include glyph names you often need to create Vertical Metrics Every font has several vertical metrics values for
316. l and y vertical coordinates The component position is the distance between the composite zero point and the component s zero point To add a component you select the glyph you want to use as a component in this dialog box and press the OK button Another way to add a component is to drag it from the Font Window and drop it in the Glyph Window while the Cop key is pressed Make sure you press the Cop key after you started dragging but before you dropped the component 395 396 Decomposing To decompose a composite glyph select the Decompose command from the Glyph menu or from the Glyph Window default popup menu The outlines of all components will be scaled and shifted according to their settings and added to the composite glyph If the component glyphs had hints then these hints will also be added and a hint replacement program will be automatically generated The link to the original component will be lost To decompose an individual component in a composite glyph CTRL click the component and select Decompose in the context menu Decompose Delete Properties Macro gt Component Positioning To activate the component positioning operation activate the Edit tool position the mouse cursor on the component s outline and click the mouse button Alternately if the current glyph is composite only so if doesn t have any normal outlines use the PAGE UP and PAGE Down keys to select a component for editing
317. l other contour presentation modes may be combined in any way A few more notes about outline appearance Selected parts of an outline appear red in color Selected nodes are marked as red rectangles and they are visible even if non selected nodes are hidden Many options related to outline appearance can be customized on the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box Application gt Preferences Glyph Window Mi Small nodes M Smooth outline i Ki Show contour direction Show node s position W Black white node icons _ Leave echo while editing 250 Here is a list of the available options and a description of the features they control Small nodes Smooth outline Show contours direction Show node s position Black white node icons Nodes may be small or large i i Allows one to select between standard and smoothed rendering of the outline i a An outline consists of several contours and each contour is directional The direction of the contour is marked with a small arrow paar eag a One node may be selected as the current node It will be highlighted and its position will appear on screen 446 211 To deselect the node click anywhere in the empty space of the editing field or click the Esc key Nodes may be colored or black white 251 252 Highlight the first When this option is on start and end nodes of the open node of the open contour are highl
318. l be on your left side Direc Ed contour Filledintrior zone In the TrueType specification the opposite is the case so a contour is filled on the right hand side However not all TrueType rasterizers require glyphs to follow this rule so it is recommended but not necessarily required that you reverse contour directions when you are converting Type 1 fonts to TrueType 243 244 Startpoint and Closepath All contours have a startpoint The startpoint is the first node of the contour The last node of the closed contour is automatically connected to the startpoint with a straight line which is called closepath The color of the start point in the Glyph Window is blue Optionally a contour direction mark may appear on a startpoint You can switch this direction mark off with the option in the Application gt Preferences gt Glyph Window wi Show contour direction You can customize the appearance of the closepath with the Colors dialog box accessible with the Colors button on the same page Contour direction L M Show closepath arrows Contour direction lets you specify the color of the contour direction mark so you can make it almost invisible but still know the direction of the contours and Show closepath arrows controls rendering of the closepath if this option is active closepath appears as an arrow Curves and Lines Graphical primitives are of three types straight lines Type 1 curves or TrueType c
319. l by clicking on a free space in the edit field To change the connection mode for a node select the new mode by clicking one of the F buttons in the lower part of the panel To change the selection state of a node modify the state in the Selected check box To edit the position of the curve s control vectors switch on the BCPs check box it will be gray if you are editing a node between two vectors and modify the relative position of the previous or next control point that belongs to that node Use the buttons with arrows to edit the previous or next node gt Tip when you are editing node positions in the Properties panel press the ENTER key to accept changes and move the focus to the editing field of the Glyph Window There you can use the keyboard to move the selected node and the PAGE Down PaGE UP keys to select another node for modification You will see the node properties change in the Properties panel as you move the node by keyboard or mouse Click OPTION ENTER to put the focus on the Properties panel to set the node position more precisely Previewing Glyphs Sometimes you need to get a high quality preview of the glyphs you re editing You may preview any single glyph with the key but it doesn t give you a feeling of how this glyph will look in a line of text or in multiple sizes To get a better preview use the Preview panel Open it with the Preview panel command in the Window men
320. l glyphs of the font that have nodes on this guideline will be modified Be careful with this feature because the results of global guideline tracking are not undoable 323 324 Guidelines Properties Panel To open the guideline properties panel CMp click the guideline or CTRL click it and choose the Properties command from the popup menu Guide Properties Horizontal guideline 338 WA 325 In this properties panel you can change the position and slant angle of a guideline To apply the changes press the ENTER key or just click anywhere outside the property panel Mask Layer When you need something more than guidelines or a grid to help with glyph editing you can use the mask layer The mask layer is an outline that is created with the same primitives as the glyph s outline It appears in the Glyph Window as a dashed outline and the glyph s nodes stick to the mask You can think of the mask as a freeform guideline The mask layer is very useful when you want to use one font as a template for another font For example you can put the sans serif version of the typeface into the mask layer while you are working on the serif version in the outline layer Another application of the mask layer is the creation of Multiple Master fonts In this case you put one style of the typeface in the mask layer another style on the outline layer and after defining the design axis you can put one of the masters on the ma
321. l type license html Ls License and License URL records are relatively new and have appeared only in OpenType specification version 1 3 License name 13 License description contains information about how the font can be used License URL name 14 URL where additional license information can be found Use the button to the right of the License URL control to open the page in a Web browser window This requires an Internet connection 184 Font Identification Version and Identification Key identification settings Panose identification IBM and MS identification Sometimes the operating system or a DTP application needs to know what the font looks like It may be necessary for example to properly substitute for a missing font with the closest look alike AsiaFont Studio supports all the font identification settings that are used in Type 1 or TrueType fonts Version Information Font version and revision information 4 H p j ha Version 2 Revision 5 Complete Version record 002 005 TrueType Version record Version 2 60 id Version Version of the font Revision Revision of the font Version and revision numbers are combined and build a complete version record that appears in Type 1 font headers TrueType name 5 TrueType font version records have a different format Version Record You may enter the TrueType version record here or just press the Recalc button at the right of the field
322. lds on this page mean Ascender Position of the font s ascender line Usually this is the height of the lowercase b character Descender Position of the font s descender line Usually this is the position of the bottom line of the p character Caps height Height of the font s uppercase characters Usually the height of the F character x height Height of the lowercase characters Usually the height of the x character Italic angle Actual italic or oblique angle for the font The italic angle is measured in the counterclockwise direction so the default value is 12 Slant angle Type 1 fonts can be artificially slanted to get an oblique appearance while keeping the actual outlines upright Enter a slant angle value in degrees here and check the result in the Preview panel Thickness This is the thickness of the underline line 193 194 If you press the Recalculate dimensions button AsiaFont Studio will automatically recalculate all the dimension values Ascender Descender and Type 1 fonts If you are making a Type 1 font you should set the Ascender and Descender values very carefully In Type 1 fonts these values are used very directly to calculate interline spacing It is usually necessary to set the Ascender value higher than actual height of the ascender b character to have some additional space between lines Advanced Vertical Metrics Additional vertical metrics OpenT
323. lect Tool Pen Contour Tool Brush Tool VectorPaint Options Line Tool Polygon Tool Ellipse and Rectangle Tools Text Tool Meter Mode Setting Guidelines Anchors and Sidebearings Outline Operations Interpolation Envelope Curve Set Reversing a Contour s Direction Rearranging Contours Working with Composite Glyphs Adding a Component Decomposing Component Positioning Component Properties 357 358 359 362 362 363 363 364 365 366 366 367 368 370 371 372 374 375 376 377 378 379 381 382 383 387 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 399 Using the Primitives Panel Importing and Exporting Glyphs Printing a Glyph EDITING FONT METRICS What are Font Metrics Kerning Metrics Files Metrics Window Selecting a String for Previewing or Metrics Editing Editing an Underline Editing Metrics Manual Metrics Editing Using the Keyboard Using the Metrics Table The Measurement Line Automatic Metrics Generation Quick Save and Quick Open Editing Kerning Manual Kerning Editing Using the Keyboard Using the Table Using the Kerning Dialog Automatic Kerning Generation Resetting Kerning Adjusting Metrics and Kerning Class Based Kerning Classes Panel Class Definition Defining the Class Key Glyph Editing Class Based Kerning Kerning Assistance Metrics Assistance Class Based Kerning and OpenType Fonts 400 403 405 407 408 409 410 411 A14 419 420 421 422 423 425 42
324. les called master fonts in one font file A program that uses a Multiple Master font can select not only one of the master fonts but also any intermediate style created by interpolation of the master fonts So it can use not only Bold Normal Narrow or Wide styles but any style in between such as 30 Weight and 47 Width We will discuss this process in full detail in the next sections The Multiple Master font format is an extension of the Type 1 font format This means that Multiple Master fonts or MM fonts for short are compatible with all PostScript printers MM fonts can be used on Windows or Macintosh computers with the help of Adobe Type Manager ATM versions 3 0 or later Unfortunately according to Technical Note TN2024 Mac OS X doesn t yet support MM fonts For technical details and an excellent background in this subject we strongly recommend you read Designing Multiple Master Typefaces a book published electronically by Adobe Systems It is available at http partners adobe com asn developer pdfs tn 5091 Design_MM_Fonts pdf 596 Multiple Master Fonts Theory A simple picture can describe the main idea of the Multiple Master font format 1 2 4 3 If we have two contours that have the same number of points of the same type vector or curve we can always make intermediate contours by interpolation The number of these different contours is limited only by the precision that we choose Applied to
325. les to use _ them later with other fonts Quick save Click this button to store current information about metrics i to a special temporary file If you do it before any serious modification of the metrics you can easily undo changes b Quick open Restores metrics data saved with the Quick save command gt Auto Automatically calculates metrics or kerning X Reset kerning In Kerning mode may partially or completely remove C information about pair kerning m Kerning dialog In Kerning mode opens the dialog box where you can _ g preview and manage kerning pairs g Kerning Opens the Kerning Assistance dialog box _ Assistance yet Macro preview Allows selection of special macro programs that can be used to simulate complex environments to test metrics and kerning Turns the Metrics window into right to left writing mode for work on Arabic or Hebrew scripts When this button is pressed all metrics are measured with respect to the measurement line Controls the compact or expanded appearance of the editing field Metrics Modes The metrics window works in three modes metrics kerning and preview By default the Metrics window appears in expanded Metrics mode To contract the Metrics window use the collapse button Ep In Metrics mode you can change the glyph sidebearings using either visual or digital controls 743 JT 720 I 746 ABC i 4 Feo A Caa HH In Metrics mode the string
326. lick on the glyph cell to open it in a separate Glyph Window Note that if this method doesn t work it usually means that it is switched off in the Font Window page in the Preferences dialog box You can force AsiaFont Studio to always open a glyph for editing in a new Glyph Window Use the Create new window by double click option in the Font Window page to activate this feature Crri click in the Font Window and select the Open in New Glyph Window command to open the glyph in a separate Glyph Window Click on this button in the bottom left area of the Glyph window to unlock the keyboard and click on the keyboard to open the character for editing You can also type the glyph name if you know it Use the Cmp L shortcut to quickly lock and unlock the keyboard Click the mouse button on the glyph selected in the Font Window and drag it into any Glyph Window Press the or buttons in the Tools or Edit toolbar to move to the previous or next glyph The Keys and are equivalents for these buttons Select the Choose Glyph command in the Glyph menu and find the glyph that you want to open 229 230 Changing the View in the Glyph Window Use the zoom mode and scroll bars to change the view in the editing field of the Glyph Window By using the scroll bars you can scroll the viewing field of a symbol With the zoom mode you can define how the symbol coordinates are converted to screen coordinates and vice versa If yo
327. lign points to the grid There are two types of alignment instructions those linked with alignment zones and those not linked with zones Alignment Zones Alignment zones define important vertical positions that are common to many font characters A good example of an alignment zone is a baseline and the bottom position of the O character Bottom alignment zone At low PPM sizes you must set the bottom point of the characters O C and similar characters to the baseline to suppress the bottom overshoot In this case we have a so called bottom alignment zone Another example of an alignment zone is the top line of the H character and the O character Top alignment zone Alignment zones are previewed in the Glyph Window with a gray color You can set and edit alignment zones in the Alignment Zones page of the Font Info dialog box See page 204 for a detailed description of this page TrueType alignment zones are the same as those used in Type 1 font level hinting AlignTop and AlignBottom Instructions These instructions are available only when the vertical hinting direction is selected To add AlignTop or AlignBottom commands 1 Select the Align tool I 2 Position the cursor over the point that you want to align and click the mouse button 3 Ifthe selected point was in one of the alignment zones an AlignTop or AlignBottom
328. lipboard to the background layer Trace Background Automatically traces the background layer and adds the tracing results to the outline This action is not available Remove Background Removes the contents of the background layer 333 334 To get access more quickly to these commands select the View gt Tool bars gt Templates option It switches on the Templates toolbar Note that if you apply the Save Background command to the glyphs selected in the Font Window when the Font Window is active then the backgrounds of all selected glyphs will be saved using filenames appended with the sequential number of the glyph starting from 0 You can change the color which is used to render the bitmap background in the Glyph window in the Colors dialog box accessible from the Glyph Window page of the Application gt Preferences dialog box Background L____ Background Positioning This operation lets you set the size and position of the background layer Se K a l Different sizes and positions of the bitmap background layer To set size and position of the background layer 1 Activate the Bitmap Positioning operation Select the Position Background command from the Tools gt Operations menu or press the lE button on the Tools toolbar or simply double click on the bitmap background while the Edit tool is active 2 You will see a control box surrounding the bitmap 3 Drag the handles in the
329. ll see the primitive appear in the middle of the Glyph Window Primitives have a blue outline and several control handles that you drag to customize their shape Drag the cross control handle in the center of the primitive to move it The behavior of the other handles depends on the primitive s type For example in the Star primitive the handles determine the internal and external radius of the star s rays and the angle between vertices that form a ray Try placing some primitives into the Glyph Window and drag their control handles to see what they do Use the Suirr key to constrain the movement of handles For example in the Rectangle primitive holding the Suirt key down will produce a square instead of a rectangle 401 402 Every primitive has a property panel where you can set the primitive s parameters precisely Press the button on the control panel to open the Properties panel for the primitive Primitive ao Cancel OK Here is a preview of the Star s properties panel Star Properties Number of rays 5 Internal radius 100 External radius 200 In this panel you can change the number of the star s rays and the values of the internal and external radii FontLab has a standard for primitives modules so if you visit our Web site you may find more primitives as add on modules Importing and Exporting Glyphs The most common format for contour based data is Encapsulated PostScript EPS Bec
330. llection Searching for Glyphs Renaming Glyphs Reencoding the Font Unicode Related Operations Generating Unicode Indexes Importing CMap Files Generating Names Removing Unicode Information The Font Map Panel Managing Double Byte Codepages Notes Sorting Glyphs Working with Multiple Fonts Window Menu Fonts Panel Merging Fonts Saving and Opening a Workspace Applying Actions Blending Fonts Exporting Fonts Font Formats 106 109 113 116 116 117 118 119 120 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 134 135 Exporting for PC Exporting for Macintosh Export Options Type 1 Export Options TrueType Export Options OpenType Export Options Recommended Export Options Printing Fonts Font Window Options View Options Tuning Options THE FONT HEADER Font Info Dialog Box Command Bar Copying Font Info Font Names Basic Identification and Names OpenType Specific Names Non English and Special Names Copyright Information Font Embedding Designer Information License Information Font Identification Version Information Basic Font Identification PANOSE Identification Other Identification Systems Metrics and Dimensions Font UPM Value Basic Font Dimensions Advanced Vertical Metrics Superscript and Subscript Encoding and Unicode Supported Codepages Supported Unicode Ranges Hinting Settings Alignment Zones Type 1 Standard Stems Global Hinting Parameters Format Specific Options Ty
331. lly generated according to the master s design So to hint MM fonts most efficiently use vertical and horizontal links to connect the outline nodes and you will save time in direct proportion to the number of masters your font has You can make a hint replacement program using the Type 1 hinting tool if necessary The preview panel of the Type 1 hinting tool will show an intermediate version of the hinted font according to the design coordinates selected in the Axis panel Use the sliders of the Axis panel to see how your font will look on the screen when different font instances are generated Generating a Multiple Master Type 1 Font When you finish your work with a MM font you need to build a font file that you can use on PostScript devices or printers To build a PC Multiple Master Type 1 font choose the File gt Generate font command When the standard Save As dialog box appears select PC Multiple Master format in the Format popup menu v PC TrueType OpenType CFF PC Type 1 PC Multiple Master UNIX Type 1 Raw ASCII UNIX Multiple Master Raw ASCII FontLab Press the Save button to save the font in PC Multiple Master format Note PFB and MMM files will be saved if you make a PC MM Type 1 font These files are necessary to install MM fonts in Adobe Type Manager in Windows Select Unix Multiple Master Raw ASCII format to make a MM font in downloadable format Fonts in this format can be instantly downloaded to a Post
332. log box appears Select a master which you want to replace by the mask layer wt wd1 op0 HH ABCabc123 C Do not insert points m E Cancel If you switch on Do not insert points option then AsiaFont Studio will copy outlines as they were in the Mask layer regardless their compatibility with the font Use this option only if you are sure the Mask layer is completely compatible with the outline Select the master that you want to replace by the Mask layer in the masters popup menu Press the OK button to begin the transformation Note that when the Mask to Master command is used the value of the width of the character in the Mask layer is copied to the active master To copy only the width of the Mask character this is always possible regardless of mask master compatibility press the Cmp SH1FT J key combination on the keyboard Using Interpolation to Make Masters If two styles are completely incompatible you can use the Interpolate operation described in the Glyph Window chapter to make master fonts Put one style on the outline layer and define an axis Put the other style on the Mask layer using the Assign Mask dialog box Select the master that should look close to the appearance of the style on the Mask layer and activate an Interpolation operation Use Interpolation to stretch the outline on the Mask layer This is relatively easy to do because the destination points of the interpola
333. ly 3 Release the button when you are done The selection will be modified To rotate a selection 1 Move the mouse cursor onto the rotation handle 2 Press the mouse button and drag the mouse The transformation rectangle will rotate around its center Hold down the Suirr key to constrain the rotation angle to 15 degree increments You can also use the slant handle for rotation just press the OpTION key to alternate between rotate or slant 3 Release the button to accept the rotation To move the center of rotation just drag the center handle by the mouse to its new position To slant a selection 1 Move the mouse cursor onto the slant handle 2 Press the mouse button and drag the mouse The transformation rectangle will be slanted Hold down the Suirtr key to constrain the rotation angle to 15 degree increments 3 To slant in vertical direction hold the Option key and drag the rotate handle 4 Release the button to accept the slanting Double click in the editing field or press ENTER to accept the completed transformation or press the Esc key to reject it You can use the arrow keys while the Transform tool is active to move the selection by one font unit in the direction of the key you clicked SHIFT ARROW keys move the selection by 10 font units at each key click 293 Selection Commands When a part of the glyph is selected Crrui click it to get access to the popup menu LU Cut Copy D
334. ly designed to handle fonts with an extremely large number of characters The key features of AsiaFont Studio 4 are Outline editors with more than 20 tools and 200 level undo redo Import of CID fonts and CMap files Import and export of fonts in OpenType TrueType and PostScript Type 1 formats with up to 65 000 characters Import export and native mode editing of Multiple Master fonts e Import and export of individual glyphs in EPS format Multiple Master enabled metric and kerning editing module with customizable autospacing and autokerning features OpenType feature editing and testing Import of OpenType features from existing fonts Import and export of font metrics files in PFM and AFM format Professional level manual and automatic Type 1 and TrueType hinting Automatic transformation of glyphs with more than 25 filters Library of predefined customizable graphics primitives Automatic testing of glyph outlines with our unique FontAudit technology Integrated Macro language based on the industry standard Python language New Unique Sketch mode with easy drawing tools VectorPaint tools Support of 4 encoding modes and an unlimited number of encoding tables Easy to use customizable drag drop based user interface Popup menus and property panels everywhere Sample printing of fonts sample strings and individual glyphs Automatic Multiple Master compatible font blending OpenType based Kerning and Metrics assistants Smooth outline prev
335. ly change the zoom mode of the Glyph Window by selecting the Zoom In or Zoom Out command from the View menu Alternatively you can click the Z key for zooming in or the X key for zooming out This command increases or decreases the zoom mode by a factor of two If the mouse cursor is in the editing area of the Glyph Window the new zoom mode will be centered around the cursor position These keys are active even when you drag something with one of the editing tools 231 232 Vertical Alignment Options When you select 100 as the zoom value AsiaFont Studio needs to choose a scaling factor to fit the font unit space in the Glyph Window Two vertical levels in the font space define this scaling Visual Ascender and Visual Descender Visual Ascencer Ww Editing Field Visual Descender When you select 100 zoom it means that Visual Ascender is fitted to the top of the editing field and Visual Descender to the bottom The same values are used to build the icons that you see in the Font Window or panels like Collection Classes To set Visual metrics use the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box Application gt Preferences menu Visual ascender and descender 100 amp 40 of UPM Values are measured in percentage of font UPM so 20 is 200 if UPM is 1000 and 410 if UPM is 2048 Tools and Operations AsiaFont Studio s Glyph Window may work in several modes The four most important modes are
336. lyph properties What do you prefer to print Print the glyph table Select Print the glyph table to print a font chart containing samples of all font glyphs or Print the properties list to print short descriptions of all glyphs currently selected in the Font Window After you make the choice you will see the standard Print dialog box that will ask you to choose a printer and modify the printer settings Printer Phaser 3400 ES Presets Standard FH Copies amp Pages HH Copies 1 M Collated Pages All C From 1 to 2 Maas es ll a A P eT gt 9 Preview Save As PDF Cancel In this dialog you can choose the range of pages you want to print When you press the Print button AsiaFont Studio will print a font table containing samples for all font glyphs their names and codes according to the current encoding and glyph cell caption settings 161 162 If you print a Multiple Master font the glyphs will appear according to the current font s WeightVector Printout of the font chart FONTLAS FONT PRINTOUT k m Fri Oot 235 1324340 1003 BalticaC ltalic Fage 1 2 iasi ote fa i rfr iire forty i one aot Ota mz ota AE iMac Pr ird a hoe on i F l t oe amp fi pit let 4 1 z 4 5 a i B a 10 1i 12 13 a 15 i ips occ fa i t otc tr Wi os Gost ea m2 Otc Je osc ant a ne oF 06123 4 5 6 F 8 9 lt gt Pf 17 13 T ai 21 z
337. lyph in the editing field The metrics editing controls will appear and the sidebearings lines with editing handles will appear at the sides of the glyph ae 1 Ewo 1G en 743 16 743 I 70G I fas I 70 Taz ces The numbers at the bottom of the glyph are the left and right sidebearing values and the glyph s width Manual Metrics Editing To modify a glyph s metrics you can use three methods 1 Move the sidebearings lines using the mouse 2 Edit the values in the property area of the Metrics Window 3 Drag the glyph within the editing area To move the sidebearings lines just position the mouse cursor on the line press the mouse button and drag the mouse Release the mouse button when you are done To drag a glyph within the editing area position the mouse cursor on the glyphs image press the mouse button and drag the mouse to position the glyph inside its width Press the Option key while dragging the mouse to modify the glyph s width You can easily modify the vertical position of the glyph relative to its baseline Just press and hold the Suirr key on the keyboard while dragging the glyph and this will modify its vertical position 421 422 Using the Keyboard When the glyph is active you can use the keyboard to adjust the metrics Left and right Moves the glyph by one font unit inside the sidebearings without arrow keys changing the advance width Hold the SHIFT key to move the glyph by 10
338. lyphclass gt lt glyph glyphclass gt lt valuerecord format A gt This format is provided since it closely parallels the way kerning is expressed in a plain pair kerning table Here the lt valuerecord gt must be of value record format A only and corresponds to the first lt glyph glyphclass gt Kerning can most easily be expressed with this format This will result in adjusting the first glyph s X advance except when in the vrkn feature in which case it will adjust the first glyph s Y advance Some examples pos T a 100 specific pair no glyph class present pos T a 100 class pair singleton glyph class present pos T a 100 class pair glyph class present even if singleton pos T ao u 80 class pair Note that if at least one glyph class is present even if it is a singleton glyph class then the rule is interpreted as a class pair otherwise the rule is interpreted as a specific pair In the kern feature the specific glyph pairs will typically precede the glyph class pairs in the feature file mirroring the way that they will be stored in the font feature kern specific pairs for all scripts class pairs for all scripts kern Enumerating Pairs If some specific pairs are more conveniently represented as a class pair but the editor does not want the pairs to be in a class kerning subtable then the class pair must be preceded by the keyword enumerate which can be abbreviated as enum
339. m that you created and you can open and use previously saved transformation programs To save the transformation program press the button You will see a Standard dialog box where you can select a folder and enter a file name for the program Note that if you save a program in the Programs directory it will automatically appear in the Transformation program popup menu the next time you open the Transform Range dialog box After you press Save in the Save File dialog box a new dialog box will ask you to enter a name for the transformation program Name the program To use this transformation program in the future you should name it Please enter the name in the box below Untitled Transformation e e This name will be used to identify the program and it will appear in the Transformation program popup menu To open a previously saved transformation program press the button and select one of the programs in the standard Open File dialog box A faster way to open transformation programs is to use the Transformation program popup menu The names of all transformation programs saved in the AFS Programs folder will appear in this list Select the program that you want to open and press the button You will see the program appear in the Program list box Transforming Fonts With the Transform Range dialog box you can apply a transformation program to multiple fonts at once The easiest way is to apply it to all font
340. mages Mi Use template image as a bitmap layer when creating new glyphs Til Show additional information in the glyphs cells wi Show hinting information marks TrueType and Typel vi Show Mask to Master compatibility information marks Tuning Options Mi Show Unicode indexes in captions in Unicode mode wv Double click opens Glyph Window Mi Create new window by double click Ww Drag drop feature is turned on Mi Smooth glyph s icons M Show note icons Sorting glyphs that are out of encoding Unnamed unencoded first Mi Hide all windows with glyphs from inactive fonts Controls on this page are separated into two groups View options and Tuning options 163 164 View Options Caption and Template Options Use the check boxes to switch on or off the cell captions and the template in the empty cells Use the Choose font buttons to select the fonts that appear in the caption and as templates in the empty cells If you switch on the option Use FontLab template font to preview template images AsiaFont Studio will use its own bitmap font to show templates The FontLab template font contains several thousand glyphs that cover almost all Unicode ranges Use template image as a background layer when creating new glyphs With this option AsiaFont Studio will put the bitmap character from the Font window template into the bitmap background layer of a newly created glyph This serves as an excellent reference of the glyph shape especially for
341. mats will work on both platforms For Windows centered office use we would recommend TT flavored OpenType fonts as they will provide better compatibility with the old versions of the OS For cross platform and DTP oriented applications the CFF flavored version seems to have some advantage because it will provide better basic rendering quality Please note that the differences are minor and the most important thing to choose is the source format in which you have your fonts If you have TrueType fonts that you want to convert to OpenType format by adding features then the TT flavored format is your choice If you have Type 1 fonts it will be easier to convert them to CFF flavored OpenType format 647 OpenType Tables OpenType fonts consist of multiple tables Every table is identified by a tag which is a combination of up to 4 characters 3 tables are responsible for the OpenType features GDEF Glyph definition table Contains information about font glyphs including their type simple mark or ligature cursive attachment points and position of the caret inside the ligature character GPOS Glyph positioning features Other tables may exist in OpenType fonts for example the BASE table that defines different baseline positions for non Roman scripts but AsiaFont Studio cannot work with these tables yet Please note that the presence of any one of these tables makes a TrueType font an OpenType font 648 Feature Def
342. me records OpenType Import Read only non English name records OpenType Export h Append OpenType name records to the names exp 3 Import options Read only non English This is the default choice AsiaFont Studio will read name records only those additional records that cannot be interpreted to standard name records which have dedicated pages in the Font Info dialog box Do not read OpenType With this selection any record that cannot be name records interpreted by the default algorithm is ignored Read all OpenType name All name records are imported as additional OpenType records records and are placed in the page 179 Export options Append OpenType name This is the default choice AsiaFont Studio will export records to the names English names and then add only those additional exported by default OpenType names that aren t already covered Do not export OpenType With this option AsiaFont Studio will not export any name records additional name records Export only OpenType When this option is selected only additional name name records ignore records are exported all other names from other default names pages in the Names section are ignored Final note please use this page carefully AsiaFont Studio doesn t verify information that you put into additional name records Be sure that you read and understand the name table specification 180 Copyright Information Font copyright in
343. mesTen italic 10 The Finder s view of the suitcase created with the Adobe TypeReunion compatible checkbox switched on is as follows TimesTen Bald 10 TimesTen Bolditalic 10 TimesTer lItalic 10 TimesTen Roman 10 gt Note To build ATR compatible font families make the FOND Name and FOND ID fields of all the included fonts different On Macintosh Type 1 fonts have to be generated with at least one accompanying bitmap font in a NFNT resource You can define the point sizes that will be generated on the Type 1 page of the Application gt Pref erences dialog box Generate bitmaps for size s 12 14 16 24 Use l ATSUI HA You may select a rasterizer for generating bitmaps Choose among the build in rasterizer or ATSUI Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging on Mac OS X If you are using classic system and have ATM installed then choose among the build in and ATM s rasterizers When TrueType is selected another additional option is available Select destination format Macintosh TrueType a f Write resources in Data Fork 142 If this option is checked AsiaFont Studio will write a font suitcase as data fork based file supported by Mac OS X only Leave this option unchecked if you want your font to be compatible with Classic Other font exporting options are available in the Export Options dialog box that appears when you click on the Options button at the bottom of the Generate Mac Suitcase d
344. mode hold down the Cop key 265 266 Inserting Nodes To insert a new node on a vector or curve with the Edit tool 1 2 Press and hold the Cmp and Option keys Position the mouse cursor on the point where you want to insert the node and click the mouse button The mouse cursor will turn into the knife and the new node will appear in that place Using the position tool to insert nodes 1 Activate the so called position tool by pressing the mouse button on a vector or curve while the CTRL and Option keys are also pressed down The mouse cursor will turn into a target with its coordinates shown Drag the mouse cursor along the primitive it will stick to take aim precisely and release the mouse cursor where you want the node to be inserted Using the Knife tool to insert nodes 1 2 1 2 2 Activate the Knife tool A Click on the point on the contour where you want to insert a node Press the mouse button anywhere on the empty area of the editing field and drag the mouse to form a knife line After you release the mouse button new nodes will be inserted at all points where this line crossed the outline Hold down the Suirtr key to constrain the direction of the knife line to 15 degree increments If the knife line will cross two lines you may find a part of the glyph to cut off Hold the Option key to limit Knife tool to insert new nodes only Using the Add Cor
345. n Width In the hint properties panel you can modify the position of a hint in the upper edit box and modify the width of the hint in the lower box Press the ENTER key or click the mouse outside of the properties panel to apply the changes Link Properties Panel In the Link properties panel you can modify a link s properties enter the index numbers of the two nodes which you want to connect by the link in the editing fields or check the Ghost Link checkbox to make a link into a ghost link Link Properties Horizontal link Node 2 36 C Ghost Link 345 346 Anchors Layer Sometimes when you work with a glyph it s helpful to mark particular positions and refer to them later In AsiaFont Studio you can use a special editing layer called Anchors to do this Anchors are simply named points that you can add remove move or rename A special property of anchors is that you can use them in macro programs and in the automatic glyph construction feature To add an anchor Crru click anywhere in the empty space of the editing field and select the Add Anchor command in the popup menu Transform Add Note Add Anchor You will see a new anchor by default it is a small red cross and an editing field asking you to enter a name for the anchor 4 Name the anchor and click the ENTER key to complete Moving Anchors To move an anchor just drag it with the Edit tool You will see the anchor p
346. n at the left To EU You can drag this icon up or down to adjust the position of the zone at the current PPM EU If you move the icon you will see all glyphs that have align commands applied to that zone changed their shape You may find this feature useful when you have to add glyphs to an already hinted TrueType font New glyphs often have a different height at some PPMs and you can correct that with the zone alignment command and zone hinting Align Instruction Use the Align command when it s not necessary or possible you can t align points to horizontal alignment zones to align a point to an alignment zone but you want to align the point s position to the grid The Align command is available in both directions The Align command allows you to directly control how point coordinates are rounded To select a rounding method use the alignment control radio buttons in the Options panel Round position Ot Ot OF _ Center _ Double 3 Round destination 539 Here is a graphical description of the various rounding methods Rounding Appearance Code Description 0 Aligns to the closest grid line Pes e lt gt v Pe 1 Aligns to the left or bottom grid line x lt 4 x v yY o 2 Aligns to the right or top grid line TE mp x gt lt gt K py 3 Aligns to the closest center of pixel lt gt Y4 lex E pay 4 Aligns
347. n font Use this option only if you are sure the outlines in the source and destination fonts are completely compatible To not let FontLab add nodes to compatible contours leave the Do not interpolate compatible outlines option switched on Mask to Master Action You can use a mask layer to construct a MM font from the existing styles of a typeface Let s take a typeface that has Normal and Bold styles and show how to make a MM font with the Weight axis 1 Open the Normal style of the typeface 2 Open the Bold style Now you have two fonts open 3 Activate the Font window that contains the Normal typeface and define a new axis Weight Define New Axis Name the axis FullName Weight Assign the short name two letters Short Name Wt d Recalc y Select the axis type Axis Type Weight fs Recalc y ral Convert hints to links before addition of the new axis ty 623 624 4 Open the Assign Mask dialog box select the Tools gt Assign Mask command and assign a mask from the Bold style Assign Mask Choose font that you want to use as mask of the current font Baltica BalticaC Bald You have selected font BalticaC Bold ABCabc123 Create new glyphs if they do not exist in the font 5 Close the Bold style font Now you have a Multiple Master font that has one axis two masters that are still the same and a Bold style on the Mask layer Don t forget to switch on the Mask layer in
348. n full detail in the Font Header chapter In the dialog select the Type 1 specific settings item in the list of pages to customize Type 1 export options or TrueType specific settings to customize TrueType export Switch off Use default export options at the top of the panel and you will get access to font specific customization Type 1 export options i Use default export options Wi Make PFM file W Make AFM and INF files i Use WinAscent and WinDescent as font vertical size Encoding options Export Unicode codepage if codepage mode is act _ Open Type 1 Export Terminal _ Reset to default The set of controls in these panels is almost the same as in the Applicat ion gt Preferences dialog box The only difference is that global options are applied to all fonts that have the Use default export options setting activated and custom options are selected only for the font for which they are specified 147 148 Type 1 Export Options To get access to the full set of Type 1 export options open the Application gt Preferences dialog and select the Type 1 page Type 1 Export i Make PEM file W Make AEM and INF files wi Use WinAscent and WinDescent as font vertical size Encoding options Export Unicode codepage if codepage mode i Automatically sort glyphs Open Type 1 Export Terminal Generate bitmaps for size s 10 12 Use Built in Type 1 e
349. n is active in the Application gt Preferences gt OpenType page OpenType Import v Import OpenType tables The following option Ww Import kerning from the kern feature will import kerning defined in the kern positioning feature into a font pair kerning table We recommend that you have this feature active when you import the OpenType font AsiaFont Studio will try to decompile OpenType features defined in the GPOS and GSUB tables It can read almost all substitution features and single and pair positioning features AsiaFont Studio does not support Mark attachment features If a GDEF table is defined in the font AsiaFont Studio will read information about anchors glyph types and caret positions from it OpenType Panels AsiaFont Studio provides two panels that deal with OpenType features the OpenType panel and the OpenType Features page of the Preview panel OpenType Panel In AsiaFont Studio you can see OpenType features in the special OpenType panel To open the panel use the Window gt OpenType panel command Below is the illustration of the panel that appears if you open the FLCaslon Adobe font Caslon otf OpenType eco az e sUps s Feature liga Standard Ligatures sint Latin num lookup ligal5 A sub f f i by ffi liga i dlig E3 _ f abrilo ordn a class62 fouroldstyle foursuperior cern oy fourinferior uniF63C uniF6d uniF659 uniF665 This font contains 20 features At the top
350. n it is used to type text in different languages For example some ligatures that are necessary in English are not applicable to Turkish Other features like support for initial medial and final forms of the characters are applicable only to Arabic script and so on OpenType allows us to define script and language dependence at the lookup level so the same feature may work differently when different languages are supported 645 646 OpenType Font Formats Another key feature of the OpenType format is the fact that from the user s point of view there is only one font format for Mac PC or any other platform From the inside there are two possible forms of OpenType fonts so called TrueType flavored or TT flavored and PostScript flavored or CFF flavored The general structure of the font file is the same and both versions of the format provide the same functionality But there are some technical differences Version TT flavored CFF flavored Outlines 2nd order like in TrueType 3 d order like in Type 1 fonts fonts Gans a Se ae a ne oe Sees ee a oe extension Comments Basically any TrueType font Outline data is stored in CFF may be called a TT flavored Compact Font Format format OpenType font but usually that is expected to work better we call them OpenType fonts with PostScript devices only when they have special features What Format to Prefer It is not easy to say which version is better Both for
351. n the name x comment on x place Text Content of the name table record May include Unicode characters after the Na Click on the caption of the column to sort name records by one of the values Below the list is a set of controls that let you define records Above the list there is a toolbar that you can use to modify the names table add or remove name records or import custom name records from the English data A Import names from the basic set of names defined in other pages of the Names section x Remove all custom name records 178 To add a new name record click on the button on a toolbar select name record options using the controls below the list and type in the name record content To enter non ANSI characters use unicode index or code notation where unicode index is the Unicode index of the character if the name record is for the Unicode 0 or 1 platform and code is the character code in the Mac Roman codepage if the name record is for the Macintosh platform For example you may enter 0411 for the Cyrillic beh Note that you can use the same notation in AsiaFont Studio s Metrics window or Preview panel so if you open a Unicode font you may test the name records there To remove a record select it in the list and click on the button Click You can use the OpenType page of the Preferences dialog box to control the import and export of the additional na
352. n you changed in the Kerning Assistance dialog box will be stored in the font If you press the Apply and Save button AsiaFont Studio will generate the kern feature and class based kerning will be applied if you build the font in OpenType or TrueType format Please note that this Kerning assistance will not change any kerning in any of the pairs it works exclusively with the class based OpenType style kerning If you want to convert class based kerning to an old style plain kerning table use the method described in the OpenType Fonts chapter Buttons on the toolbar for working with the kerning data kz Open data file Opens the data file with the kerning assistance mane information AsiaFont Studio can open data files saved by itself and kerning assistance files saved from Fontographer In latter case AsiaFont Studio will automatically generate kerning classes and check them in the list similarly to Fontographer Kerning Assistance dialog box ka Save data file Saves current kerning assistance information to a data file so you can apply it to a different font iv Select all Checks all items in the current list left or right x Deselect all Unchecks all items in the current list 449 450 Metrics Assistance Another way to use a kerning class is to adjust the metrics advance width and left and right sidebearings in the glyphs that belong to the class Use the Tools gt Metrics assistance command to open the
353. n you edit kerning using the Kerning Editor dialog box A o o WAIT A Pe as2 1 Their purpose is the same to preview classes in which the currently selected glyph serves as a key glyph Kerning Assistance AsiaFont Studio has a special dialog box that can simplify the creation of class based kerning Before you start working with it define some kerning classes which have their name preceded by an underscore and one of the glyphs in the class is selected as a key glyph To open the Kerning Assistance dialog box use the Tools gt Kerning Assistance command or click the button OpenType Kerning Assistance ai Left Classes N _kem A Wj _kernT T TATA TATA TA Kerning 110 d Cancel Expand Kerning Apply and Save The dialog box has a toolbar at the top two lists of kerning classes for left and right glyphs in the pair and a sample panel that shows the result of kerning of the pair 447 448 The idea of this dialog box is simple use the check boxes in the left list to select kerning classes that contain glyphs that may be on the left in the kerning pair Then check the kerning classes that contain glyphs that will be on the right in the pair in the right list For example if you have a kerning class that contains glyphs similar to K it is unlikely that this glyph will be on the right in a pair but it definitely will be used as a left glyph in pairs like Ko The
354. nType specific names Additional OpenType names Copyright information Family Name Arial Embedding p Designer information Weight Normal fs 400 _ Font is italic License information z l Font is bold lt Version and Identification Width medium 2 Key identification settings More Styles v Panose identification IBM and MS identification Style Name Regular _ Build Style Name vv Metrics and Dimensions Key dimensions TrueType specific metrics Subscript and Superscript vv Encoding and Unicode Men Name lArial fe Unicode ranges v Hinting Settings FOND Name Arial Standard stems T1 hinting Additional hinting parameters 4 P Build Names Type 1 specific settings v Font Name ArialMT Full Name Arial ET Cancel Apply E0 At the left there is a page selection control where you can choose one of the sections in order to edit part of the Font Info information ow Names and Copyright OpenType specific names Additional OpenType names Copyright information Embedding Designer information License information When you select one of the pages it immediately appears to the right of the list Basic set of font names ai a Family Name Arial Weight Mormal a 400 Font is italic Font is bold Width medium f _ Font ls bo More Styles Use the arrow buttons in the top right area of the page to browse all available pages A ab Alternately yo
355. nce between metrics 10 What do you want to do with kerning data f Do nothing HH i What do you want to do with other data Do nothing HH Cancel The topmost control contains a legend describing the metrics file that you are importing and its compatibility with the current font 453 The options in the Parameters area let you select various metrics importing options What do you want to do with the metrics data Do nothing Do not import metrics data from this file Replace all metrics Import all metrics data glyphs widths and in the current font sidebearings and replace the metrics data in the current font We recommend that you use this option only if your font is very similar to the metrics file that you are importing Replace all metrics that are Replace only those metrics records that are similar close to current to the imported metrics The Possible difference between metrics option controls the allowed difference Replace metrics that are These options are obvious thinner than in the current font Replace metrics that are wider than in the current font What do you want to do with the kerning data Do nothing Do not import kerning data from the metrics file Completely replace kerning Remove all existing kerning pairs and replace them data in the current font with pairs imported from the metrics file Add imported Leave the existing kerning pairs unchanged but add kerning data to the curr
356. nced options area General options Stem snap precision 17 16 of the pixel Stop zones alignment above this PPM 46 5 Do not execute instructions above this PPM 0 S Mi Shift key constrains setting of the delta instruction s direction Stem snap precision Measured in 1 16 of a pixel this value defines the difference between the actual stem width scaled but not rounded and the stem width in pixels specified by the stems dialog box If the difference is more than the defined value the stem is rounded linearly A value of 16 16 will mean that stem rounding will be controllable only when the difference is less than one pixel A value of 32 16 defines a possible difference of 2 pixels Stop zones alignment above this PPM Enter the font size in PPM after which zone alignment will not be operative and all points controlled by the AlignTop and AlignBottom commands will be rounded to closest pixel edge Do not execute instructions above this PPM Defines the PPM above which instructions will not be operative anymore Enter 0 to never stop instructions Shift key constrains setting of the delta instruction s direction Inverts the function of the SHirr key when you define delta instructions By default you can freely move the destination point of the delta offset and you have to press SuiFT key to limit direction to the current hinting direction When this option is deactivated delta offset direction will be
357. ncoded glyph so visually the glyphs will be exchanged Some Examples Situation 1 You want to make a PC TrueType font that will have a non windows codepage in Windows say one of the Macintosh codepages 1 Select the desired new codepage in the Codepages mode of the Font window Place all glyphs as necessary Save this properly encoded version of the font Select the Reencode Glyphs command Choose the Windows Symbol codepage and the Move option Press OK OY OT eer NS See the results in the Font window Do not forget to set the Symbol glyph set in the Font Info before exporting this font Situation 2 You imported a Type 1 font with non standard encoding and want to save it with standard encoding to be sure that it will work properly 1 Select the Reencode Glyphs command 2 Choose the Default Encoding and Generate Names options Press OK 3 See the results in the Font window 115 116 Unicode Related Operations Several commands in the Glyph gt Glyph Names menu work with the font s Unicode information Generating Unicode Indexes To automatically generate Unicode indexes for all the glyphs in the font select the Generate Unicode command from the Glyph gt Glyph Names menu You will see the dialog box Generate Unicode With this command you will automatically generate Unicode indexes for all glyphs in the font using the glyphs names as the source of information Please select o
358. nd DOWN arrow keys on the keyboard to move up and down in the table Use TaB key to move right and SHirr Tas to move left 423 424 Referencing Metrics In the table you can use a reference instead of the real numeric value For example if you want to set the left sidebearing of the glyph B to be equal to the left sidebearing of the glyph D click on the cell located at the intersection of the B column and the third row and instead of the numeric value for the metric enter D When you click ENTER key to accept changes the data will be copied from the source glyph The Measurement Line You will see a To activate the measurement line click on this button M red line appear in the editing area When the measurement line is active and visible the glyph sidebearings are measured not from the extreme points of the character but from the point of intersection of the measurement line and the contour Righ tsidebearing alongthe measuremen tline gt lt Standard righ tsidebearing The measurement line is very useful when you are setting metrics in a serif font usually serifs are ignored when sidebearings are calculated and the measurement line gives you a natural way to do that 425 426 Automatic Metrics Generation AsiaFont Studio can automatically define a glyph s metrics using a special algorithm This algorithm usually produces good results
359. nd position of the bitmap background ee ee o ee ee ee Envelope Modifies the outline as if it was painted on rubber a i E ee ce eer A O E LT ee a tes neg emer ual ye carne E a eae eerie i ne rearranges contours Below you will find a detailed description of the operations that have not already been described 382 Interpolation With this operation you can move a few points and all other points of the glyph outline between the moved points will be interpolated Original glyph Glyph after interpolation As you can see this operation can save a lot of time when you want to proportionally modify your glyph but want to save some important values like stem widths Interpolation is extremely useful when you are making Multiple Master fonts Refer to the Multiple Master Fonts chapter for more information When Interpolate operation is activated a small panel appears consisting only of two buttons OK and Cancel Interpolate Cancel Press the OK button to accept any changes that you made with the interpolation operation you can also press the RETURN or ENTER key on the keyboard or press the Cancel button to reject the changes the Esc key is the equivalent of this button 383 384 How interpolation works 1 You set the new position of several glyph points We call these points reference points 2 All points on contours that are between two reference points are interpolated All contours are
360. ne of the mapping files in the list below Standard Table H Use this table as default wi Try to keep existing glyph names ee l Cancel This is basically a warning message with an additional feature it lets you choose the mapping file The structure of a mapping file is described below but its purpose is simple to map Unicode indexes to a set of predefined names You select the appropriate file and click OK Then AsiaFont Studio will 1 Remove all Unicode data 2 Search the name Unicode database for each glyph s name 3 Ifthe name is in the database it adds the Unicode index linked with this name to the glyph s list of Unicode indexes 4 Because the database may link more than one Unicode index with a name steps 2 and 3 are processed whenever a glyph s name is found in the database Structure of the Name Unicode Database The database that links Unicode indexes and glyph names is nothing more than a text file STANDARD NAM located in the Mapping directory that has the following structure 6SFONTLAB NAMETABLE Ox0000 notdef Ox0002 nonmarkingreturn 0x0020 visiblespace 0x0020 space The first line of this file is a signature that is used to show that this file is a properly defined database file The lines that follow the signature have a very simple structure lt Unicode index gt lt name gt The Unicode index may be in decimal or hex started with Ox form The name should not have any s
361. nel so when you use this option for an imported font you need to manually delete the OpenType classes to avoid duplication The Output Panel The Output panel opens automatically when there is something to show and looks very simple One or more glyphs not found tn the font Basically it is just a text output window with a scroll bar You can CTRL click the panel to open the context menu Copy Delete Clear Select All Use the commands in the menu to clear or copy the selected text You can manually open the output panel with the Window gt Output panel command in the main AsiaFont Studio menu The output panel is also used by the AsiaFont Studio Macro system to show the results of macro program interpretation 671 672 OpenType Features Preview Panel When OpenType features are compiled you can preview them with the OpenType Features page of the Preview panel To open the Preview panel use the Window gt Preview panel command or click on the button located on the OpenType panel toolbar When there are OT features defined the OpenType Features preview panel looks like this O Preview Preview Anchors cpsp ABCabc 123 _ kern Source Ba ABCabc123 smcp Jas 4 ABCABCI23 aii In the top part of the panel you find a command bar that contains script and language popup menus and some buttons When more than one script or language is referred to by the feature definition they are listed in the
362. ner Add Curve and Add Tangent tools 1 Activate one of the tools 2 Click on any outline point The Corner tool will add a straight line the Curve tool will add a smooth connection and curve and the Tangent tool a sharp connection and curve Note You can insert nodes on the closing vector that automatically connects the first and last nodes of a contour If you insert nodes on the first half of a closing vector closer to the ending node of a contour then the new node will be added to the contour If you insert the node on the last half of the closing vector then it will be inserted before the starting point 267 268 Using the Drawing Tool The easiest way to create a new contour is to use the Drawing tool You can create a new contour or you can continue any existing contour If you want to add new nodes to the existing contour just activate its first or next node The last node of the open contour is activated 1 To add a point just click the mouse button If you want to create a line point just release the button If you want to define a curve drag the mouse to set the position of the curve control vector To adjust the position of the curve control vector without moving the control vector of the previous curve hold Option and drag You can press and release the Option key while you drag the mouse when OPTION is released you are defining the positions of the control vector that bel
363. ns an existing feature definition file With this command you File can apply a previously created feature definition to different fonts During import AsiaFont Studio automatically separates features into individual records and places the class definitions in the bottom editing control Save features Saves the current set of feature definitions to a file File Adding and Removing Features To add a new feature click on the button below the features list The new feature named xxxx will appear in the list and the generic feature definition text will be posted to the feature editor feature xxxx sub by XXXX When you change the xxxx name to something real the name in the list will be updated automatically Do not forget to make the ending name the same as the beginning name or the feature definition will not compile To remove the feature select it in the list and click on the button 665 666 Reordering Features The order of features is sometimes important For example if you have the ligature feature and the small caps feature they must be applied in a pre defined order the small caps feature should come first and only after that may ligatures be applied To reorder the features simply drag drop feature names in the list hist Cpsp a kern Lil smcp k onum Entering the Glyph and Class Names All features contain glyph names You can enter them on the keyboard but it s faster t
364. nt glyph window as a component Three additional buttons are in the status bar Add class Defines a new class Accept Click the button to accept the changes made to the class definition code Class Definition Every class is defined as a list of glyph names preceded by the class name _kern105 scircumflex scaron Kerning class names must begin with the underscore glyph this is necessary to distinguish them from the plain classes used in OpenType The class definition appears in the bottom part of the panel and you can edit it to add or remove glyphs After you make changes click the ENTER key on the keyboard or the Accept button and the preview panel will show the list of glyphs that are named in the class and can be found in the current font 443 444 Defining the Class Click on the _ _ button to define a new class You will see a default class name appear in the list of classes and in the class definition panel class1 You can manually enter glyph names that you want to add to the class after a colon glyph class1 A Acaron or you can drag drop glyphs from the Font Window to append their names to the class After you add a few glyphs the class panel will look something like this Al agrave ooco 1366 O D Al Atilde 00c3 1366 0 o HTA Adieresis ooc4 1366 O D Ble Boma eres 1 i classl 4 Agrave Atilde Adleresis Aring amp Acircumflex acute _ 7 glyphs in this class _ Accept It
365. nt when you use different encodings For example in symbol fonts the Greek characters take places that are usually occupied by Latin characters With the encoding tables you can include both sets of characters Just assign the correct names like alpha for the A character and A for the A character and later you can choose the symbol encoding to work with the Greek version of your font or choose Roman encoding to use the Latin characters In AsiaFont Studio you can include up to 65 000 glyphs in a font You can also select any of the predefined encodings to examine a font and then include it as the default encoding upon export You even can create your own custom encodings and use them to properly assign names to your characters Names Mode To switch the Font window to the Names mode click the one button on the Font window toolbar or select Names in the Mode popup menu in the Font window footer To select the current encoding for the font use the Encoding popup menu When you open it you will see the following available encodings Imported Adobe Adobe Cyrillic Macintosh Cyrillic The encoding that was loaded with an imported font The default encoding for all the applications in the FontLab family This provides the best support for Windows or Mac OS depending on the version of AsiaFont Studio Adobe Standard Encoding This is useful if you want to create a PostScript font Standard encoding for suppo
366. ntal Rapid Vertical Rapid Horizontal Instant Vertical Instant Horizontal Arm Style Straight Arms Horizontal Straight Arms Wedge Straight Arms Vertical Straight Arms Single Serif Straight Arms Double Serif Non Straight Arms Horizontal Non Straight Arms Wedge Non Straight Arms Vertical Non Straight Arms Single Serif Non Straight Arms Double Serif Letterform Normal Contact Normal Weighted Normal Boxed Normal Flattened Normal Rounded Normal Off Center Normal Square Oblique Contact Oblique Weighted Oblique Boxed Oblique Flattened Oblique Rounded Oblique Off Center Oblique Square Midline Standard Trimmed Standard Pointed Standard Serifed High Trimmed High Pointed High Serifed Constant Trimmed Constant Pointed Constant Serifed Low Trimmed Low Pointed Low Serifed X height Constant Small Constant Standard Constant Large Ducking Small Ducking Standard Ducking Large A detailed description of the PANOSE categories and values the so called Gray Book may be found on the PANOSE web site at 189 190 Other Identification Systems IBM and other identifications pe eis IBM Class IBM Subclass No Classification No Classification ER Other Identification Systems PCLID 1 Undefined HA VPID 1 Undefined _ Automatically link all ID values IBM Identification The IBM Identification system uses a different approach from the one used in the PANOSE system This system
367. ntosh fonts 213 214 Device Dependent Metrics Device dependent metrics hdmx and vdmx pen pra hdmx table PPMs use and to define ranges like this 11 13 15 16 9 13 15 17 15 21 24 27 29 32 33 3 7 42 46 50 54 58 67 75 Note that these values will not be used if you try to keep existing TrueType hints vi Create vdmx table itis necessary if this font has vertical delta instructions The hdmx control lets you customize the sizes for which AsiaFont Studio will generate records in the hdmx TrueType table This table is used to pre calculate pixel metrics of font glyphs so it will not be necessary to run a hinting program to get the correct width If you don t want AsiaFont Studio to generate an hdmx table for your font empty this editing field Use a colon to separate entries and to define ranges of PPM Use the Create VDMX Table control to ask FontLab to automatically calculate a VDMX Vertical Device Metrics table This is necessary if some characters in the font are hinted in the vertical direction so that at some resolutions they can extend above or below the scaled Win Mac Ascender or Win Mac Descender values and unwanted dropouts do not appear We strongly recommend you always have this option switched on Font Smoothing Control Font smoothing control gasp table ies las PPM Ranges ites a es ae _ Apply instructions to the range 1 F l T vi Apply smoothing to the r
368. ntour by mouse drag any selected part of the contour or use the arrow keys If you press the arrow key then the selection will move in that direction by one font unit Hold down SuiFt while pressing the arrow keys to accelerate the movement of the selection If the option in the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box Move selected nodes individually is on then dragging node won t move the whole selection but only this node Copying the Selection Sometimes you need to copy glyphs or parts of glyphs to another place in the font or even into a different font With AsiaFont Studio you can put any part of a glyph or an entire glyph with hints guides etc into the Clipboard and paste it into a different place To copy parts of the glyph s outline use the commands from the Edit menu or the buttons on the Standard toolbar Cut ly To copy a Selected part of the glyph onto the Clipboard and delete it from the glyph Copy To copy a selected part of the glyph onto the Clipboard Paste To add a contour part copied to the Clipboard into the current glyph as a new contour Insert To replace the current selection with the Clipboard contents Delete To remove the selected part of a glyph s contour Duplicate To insert a copy of the selection into the current glyph as a new contour When you use the Paste command the selection is offset from the original location You can change the amount of this shi
369. nts z class class 10 RAR UUOREARAA Ji lt 1 vi A fl s 115 glyphs in this cl Anchors and carets ie Accept Eal f wi Alignment zones 43 Below is the list of all the panels available in AsiaFont Studio They are described in full detail in the sections that are related to their functions so this is only a short reference Editing Layers Control of all editing layers show snap lock operations Transformation Panel for digital outline transformations Edit Macro Editor for Python macro programs OpenType Editor for OpenType features Output Text output panel Other panels and macro programs may output text here This panel is not available in the Panels toolbar Preview Preview OpenType Sample and Anchor preview panels Collection Classes Classes and Collections named or unnamed lists of characters Fonts List of all opened fonts grouped by family name Font Map A picture representation of big Unicode fonts Axis Selector of intermediate or extrapolated design in a Multiple Master font Masters Selector of master in a Multiple Master font Primitives Collection of outline primitives This panel is not available in the Panels toolbar All panels are described in full detail in the following chapters when we discuss the features that they serve All the panels can stick to either side of the screen and to each other To make a panel stick just dra
370. number of masters that is necessary to define a given number of axes can be calculated as 2 where n is the number of axes So a single axis font requires 2 masters a two axis font 4 masters a three axis font 8 masters and finally a four axis font requires 16 masters You can see in this picture how design axes and master fonts are used to select an intermediate design of the MM font Weigh tAxis 50 Different intermediate posi fons on the axis 1450 In MM fonts it is important to know how much the property connected with the design axis can be changed If we take the Weight axis for instance then it might be changed from normal 120 to bold 700 a moderate change or from light 50 to black 1450 a much larger change DTD DDD The range within which the property of the axis may be changed is called the dynamic range It is the distance between the two masters that define an axis measured using a standard scale line In our example the first dynamic range is 580 from 120 to 700 and the second dynamic range is 1400 from 50 to 1450 So that desktop publishing programs can use MM fonts that were designed by different manufactures some standards have been set for axes types and names 599 600 Standard Axes There are four standard axes defined by the Multiple Master standard They are supported by Adobe and thus are likely to be compatible with all current and future desktop publishing programs Of course y
371. ny time but that operation creates fixed composites and you would need to perform it manually for every composite glyph you want to create For composites that consist of a base glyph and one or more accent glyphs this operation may take a lot of time In contrast with anchors you can create virtual composites which can be converted to the fixed state at any time with the Glyph gt Generate Glyphs command To define a virtual composite the first thing you need to do is to open the base glyph OES 349 350 Then you place one or two link anchors which must be named top and bottom at the points where accents will be attached SOP To gt T Totem To add anchor points use the Add Anchor command from the Glyph Window context menu or the keyboard shortcut CTRL OPTION SuHIFT click The shortcut will first add the anchor named top and then bottom The next step is to add matching anchors in the accent glyph Open one of the accent glyphs D TT Add an anchor named _ bottom at the point in the accent glyph where it will connect with the bottom anchor in the base glyph Add the anchor top where it connects to the top base anchor I l E ta Ta You may use the Add anchor command to add these anchors or the keyboard shortcut CrrkL OpTiIoN SuH1FT click will first add the _
372. nywhere on the empty area close to the contour the Magic Wand cursor appears Hold down the Cmp and OPTION keys to select nested contours too To select all the contours in a glyph use the Edit gt Select All command To deselect all nodes click the mouse button somewhere in the free space of the editing field or use the Edit gt Deselect command To reverse the selection state of all nodes in the glyph use the Edit gt Invert selection command If the option in the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box M Bezier control points are visible in selection is on then all the control points of the selected nodes will be visible even if the View gt Show Layers gt Control Vectors option is off Using the Magic Wand Tool With the Magic Wand tool you can easily and precisely select contours It is especially useful when you are working with glyphs that have many contours such as Far Eastern ideographs To select the contour with the Magic Wand tool just activate the tool and click anywhere near the contour You don t need to be precise AsiaFont Studio will automatically locate the closest contour To reverse the selection state of the contour hold down the Suirr key and click anywhere near it m T wt You can also select a contour and all contours that are inside it Just hold the OpTIoNn key when you using the Magic Wand tool 285 286 Moving the Selection You can move the selected part of the co
373. o not interpolate compatible outlines option switched on Click OK and wait while AsiaFont Studio blends the fonts After the process is finished you will find the new glyphs in the new font or in the destination font The outlines of the two source glyphs will be stored in the Mask layer of each glyph and the blending result in the outline layer Those glyphs that had compatible outlines and do not get additional nodes during the blend operation will be marked with green color in the font window In some cases it is not possible to blend two outlines This happens when two source glyphs have different numbers of contours like O and 8 If some glyphs were not blended AsiaFont Studio will show a warning message and those glyphs will have an empty outline layer 133 134 Exporting Fonts You know how to open fonts how to rearrange characters and change encodings and how to save fonts in FontLab AsiaFont Studio format to keep your changes Now it s time to learn how to generate fonts in formats that other programs can understand Font Formats Macintosh version of AsiaFont Studio can work with five font formats and their variations PC Type 1 Sometimes fonts in this format are called PostScript fonts Usually and Multiple they consist of two or three files a file with the pfb extension and one Master or two additional files needed by the OS to get information about the font header and font metrics You need Adobe Type Manager
374. o eo ee count_selected Number of selected glyphs in the Font Window You can also access the fl object as a list of Font type objects print fl 0 font_name 716 There are several important methods Close fontindex Closes the current or fontindex font Open filename Opens the font from the file using the current Open filename addtolist opening options If addtolist is True the font is added to AsiaFont Studio s font list Save filename Saves the current or selected font using the Save fontindex filename standard AsiaFont Studio Save routine Add font Adds font to the list of open fonts and opens the Font Window for it UpdateFont Updates the current font or fontindex slow UpdateFont fontindex operation UpdateGlyph Updates the current or glyphindex glyph of the UpdateGlyph glyphindex current font EditGlyph Opens a Glyph window for the glyphindex glyph in EditGlyph glyphindex the current font Selected Returns True if the current glyph or glyphindex Selected glyphindex glyph is selected relatively slow operation Select glyphid Changes the glyph s selection state glyphid may be Select glyphid value string glyph name Uni Unicode index or integer glyph index Unselect Deselects all glyphs in the current font fast operation Message message question Shows the alert message dialog box all the OKstring Cancelstring parameters but the first can be omitted BeginProgress
375. o to get a text string of 100 pixels we would scale this font with a scale factor of 4 9 Essentially the UPM is nothing more than a base value used for proper font scaling and as a base value for the font unit A more graphical font parameter is the font height The font height measured in font units is the measurement of the font that is used to align strings in text It is important not to confuse UPM and font height UPM is just a scaling base and for example all Type 1 fonts have the same UPM of 1000 Font height depends on the font design and may be different Font heights The font height can be defined as the distance from the bottom of a letter that is partially located below the baseline like the p character and the topmost point of an uppercase character like H or a tall lowercase character like b Sometimes a font contains special glyphs that can be taller than b like an integral sign but usually these glyphs are not counted when font height is measured Reference Points By default all coordinates are measured relative to the zero point of the glyph This is located at intersection of the baseline and the left sidebearing line Reference pont Zero pont As an alternative distances may be measured relative to the reference point which may be positioned by the Edit tool to any point in the glyph space Often a reference point is very useful when you are working on a symmetrical
376. o use in the Format popup menu of the Save File dialog box that appears when you press the Save El button in the Metrics window When you are opening or saving single master metrics files they will be applied to or generated from the currently active master Editing Axis Settings When you are editing a Multiple Master font you can change the axis names at any time Select the Tools gt Multiple Master gt Modify Axis Names command and you will see a dialog box Modify Axis Names You are modifying axis Weight Axis parameters Full Name Weight Recalc Short Name Wt Axis Type Weight B Select the axis that you want to change in the popup menu located in the top area of the dialog box and use the editing fields to change the axis name type or short name Press the Recalc button after you change the axis name to let AsiaFont Studio automatically calculate the rest of the data 629 630 Removing an Axis At some point you may want to remove one of the design axes of a Multiple Master font When you remove an axis the number of masters will be decreased by half You can lose half of the information also so be careful with this operation The remaining masters will be blended according to their position on the removed axis which you can specify To remove an axis select the Tools gt Multiple Master gt Remove Axis command A dialog box appears Remove Axis Choose th
377. o use the drag drop method 1 Select the glyph in the Font window or in the Collection or in the Class panel whose name you want to enter 2 Press the mouse button and drag the cursor to the feature definition field The position where the name will be inserted is highlighted with the editing caret 3 Select the destination position and release the mouse button to insert the glyph name If more than one glyph was selected for drag drop operation all the glyph names will be inserted separated by spaces and surrounded by brackets zero one two three four five six seven eight nine To enter a class name defined in the Classes panel drag the class name from the list of classes classl6 class 17 k class 18 If you drop the class name it will be inserted into the feature definition text preceded by the class153 To insert the actual contents of the class hold the Cmp key when you release the mouse button perthousand perthousand percent threeeighths threequarters threeeighths fiveeighths fiveeighths seveneighths seveneighths 667 668 Renaming Glyphs and Classes When a glyph name is entered into feature definition text the link with this glyph in the font is lost so if you rename the glyph using the AsiaFont Studio glyph rename command the feature definition will not be updated To rename a glyph in the feature definitions position the cursor on the glyph name in the feature editing field and click th
378. odings the indexes of your files should not be used in any of the other files The actual value of the index is not important so you can assign indexes like 1001 or 10001 The last part of the first line Adobe Symbol Encoding is the name of the encoding vector It starts at the first non space character after y 4 Save this encoding file with a different file name but be sure to use the enc file extension Put this file into the directory where all the other enc files are located The new encoding will appear in the Encoding selection popup menu the next time AsiaFont Studio is used When you change the encoding you will see that the characters in the Font Window are rearranged Some characters will move below the yellow zone Remember that the currently selected encoding vector covers only characters that are in yellow cells Definition Encoding Tables This kind of encoding table has no reference to the character encoding and is used primarily to organize a collection of glyphs in some useful way For example if your font contains several glyphs representing the A character like A smallcaps A heading A swash A lowered it could be a good idea to have them visually close in the Font Window A Glyph Definition Encoding Asmallcaf A heading Azwash A lowered xax wxx You can do this by creating an ENC file that enumerates the characters that you want to arrange Note that it
379. oint and the point becomes touched afterwards It s a good idea to use middle delta instructions to correct the rounding direction on some PPMs like on the character e at small PPM sizes Another good application of middle delta instructions is the correction of diagonal hints A middle delta instruction touches the point to which it is applied so any other point between two delta instructions will be interpolated in the final interpolation routine The middle delta instruction has 4 arguments point to move PPMo PPM the PPM range in which this instruction works and the shift distance in eighths of pixels In the Program panel this instruction looks like MDeltaV 18 lt 6 gt 12 14 where 18 is the point index 6 is the distance to move in this case move up by 6 8 of a pixel A minus sign in front of the number would indicate a move down 12 is PPMo and 14 is PPM This means that point 18 will be moved up 6 8 of a pixel when PPM is 12 13 or 14 To set a middle delta instruction 1 Select the Middle Delta tool 2 Inthe Options panel select the shift distance direction and PPM range Delta PPM range 1 12 Delta PPM range Delta offset 3 Try Tr TT Sgr Shift distance EFeGd El i 3 4567 5 By default the PMM range is equal to the current PPM 3 Move the cursor to the point at which you want to set the delta instruction and click the mouse 557
380. ombo box ABCabel2s AVATay ABCabe SHE VERSE ASHORE hamburgevons HAMBURGEY ONS AS AGREES RUNAS GORGEOUS NAME HAHFAAQHAQOAD HBHHBOHBOOBO HOAACORCOOCO Font to use in the preview combo box Lucida Grande Second preview string You will find an editing field containing all the strings that appear in the list box Edit the text or use the Open button to fill it from an external text file If you are working with a non Latin font you may want to select the font that is used in the sample string control and list Use the editing field below the contents field to enter the desired font name or click on the Select button to select the font with the standard font selection dialog box 415 The bottom position in the dialog box is occupied by the Second preview string control Text that you enter here will appear as the second line in the Metrics window AVATaY HOHO Note that this second line is not editable and is used to make visual comparison to the editing metrics of other glyphs in the font Navigating in the Sample String or next glyphs in the string These buttons are useful if one of the glyphs has a negative width value You can also use the PAGE UP and PAGE Down keys on the keyboard to navigate in the sample string To scroll the window you can press the space bar and scroll the Metrics window with the hand tool 416 Entering Special Characters Some glyphs are not represented by the ANSI
381. on Using the Keyboard You can use the keyboard to move nodes and to select a node for editing Arrow keys Every click moves current node by one font unit ra anne AEAEE a a anan aa Ce aan Aopen oe i ae font unit E areal PEETER a TT EEEE EEEE keys a PE EEEE EEN a EEEE ATIE ETET e EEEE EENE a ee poe EEEE AAAA aa Cea et aaah ahaa a eee Seca cee ep Emenee er ce ore a EAA AA a a NEEE C SETA gt Note You can make a line or a curve a current object and arrow operations will move it as a whole Just click on a curve or a line with the Edit tool and it will be highlighted by a pair of short lines 259 260 Non node editing Sometimes you may want to modify a contour in a more flexible way than by moving nodes For example to adjust the shape of a curve in node editing you would usually make the control points of a curve visible and move them to modify the curve A more intuitive way would be to grab the curve somewhere between the nodes and move this imaginary inside point The curve s shape changes accordingly We call this method non node editing This means that you can move not only nodes but every point of a glyph s contour You can even switch off nodes and still be able to edit the contour as you wish To modify a curve or vector using the non node editing method 1 Move the mouse cursor onto the place on the curve vector that you want to move 2 Press the mouse button You will see a
382. on of new features Language system In practice most or all of the features in a font will be registered under the same set of language systems and a particular feature s lookups will be identical across the language systems that the feature is registered under The languagesystem statement takes advantage of this fact It is the simplest way to specify a language system in the feature file One or more such statements may be present in the feature file at global scope i e outside of the feature blocks or any other blocks and before any of the feature blocks languagesystem lt script tag gt lt language tag gt When these statements are present then each feature that does not contain an explicit script or language statement will be registered under every language system specified by the languagesystem statement s If no languagesystem statement is present then the implementation will behave exactly as though the following statement were present at the beginning of the feature file languagesystem latn DFLT 655 656 Script and Language Occasionally you may need to specify a feature whose lookups vary across the language systems of the feature or whose language systems vary from the set of language systems of the rest of the features in the file specified by the languagesystem statements In these cases the script and language statements should be used within the feature block itself A script
383. ongs to the previous curve and the control vector of the next curve When OPTION is pressed you are not moving the previous curve s control vector When you are adding a new node you can hold the Cmp key to not move the curve control vector but move the node itself Finally you can use the Suirt key at any time to constrain the direction of the line if you are holding the Cmp key or a curve control vector To close the contour just click on its starting point and drag the mouse to set the direction of the control vectors Adding Points to a Contour In addition to the Drawing tool you can use three more tools to create a new contour or to add points to an existing contour These tools are Add Corner Add Curve and Add Tangent To create a new contour 1 Activate one of the tools 2 Click anywhere in the empty area of the glyph window to create the first point of a new contour Drag the mouse to put new node into correct position 3 Click again in the empty area to add a corner line curve or smoothly connected curve with Add Corner Add Curve or Add Tangent tools respectively 4 Continue the procedure until your newly defined contour is complete Faw 5 You can switch to the Drawing tool at any time and use it to add new points to a contour you are creating Note A new node is added to the contour if the last node of the contour is highlighted If it is not highlighted a new contour is started
384. ont Studio you can define caret positions inside the ligature Do the following 1 Open the ligature glyph in the Glyph window 2 Open the properties panel with the Edit gt Properties command 3 Inthe properties panel select the ligature glyph type 4 To the right of the glyph type popup menu enter the number of components in the ligature 5 Make sure that View gt Show Layers gt Anchors and Carets option is on 6 You will see several vertical caret lines appeared in the Glyph window The number of the lines equals the number of components of the ligature minus one 2761 Bom Z r Use the Edit tool to move the caret lines to the desired positions Exporting OpenType Fonts When you have a font that contains feature definitions and you want them to be exported to an OpenType font file the first thing you need to do is to compile and test your features using the tools in the OpenType panel If feature definitions contain errors they will not be exported and you will get a plain TrueType font file without any features If you are exporting a CFF flavored OpenType font and the feature definitions contain an error the font will not be exported at all When you know that there are no errors in the features and the features work as expected you need to check the OpenType export options in the Application gt Preferences gt OpenType dialog box OpenType Export W Export OpenType Tables C Export VOLT data W Generate k
385. ontal and vertical directions InterpolateV FDeltaH FDeltaV Final Delta commands Click on the More gt gt button to expand the panel TrueType Program Instructions 0 DoubleLinkH 45 lt gt 27 1 DoubleLinkH 10 lt gt 75 2 MDeltaH 10 3 gt 22 25 3 MDeltaH 10 lt 2 gt 9 21 4 SingleLinkH 2 7 gt 210 5 SingleLinkH 27 gt 25 na 6 T g l6 SingleLinkH 27 gt 26 na C close 7 InterpolateH 10 37 lt 750 r 8 MDeltaH 37 lt 353 gt 22 23 9 MDeltaH 37 lt 2 gt 9 21 10 SingleLinkH 45 gt 500 11 singleLinkH 45 gt 1120 14 SinodlelinkH A AA rna ee y Less lt lt From 45 Tor 27 Stem Round without stem EB In expanded mode you see the command options panel in the bottom Select the command and use the controls in that area to change the command parameters Click the Apply button after you make changes to accept them 534 The commands in the list have a two way connection with the Glyph window when you click on the visual representation of the command in the Glyph window the related command is selected in the Program panel s list When you select a command in the Program list the command is visually highlighted in the Glyph window y zc Use the command link to check the logic of the hinting program and to customize command parameters in complex situations 535 536 Alignment Instructions Alignment instructions are used to a
386. ontext is matched is positioning performed Please note that glyph positioning is performed after substitution and that all positioning lookups must be defined for the glyph string that is a result of substitution Glyph positioning rules begin with the keyword position this keyword may be abbreviated as pos The enumerate or ignore keywords may precede the position keyword in some cases The GPOS lookup type is auto detected from the format of the rest of the rule Glyph Geometry Positioning lookups may change one of the glyph positioning metrics Placerrent X and Y a Advance X and Y A single positioning lookup may tweak any of four values placement_X placement_Y advance_Y and advance_Y Modification of the origin point of the glyph will shift it and all following glyphs Modification of the advance vector will shift the next glyph in the glyph string 687 688 Value Record A lt valuerecord gt is used in positioning rules to define offsets to shift glyph origin or advance vector It must be enclosed by angle brackets except for format A in which the angle brackets are optional Note that the lt metric gt adjustments indicate values in design units to add to positive values or subtract from negative values the placement and advance values provided in the font in the hmtx and vmtx tables Value record format A lt lt metric gt gt Angle
387. ontours automatically closed Below is a sample of what you can do with the parallel path feature and contour editing tools As you can see with the Make parallel path feature you can create complex ornaments in minutes 311 312 Merging and Intersecting Contours With the Merge contours Get intersection and Delete intersection commands which are available in the Tools gt Outline menu you can perform very interesting operations on contours All three operations are applied to contours that have at least one node selected or to the whole glyph outline if nothing is selected The Merge contours command combines contours removing all outline overlapping and keeping the filled result unchanged Gz Qm The Merge contours command is the outline equivalent of the Boolean OR operation The Get intersection command will keep only the area of intersection removing all other parts u This command is the outline equivalent of the Boolean AND operation The last command the Delete intersection works in the opposite manner of the Get intersection command keeping only those areas of contours that don t overlap Gu This is the outline equivalent of the Boolean XOR operation Outline Optimization With the Optimize command AsiaFont Studio tries to automatically adjust the outline to remove unnecessary elements and correct others To perform optimization use the Optimize command in th
388. ontrol and in which to preview the sample string in the expanded mode bottom line Enter the PPMs separated by commas or define ranges of PPMs using the 12 13 15 16 24 Click on the Reset button to the right of the editing fields to reset the list of PPMs to the default values 517 518 Below the PPM selection controls there are two check boxes Use font smoothing if allowed by the system Check this control to force the system rasterizer to preview your font with smoothing This option is off by default while smoothing in Mac OS is on by default Lock preview text box When this option is switched on AsiaFont Studio will not allow you to change the contents of the sample string edit box You can however select pre defined strings in the list Below the options there is a list of pre defined sample stings You can freely edit it as text or click the Open button to open a text file that will be used as a source of sample strings The last option in the dialog box is the Font to use in the preview combo box Enter the font name or click on the Select button to choose one of the fonts The font will be used in the sample string selection control this is very useful when you are working with non Latin fonts Some Examples Here we want to show you some typical hinting situations and recommended hinting sequences for them
389. oose the Tools gt Outline gt To Type 1 Curves command If operation is not undoable you will see the warning message Do you want to continue and transform glyphs You will apply selected action to the 5 glyphs This operation is not undoable Click Yes and AsiaFont Studio will apply the action to all selected glyphs You can find descriptions of all actions in the chapter Glyph Window Blending Fonts With AsiaFont Studio you can automatically blend two fonts and generate an intermediate version of them ABCabc123 First font ABCabci23 Second Font ABCabcl23 Resulting font 50 blend The font blending process is completely automatic it analyses the shapes of glyphs and tries to find the best way to morph one to another Best example of blend feature is to make a font that has weight intermediate to two existing weights 131 132 You must have at least two fonts open to use the Blend fonts operation To activate the Blend feature select the Blend Fonts command from the Tools menu A dialog box appears Select the first font ABCabc123 Select the second font Arial BoldMT HA ABCabc123 D Blend fonts Build the Multiple Master font Destination font New font HH All existing source glyphs Blend amount 50 3 50 Selected destination glyphs W Uniform W Do not interpolate compatible outlines Cancel 0K The dialog box is divided into three sections The first two se
390. option Press the OK button to continue to work with the tool Check the Always do correction option if you want AsiaFont Studio to always correct the outline format when opening a character When the Hinting Tool becomes active you will see that the editing field of the Glyph Window has changed O Glyph 66 B from FLCaslon 60 30 boy si s d The TrueType toolbar Options and Preview may appear on the screen TrueType Options TrueType tools Current PPM 12 rm Link to stem 0 TrueType Preview f Automatic I t None O bs Gh wi Round distance HEOxBo Round position fe or r ue ELBERBBE BEBBBBBBBBBBBBB ry E fF a 1o 11 H i i4 is 160647 1f 15 20 1 22 223 24 25 6 Li 1 ry Lo Center _ Double A Round destination Delta PPM range 12 le Delta offset 0 ARUNUNTEERULAUNEN M11 61 2 B 13 O14 O16 525 526 TrueType Toolbar TrueType Tools With the TrueType Toolbar you can select the hinting direction the current visual instruction tool and the layers that appear in the editing field of the Glyph Window You can also open and close the Preview and Program panels Here is a detailed description of the TrueType Toolbar buttons Y Set vertical direction Sets visual instruction tools to work in the vertical direction I e create vertical links alignment interpolation and deltas Instructions in different directions are independent of each other
391. or Multiple Master fonts and the destination folder Enter the file name and press the Save button to save the metrics file You may choose whether to save the font information inf file along with the afm metrics file or not 455 456 Printing a Sample String While you are in the Metrics Window you can print sample strings with or without metrics and kerning information To do so select the Print command in the File menu You will see the standard Print dialog box where you select the printer and modify printing options Press Print to begin printing AsiaFont Studio will print the string that is currently selected for editing or previewing in the Metrics Window The size of the printed string will be the same that is selected for previewing on the screen The string may occupy more than one line or even more than one page on the paper if necessary If metrics or kerning editing mode is selected additional information will be printed below the baseline in metrics mode the widths of the glyphs and the glyphs sidebearings and in the kerning mode the pair kerning values In the metrics editing mode kerning will not be applied to the printed string ASIAFONT STUDIO PREVIEW PRINTOUT A A Fo a 18 01 13 2003 Preview of the font SIL Song Reg Jian m P vi w metrics for 13041304 eS ee 0 BS BO S04 A ae 04 Aa aA EAF S050 9051 S05 2905913054 90553 O66 0S S05 R 3089 205A 305E505C305 0 S05E 3 05F 060306 1062 Pa
392. or copy it To select part of a glyph with the freehand select tool 1 Select the freehand select tool E in the VectorPaint toolbar 2 Position the cursor on the point where you want to start the selection and press the mouse button 3 Drag the mouse to extend the selection polygon in freehand mode or click the mouse button to extend the selection polygon by straight vectors 4 Crrt click to finish the selection When you finish the selection you will see that the selection polygon was applied like a knife and you have a new contour or several contours that is separated from the glyph The new contours are selected so you can use the Edit tool to move them or begin a Transform operation and transform the selection Of course you can use any Edit menu command with this selection Pen Contour Tool With the Contour tool you can create new contours or modify existing contours in a more artistic manner than with the Edit tool When you use the Contour tool you can draw new contours just as you do on paper AsiaFont Studio will trace your drawing and replace it with a series of curves and lines How to create a new contour If you begin a contour in a free area where the cursor has its ordinary shape you will define a new contour If you want to begin a new contour but its starting point is on an existing contour press the Cop key to force AsiaFont Studio to create a new contour How to modify an existing contour Wh
393. ore precise positions of points For technical reasons in AsiaFont Studio the UPM is limited to 10000 units but we strongly recommend you work with one of the standard UPMs In Type 1 fonts the standard UPM is 1000 units and in TrueType fonts the UPM may be set to any value but the recommended value is 2048 units If you change the UPM value in the Dimensions page of the Font Info dialog box this doesn t necessarily mean that the size of the characters will change For example if you change the UPM from 1000 to 2000 all the glyphs will now be half as big as they were before because they are still dimensioned at 1000 UPM You have to scale all the characters to fit them in the new UPM setting manually or you can switch on the Scale all characters according to UPM change check box and all the font data will be scaled automatically Basic Font Dimensions Most important font dimensions ee els Set dimensions for the master Single master Ascender 35 Descender 265 Recalculate Caps height 712 x height 420 g L Copy values to TrueType metrics Italic angle 0 Slant angle v Synchronize Slant and Italic angles Underline 75 Thickness 50 _ Font is monospaced This option is synchronized with the Panose identification Font BBox 190 700 1501 1002 The page has several editing fields with numbers and a sample window where an appropriate character is displayed to help set correct values Other fie
394. ormation to show in the caption Options are the Index Width same as the choices in the Font Window Decimal Hex Octal ANSI To select a glyph for editing double click the glyph cell Or if the Glyphs Bar is active choose the cell with the left and right arrow keys and click the ENTER key If you hold down the Suirt key while using the left and right arrow keys glyphs are opened instantly 227 228 The fastest way to open a glyph is to use the keyboard 1 Open the Glyphs Bar with the Tas key or set the focus to it with the SHIFT TAB key combination 2 Press the key of the character that you want to open on the keyboard 3 Ifthe glyph is not directly accessible from the keyboard enter its name You have one second to enter each character of the name 4 Click the Tas key or SHirT Tas keys again to return focus to the editing area so you can edit the outline You may close the Glyphs Bar at any time by clicking the Glyphs Bar collapse button L1 When the editing area is active you can also press the B key Selecting a Glyph for Editing In addition to using the Glyphs Bar you can open a glyph in the Glyph Window using any of the following methods Double click the glyph s cell in the Font Window to open it If you already have an open Glyph Window with a glyph from the same font the new glyph will be opened in the same Glyph Window replacing the previous glyph Hold the CMp key down when you double c
395. ose one of the predefined sample strings open the list with the popup button to the right of the sample string SHE VERSE ASHORE ABCabe ABCabc ABCabc123 abcdefghijklm nopqrstuvwxyz With this button you can activate metrics preview mode hamburgevons In this mode you can see a preview of every glyph and its width The height of the sample string is determined automatically and depends on the vertical size of the preview panel If you are working with Arabic or Hebrew script you may need to preview a to activate it FED FEFF FED 2 279 280 Preview Options To edit the contents of the sample strings list click on this button You will see a dialog box that contains all the strings that appear in the list plus a few other options Preview Options Contents of the preview text combo box ABCabe SHE VERSE ASHORE hamburgevons ABCabc 125 HAMBURGEV ONS AS AGREES RUNAS GORGEOUS NAME HAHHAAOQHAOQOAG HBHHBORBOORO HCHHCOHCOOCO HV xehgS ee n Font to use in the preview combo box Lucida Grande List of point sizes to preview in waterfall mode 9 36 38 40 42 48 ra d Cancel By clicking the Open button you can select the text file that will be used to preview sample strings This option Font to use in the preview combo box Lucida Grande Select 5 allows you to choose the font that is used to show text in the sample string You may need to change this font if
396. osition highlighted while you are dragging it 338 842 Removing Anchors To remove an anchor CrTrt click it and select the Delete command in the popup menu Renaming Anchors To rename an anchor CTRL click it and choose the Rename command Change the anchor name in the editing field Changing Anchor Color You may choose one of five colors to mark the anchor Crru click the anchor select the Mark command from the popup menu and choose the color T Rename Delete vark gt v ec Blue Properties Magenta Cyan 347 348 Anchor Properties Cmp click the anchor or Crri click and choose the Properties command in the context menu to open the anchor Properties panel Anchors Properties Anchor lett 31 522 top 153 731 right 555 501 anchor 402 372 Position 402 gt This panel lists all anchors defined for the glyph To change the properties of one of the anchors select it in the list and the anchor will be highlighted To change the position of the anchor use the editing fields below the list Position 402 TERO va tal YF i Using Anchors to Build Composites The main purpose of anchors is to mark important positions in the glyph space In addition anchors may be used to link some glyphs and form composite glyphs Y ho To f Io You can define a composite glyph using the Composites tool a
397. ost exporting situations very well Automatically sort glyphs This option allows AsiaFont Studio to sort glyphs in a font file accordingly to the selected encoding on export This option should be on to make Type 1 fonts work in Mac OS X 150 Generation of Bitmaps On the Macintosh Type 1 fonts must have associated bitmap fonts for the screen that are necessary for the system to store the font s metrics AsiaFont Studio can automatically generate bitmap fonts with one of three rasterizers Choose among the build in rasterizer or ATSUI on Mac OS X If you are using classic system and have ATM installed then choose among the build in and ATM s rasterizers Use Built in You can request several sizes of bitmap fonts in the Type 1 exporting options section Generate bitmaps for size s 13 16 24 Enter the point sizes of the bitmaps you want to export with the Mac Type 1 font separating values by a space or comma 151 152 Type 1 Export Terminal If the Open Type 1 Export Terminal option is switched on and you save a font in Type 1 Multiple Master or not format the following dialog box appears Type 1 Export Terminal In this dialog box you can change text dictionaries data exported in the Type 1 font Please refer to the Type 1 Font Format specification for the detailed description of the data fields you can enter here Wrong data entered here will make font unusable Please be extremely careful
398. ot be characters and may not have a character identifier Character Identification in AsiaFont Studio In AsiaFont Studio there are four modes of character and glyph identification 1 Names mode This mode historically is used in Type 1 fonts An interesting point is that Names mode may have two different applications it may be used to reference glyphs or characters In the latter case all referenced characters must have a one to one relationship between character and glyph so there is no difference between referencing the character and the glyph Tables that are used to reference glyphs or characters in Names mode are called Encoding Tables There are two kinds of these tables a mapping encoding table references characters in Type 1 fonts and is based on one of the Adobe standards while a definition encoding table references glyphs and has no relation to characters This is sometimes useful in managing a font at the design stage Codepages mode This is a character identification method a special table of Unicode indexes is used to map a subset of characters to the top part of the Font Window table This table called a codepage may use one or two bytes to represent a character mapping record Two byte codepages are used to reference characters in Far East fonts Chinese Japanese Korean or Traditional Vietnamese Unicode Ranges mode Unicode is a two byte standard so it potentially can cover 65 536 characters not taking into a
399. ou can define your own design axes but you must register new axis types with Adobe Weight This axis allows you to change the weight of the font The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog Changes in the weight the defined dynamic range may be very different in different fonts for example from normal to bold or from light to black or from bold to heavy depending on the designer s intentions Width This design axis allows you to change the width of the font The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog This is very useful in making text fit in a given space on the page If the Condensed style is too narrow and the Normal style is too wide with a MM font you can select an intermediate width style and the text will fit perfectly Optical Size This is an axis for high end typography In the pre computer age typographers used metal fonts that were aligned in strings manually or with the help of complex mechanical machines In those times fonts were not scalable and there was a separate physical typefont for each point size of a typeface And fonts that were designed for different point sizes of the same typeface had slightly different designs for imp
400. ou may also examine the source code of the sample programs that are supplied with AsiaFont Studio 721 Index 3 3D Extrusion 478 3D Rotate 479 A Actions 130 306 484 effects 461 hints and guidelines 342 461 list 459 metrics 461 outline 306 461 Adjust Metrics 438 474 Adobe Acrobat 59 Adobe Illustrator 289 403 Adobe Standard Encoding 75 Adobe Systems 16 21 AFM 15 148 410 428 453 455 Al 403 Aliases Table 356 Align 539 AlignBottom 537 Alignment Zones 204 237 358 497 536 631 Family 205 500 AlignTop 537 Alternate Substitution 681 AMM 455 anchor properties panel 348 Anchors 237 346 381 398 Anchors Panel 352 Anisotropic Interpolation 606 615 ANSI 75 417 Append 99 Arabic 201 Ascender 193 196 AsiaFont Studio 15 user interface 16 27 ATM 142 151 515 595 ATSUI 142 151 514 515 Autohint 57 154 470 Autohinting 577 options 571 autokerning 15 Automatic Kerning Generation 435 Automatic Metrics Generation 426 Automatic TrueType Hinting 577 Autoreplace 471 Autoreplacing 514 Autosave 95 autospacing 15 474 axes 598 Axis 44 Defining 610 Editing Settings 629 Removing 630 axis graph 607 633 axis map 607 Axis Panel 614 624 628 Background 233 237 332 382 baseline 314 317 421 properties panel 317 Bezier curves 56 245 268 bitmap background 332 Bitmaps 151 578 Bitstream 201 blend coordinates 603 Blending fonts 131 blue
401. ou must use the Reset Kerning feature To open the Reset Kerning dialog box press on the x or select the Reset Kerning command in the popup menu The Reset Kerning dialog box appears Reset Kerning What exactly do you want to do Reset kerning for the current pair Reset kerning for all pairs in the string C Reset kerning for all glyphs in the string _ Limit the number of kerning pairs to 1000 O Delete all pairs that are less than 10 _ Check all masters of the MM font C Completely reset kerning in the current font oe 4 Cancel This dialog box includes options that control kerning removal Available options are Reset kerning for the This is the default if a pair is selected Removes kerning current pair for that pair only You can get the same result by Ctrl clicking while editing kerning in the current pair Reset kerning for all pairs Default if no pairs are selected Removes kerning in all in the string pairs that exist in the current string Reset kerning for all Removes kerning in all pairs that include glyphs in the glyphs in the string current string Limit number of Kerns only the given number of pairs with the largest kerning pairs to absolute kerning value Delete all pairs that are Removes all pairs that have a kerning value less than the less than given value The absolute value of kerning is compared Completely reset kerning Removes all the kerning pai
402. ove links Use this action to remove hints and links or guidelines in selected glyphs This command is the equivalent of the Remove Hints and Remove Guides actions that were described in the Glyph Window chapter Autohint Analyses a glyph s outline and generates hints for the glyph This action uses autohinting options that can be set in the Type 1 page of the Preferences dialog box Please refer to the page 343 for a description of the autohinting options Convert to instructions Use this action to convert Type 1 hints to the editable TrueType visual instructions Do not forget to prepare the outlines of the glyphs for TrueType hinting using the Convert to TrueType transformation action You can find a detailed description of this process in the Hinting chapter 470 Autoreplace This action automatically builds a hint replacement program for the overlapping Type 1 hints Refer to the chapter Hinting for more information about hinting and hint replacement Convert to links Use this action to convert Type 1 hints to links AsiaFont Studio will analyze the outline of the glyph and try to make links that will replace the hints Refer to the Glyph Window chapter for information about hints and links Convert to hints This action is the reverse of the previous one It converts all links to hints Because this operation is always possible conversion of hints to links is not you can be sure that it will re
403. ow frame The small marks that appear in the corners of the character cell mean Left Top Blue mark Character has more than one Unicode index assigned Right Top Yellow red or Character has compatible mask layer yellow green mark Left bottom Green or red Character has hint replacement program or H mark overlapping Type 1 hints A Green mark means that the program is correct Right bottom Brown or blue Character has TrueType hints either original blue T mark mark or manually set visual brown mark The meaning of all the marks will be discussed in full detail later Some characters may be marked with a different color for the caption and background Marking is very useful when you need to show visible differences among characters for easy identification More about that later 67 Font Window Header At the header of the Font Window you see one button on the left and five buttons in the right area opens the Font Info dialog box for the current font This is the same as choosing the Font Info command in the File menu The first four buttons on the right allow you to select one of the encoding modes Switch to the Names mode Switch to the Unicode Ranges mode Switch to the Codepages mode Switch to the Index mode The last button in the Font window header area is used to save current encoding The Font window header can be switched off To do this just click on the small button at t
404. paces Names are case sensitive One Unicode index may be linked with more than one name and several Unicode indexes may be linked with one name If the name is preceded with the it means that Unicode may be generated from the name but none of the marked names may be generated when the Unicode index is known This is necessary when none of the glyph s names is included in the list of standard names supported by Adobe Adobe Glyph List This feature makes it possible to generate correct Unicode indexes for incorrectly named glyphs but will never assign incorrect names You can extend this file in any text editor but we strongly recommend not changing it Importing CMap Files To automatically generate Unicode indexes for imported CID font switch to the Codepages mode and select the Open CMap File command from the Glyph gt Glyph Names menu You will be asked to choose the file in the standard File Open dialog AsiaFont Studio will open CMap file and use information in it to assign Unicode indexes to characters Characters must have names of the following structure cidX where X is a CID index 117 118 Generating Names This operation is the opposite of the one described in the previous section If you select the Generate Names command in the Glyph gt Glyph Names menu AsiaFont Studio will use the name Unicode database to automatically find names for glyphs whose Unicode indexes are in the database Note that if more than one name
405. part of the dialog box you see the current name and Unicode index indexes of the glyph In the middle there are two edit fields where you may change the information Below them lie the options controls To change a glyph s name enter a new name in the Name field If this glyph has a properly assigned Unicode index and you want to find the name mapped to that index in FontLab s database press the Auto button to the right of the edit field and AsiaFont Studio will fill in the Name field for you 111 112 If the option Replace existing glyphs with the same name or Unicode index option is not checked then if you enter a name that is already assigned to one of the font s glyphs the OK button will be disabled and you will not be able to assign that name Switch the option on to allow AsiaFont Studio to replace glyphs Use the next option to control how AsiaFont Studio does the replacement Use the Unicode edit field to change a glyph s Unicode indexes You may enter more than one Unicode index separated by a space Use the Auto button to find the Unicode indexes mapped to a glyph s name in FontLab s database Rename glyph in all classes this option will automatically change the glyph name in all classes that contain the glyph being renamed Press the OK button to assign a new name to the glyph You will see that the glyph moves to a new place in the Font window depending on the currently selected encoding vector Unicode rang
406. pe 1 Export Options TrueType Export Options TrueType Mapping Settings Device Dependent Metrics 136 138 146 148 153 158 160 161 163 164 165 167 168 170 171 172 173 176 177 181 182 183 184 185 185 186 188 190 192 192 193 195 198 199 200 202 203 204 206 208 210 211 212 213 214 Font Smoothing Control head Table Settings Basic PCLT options PCLT Identification PCLT Metrics and Font Description PCLT Codepages THE GLYPH WINDOW Glyph Window Contents The Glyphs Bar Selecting a Glyph for Editing Changing the View in the Glyph Window Quick Zoom Selection Tools and Operations Edit Mode Editing Layers Editing Layers Panel Outline Layer Contours Outline Appearance FontAudit Moving Nodes Using the Keyboard Non node editing Changing Connection Type Deleting Nodes Deleting Lines and Curves Eraser Tool Inserting Nodes Using the Drawing Tool Adding Points to a Contour Converting Primitives Breaking and Joining Outlines Node Commands Node Properties Previewing Glyphs Selections Using the Magic Wand Tool Moving the Selection Copying the Selection Transforming the Selection Selection Commands Selection Properties Panel Transformation Panel Find and Replace Operation Building an Outline From Blocks 215 217 218 219 220 221 223 224 227 229 230 231 233 235 237 238 240 242 248 253 256 259 260 262 263 264 265 266 268 269
407. ph as well Usually deleting a selection breaks the contours To keep them closed instead uncheck the Edit gt Delete command breaks contour checkbox in the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box 263 264 Deleting Lines and Curves You can delete a whole line or curve with the Knife tool Activate the Knife tool with the button on the Edit toolbar or click 3 on the keyboard Press the OpTIon key and click on the line you want to delete Note that with this method you will always break the outline Gy This method breaks the contour even if the Delete command breaks contour checkbox in the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box is unchecked ka You can use the Edit gt Delete the DEL or BACKSPACE key and Edit gt Cut commands to remove the active curve or vector as well Eraser Tool The eraser tool S can be used to quickly remove nodes Sometimes this is necessary for example with contours from an auto tracing program The eraser tool can work in two modes like a standard eraser or as a rectangle eraser In the first mode all nodes that are inside the rectangle of the eraser mouse cursor are deleted In the second mode you define a rectangle by clicking and dragging as when you select nodes with the Edit tool or change the zoom of a Glyph Window and all the nodes inside the rectangle are removed The first eraser like mode is the default for the Eraser tool To switch to the rectangle
408. place all links by hints Drop TT Hints This action removes all TrueType hints including visual manually created and imported from the source TrueType font 471 Metrics Transformation These transformations let you automatically set metrics calculate metrics in glyphs increase or decrease a glyph s sidebearings and width and center glyphs in their width vector Available metrics transformations are Set Width Sets a fixed width and aligns the glyph within the width vector Autospacing Automatically calculates the glyph s metrics using the same algorithms that are used in the Metrics window Adjust metrics Changes sidebearings and kerning by the given value in font units or in percentage Set Width Set width to 600 i Center character Shift the Mask layer This action lets you set a fixed width for all glyphs that are selected in the Font window It is the fastest way to make a monospaced font select all glyphs open the Transform dialog set the desired width and press the OK button In the options list you can choose what to do with glyphs that are thinner than the requested width vector A glyph may be aligned to the left or right margins or it may be centered in the width vector 472 Set Sidebearings Left sidebearing Set equa 50 Top Right sidebearing Set equa 50 Bottom l Shift Mask Limit bounding box Use this action to change the sidebearings values of the glyp
409. popup menus on the command bar Use them to select the script and language to preview When a script is selected you will see a list of the features that are defined for that script and language Please note that when you select the non default language only features that are unique for the selected language are listed Every feature name has a check box Use it to turn the feature on or off When several features are selected they are applied in the order in which they are listed To the right of the list there are 3 fields source text source preview panel and resulting preview panel You must enter the text you want to use to preview in the source text field Use AsiaFont Studio notation to enter glyphs that are not directly accessible from the keyboard followed by the glyph name and a space or V followed by the Unicode index You can also drag drop glyphs from the Font window or from the Collection or Classes panels into the source text field Or just paste text from the Clipboard The Source preview shows the glyphs before OpenType features are applied The Resulting preview panel shows the glyphs after the OpenType features do their work Interpretation of the features is based on the OpenType specification and is carefully tested for compatibility with OS and Adobe InDesign interpretation However please be aware that feature interpretation is an application centric system so it may vary in different applications
410. portant sizes so TrueType rasterizer will use them instead of rendering outline glyphs and instructions program Bitmaps can be defined for any combinations of glyphs and PPMs A font may have only one bitmap for one glyph and one PPM or lots of bitmaps for different glyphs at different PPMs there are no limits AsiaFont Studio supports import export and editing of so called embedded bitmaps Importing Bitmaps Import happens automatically if this option is active in the Application gt Preferences gt TrueType dialog box rd Import embedded bitmaps When a font has embedded bitmaps PPMs for which bitmaps are present are colored red in the TrueType tool Preview panel BEBEBBEBSE E 310111212 14 You can import embedded bitmaps from a different TrueType font To do SO j 1 Click on the button on the TrueType hinting toolbar to enter the bitmap mode of the TrueType hinting tool 2 Crrui click anywhere in the Glyph window and select the Import bitmaps command in the context menu 3 Select a TrueType font with embedded bitmaps in the standard File Open dialog box 579 580 Editing Bitmaps To get access to embedded bitmaps activate Bitmap mode by clicking on this button on the TrueType hinting toolbar Ell You ll see the Glyph window and preview panel change In Bitmap mode the Glyph window previews the bitmap with pixels represented as black squares If there is no bitmap defined for t
411. pping information to CID files allowing you to make references between character codes and character images Encoding When text is printed an important process takes place character to glyph mapping The source text in computer form is a list of codes that represents a list of characters A font see above is a collection of glyphs So there must be some way to relate characters to glyphs so that when the computer s operating system encounters a certain character it knows which glyph to print This mapping or vector is called the encoding Sometimes the encoding information resides within the font itself as part of the header and other times it is in a separate file Font Family It is important to know the difference between a font and a font family A font family is a set of fonts that represents some design idea Times is a font family sometimes called typeface Times Bold Italic is a font A font family may include from one to a few dozen fonts 21 22 Glyph name The only identification of a glyph other than its visual appearance is its name A Western glyph name consists of Latin characters digits and punctuation It is highly reeommended you name glyphs in accordance with the following rules 1 No spaces 2 No digits at the beginning 3 Only And _ punctuation marks are allowed in the name Menu When we refer to menu items in the main AsiaFont Studio menu we will use th
412. processed independently 4 Points 2 and 5 are reference points Points 3 and 4 are between these points and will be interpolated Note that points 1 and 6 are also between reference points 3 All non reference points are interpolated between two reference points according to the following rules a Ifthe contour has only one reference point it is shifted with that point b Ifa point is between two reference points it is proportionally interpolated _ we Referencepontt 7 aoe z Reference point 2 c If point is outside the interpolated points it is shifted with the closest reference point p am Reference pointi 7 _ wW8 Referencepon t2 ee 385 386 To interpolate a glyph 1 Activate an Interpolation operation Select the Interpolation command in the Operations submenu of the Tools menu or press the button on the Tools or Operations toolbar You will see a panel with the OK and Cancel buttons You can press the OK button any time to finish your work with the Interpolation operation or press the Cancel button to reject all changes Position the mouse cursor on the reference point that you want to set press the mouse button and drag the point to a new location Release the button when you are done Note that the point will stick to all guiding layers as well as to other glyph nodes Hold the Suirr key down to constrain the direction of movement to 15 degree increments
413. ption in the Paint Options dialog box With this option on the Transform operation will be activated immediately after entering the text string allowing you to modify its size or position To enter a string of text 1 2 Select the text tool T in the VectorPaint toolbar Position the mouse cursor with the crosshair and the suggested rectangle of the future string on the place in the editing field where you want to add the string Click the mouse button In the dialog box enter the character string Use the Font button to select the font that will be used SAMPLE Capitals at 300 units Fi aa Fi y L i p Font _ Cancel FOR Below the sample string you will see the name of the current font and the size of the text string The size is presented in font units You can change the string size in the Font dialog box The size of the placed text will be 10 times the selected point size For instance if you select a 24 pt font you will get a string that will be 240 units in height Press OK to enter the string or Cancel to abort this operation Meter Mode With this tool you can measure any distance and angle in your glyph It is very useful if you want to create very precise extremely high quality symbols To measure distances between two points 1 Select the Meter tool e in the Tools toolbar The Meter bar appears in the top part of the Glyph Window
414. r font you can use the Tools gt Blend Fonts operation Open the fonts and select the Blend Fonts command You will see the Blend Fonts dialog box Blend Fonts Select the first font ABCabc123 Select the second font _ArialMT HA ABCabc123 Blend fonts fe Build the Multiple Master font Name of the axis Weight fs All existing source glyphs Blend amount 50 Selected destination glyphs z Uniform M Do not interpolate compatible outlines Select the first and second fonts in the popup menus in the top area of the dialog box and choose the Build the Multiple Master font option Enter the name of the Multiple Master font axis in the Name of the axis control You can select one of the standard names or you can enter any other name 619 620 Click the OK button and wait while AsiaFont Studio generates a font Some glyphs cannot be blended usually these glyphs have different number of contours If they are present AsiaFont Studio will show a warning dialog box and these glyphs will have the first font on the outline layer and second font on the Mask layer so you can correct outlines and use the Mask to Master feature described below to build the MM font To not let AsiaFont Studio add nodes to compatible contours leave the Do not interpolate compatible outlines option switched on Those glyphs that had compatible outlines and do not get additional nodes during the blend operation will be marked wi
415. r appearance on screen which will result in a much smoother outline appearance en To smooth contours use the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box Application gt Preferences menu command Glyph Window Smooth outline Show contour direction show node s position Black white node icons Leave echo while editing RRARAA Remove hints and guides by moving out of the window You can use the Apply button in the bottom right of the Preferences dialog box to check the result of the changes you make in Glyph Window options Note If your computer is slow and a contour is complex smoothing the outlines may degrade the performance of the editing tools Turn it off in this case High quality Preview No matter which mode is active you can quickly view a high quality preview of the outline by pressing the key on the keyboard Until you release the key you will see a high quality preview of the outline Note that you can use the lt and gt keys to browse characters without releasing the key 249 Outline Preview Options You can choose various options for previewing the contour layer Use these buttons in the Show Layers toolbar Fa Nodes To show nodes or not Control vectors To show curve control vectors or not Connection mode To show connection mode marks fee Positions To show the coordinates of each node You will see the positions of nodes only when the nodes are visible Al
416. r font header data The text metrics files have a composite structure there is a linking file that describes the font header axes and masters information and separate AFM files with metrics and kerning data for each master font On the Macintosh information about Multiple Master metrics is stored in the font suitcase data structure and is handled automatically by the Type Manager AsiaFont Studio can import and export metrics and kerning information in any of these formats Metrics Window AsiaFont Studio has a special window where you can edit the metrics and kerning information It is called the Metrics Window To open the Metrics Window select the New Metrics Window command in the Window menu The Metrics Window will appear Preview Metrics FLCaslon Be gt xE e Cro mar 1 n fe T auo E AVATay Z Pairs 814 Kerning Mo ro Ova Mico I 35 The Metrics Window consists of several parts e A toolbar with controls for importing and exporting metrics files automating metrics or kerning generation and other commands e An area that is used to select a mode for the Metrics Window and a string for metrics or kerning editing e The property area includes live digital information about metrics or kerning for the current glyph or glyph pair e The editing area where the edited string with controls appears 411 412 The property area of the Metrics window can work in two modes compact and expanded
417. r the maximum quantity of glyphs per one font For example if you enter 512 and the imported subset font contains 600 glyphs it will be splitted into two fonts 512 88 glyphs each in its separate Font Window Import selected subset fonts without any changes means every subset font will be opened in its own Font Window without any restrictions AsiaFont Studio can assign Unicode indexes to characters on import If you import a Mac CID font select the Use embedded CMap option to assign Unicode indexes If you import PC CID font file you may choose external CMap file cmp for import by clicking on the Select button When you are ready with options click OK to start importing CID font Importing Font Collection When you select a PC TTC TrueType Collection font for open you are presented with a special TTC Font Collection Import dialog box TTC Font Collection Import TTC font collection that you are opening contains the following fonts M MS Mincho Select All 7 MS PMincho Select fonts that you want to open or click Select All to open all fonts Cancel Min The list of fonts in a collection has checkboxes to let you select which fonts should be imported You can check those of them that you want to be opened Click on the Select All button to switch on every checkbox To switch them all off click on the Unselect button When you are ready click on the OK button to start importing TTC font 63 64 Creat
418. r to the outline The added part will be selected so you can start to work with it immediately Clear Mask Clears the mask layer removing all its contents Mask to Master Applies the Mask to Master action to the currently selected master Refer to the Multiple Master Fonts chapter for more information about this action Exchange with Mask Exchanges the outline layer and the Mask layer Note the difference between this command and Edit Mask in the View gt Show layers When you use Exchange with Mask command you actually exchange Mask and outline The Edit mask command does this only temporarily and visually for editing purposes only 327 328 Assigning a Mask With this command you can take glyphs from one font and put them into the mask layer of another font The glyphs of the fonts are linked using their names so the glyph with the name zero in the assigned font will be placed into the mask layer of the glyph with the name zero in the font where the mask is being made When you select the Assign Mask command from the Tools menu you will see the dialog box Assign Mask Choose font that you want to use as mask of the current font Georgia g ia ArialMT FLCaslon FOOD You have selected font FLCaslon ABCabc123 _ Create new glyphs if they do not exist in the font 5 There is a list of all open fonts in the top of the dialog box Select the font whose glyphs you want to put
419. r too small at their nominal height When a font is rendered on a device with limited resolution it is often necessary to suppress the overshoots to make a line of text look smooth Top alignmentzone Bottom alignmentzone This whole process is described in full detail in the Hinting chapter Here we will only discuss the basic modification of the layer with the Edit tool To let a font rendering program perform overshoot suppression you need to declare overshoots using alignment zones You can modify alignment zones with the Edit tool just drag the bottom or top line of the zone to change its width or position You may later use the FontInfo dialog File gt Font Info to check the exact parameters of the zones Sketch Mode Sketch mode is a new easy way to create outlines When you enter sketch mode for the first time the glyph outline is automatically converted into a special format that is optimized for freestyle editing Thus the sketch mode has two outline layers one with the original real glyph outline and one with the sketch outline In contrast to the outline representation used in the Edit mode the Sketch outline is not WYSIWYG Before exporting to a font file all sketch outlines must be converted into standard outlines I e you edit the sketch but nothing changes in the real glyph outline until you do the conversion The Sketch outline is entirely point based all points that de
420. ral page of the System Preferences In Classic use the Fonts page of the Appearance control panel Program Panel In the Program panel you can see the text of the instruction program as it is interpreted TrueType Program Instructions e Freee gt DoubleLinkH 10 lt gt 75 el Fi MDeltaH 10 lt 3 gt 22 25 MDeltaH 10 22 9 21 SingleLinkH 27 gt 210 gt SingleLinkH 2 gt 25 ha SingleLinkH 27 gt 26hna InterpolateH 10 gt 37 lt 750 MDeltaH 37 lt 3 22 23 MDeltaH 37 lt 2 gt J 21 10 SingleLinkH 45 gt 500 11 SingleLinkH 45 1120 Ar SinalelinkH 57 n AAFAA E I Reset oO 1 E 3 4 5 6 T 5 3 Ei W _ More gt gt To open the Program panel use the command from the TrueType hinting options menu The Program panel consists of the program listing and four buttons Delete Removes the selected command More gt gt Expands the panel to include the command options controls 533 Here are the mnemonics that are used to represent commands A detailed description of each command and its parameters will follow AlignTop Align a point to the top alignment zone AlignBottom Align a point to the bottom alignment zone Align Align a point to the grid SingleLinkH Single Link commands in horizontal and vertical directions SingleLinkV DoubleLinkH Double Link commands in horizontal and vertical directions DoubleLinkV InterpolateH Interpolate commands in horiz
421. rasterizers so AsiaFont Studio will correct the hint direction automatically during the Type 1 font generation Select the Properties command in popup menu to open the hint or link properties panel There is a faster way to open the properties panel hold the Cmp key and click on one of the hint lines with the mouse button Note that if you delete a hint you will remove it completely not just the reference to it as in the case of the Remove command described in the previous section 513 514 Autoreplacing The easiest way to build a hint substitution program is to click the Ka button on the Hint Replace toolbar We recommend that you begin from the automatically generated hint substitution program and make adjustments as necessary Hinting Preview Panel The Type 1 Hinting Tool has a preview panel that shows how Type 1 hints will affect the character s appearance The preview panel uses the Adobe Type Manager rasterizer to preview the font under Mac OS 9 so you may be assured that in the final font you will get exactly the same look Of course you need to have some version of Adobe Type Manager ATM installed in order to use the Preview panel Under Mac OS X the preview panel uses ATSUI To show the preview panel press the button in the command panel The preview panel consists of two fields a standard edit field where you can enter a sample string and a preview window where two types of preview appear Type
422. ree stn ee E R a ee ene P N A enn enn nnn rs ee E A EES ee m a a cic E ann nnn nnn 709 710 Macro Tool With AsiaFont Studio you can define special editing tools that are entirely written in Python By default AsiaFont Studio provides 3 sample tools Curve Line and Drops To activate a tool 1 Open a glyph for editing in the Glyph window 2 Select the tool in the leftmost list of the Macro toolbar 3 Click on the k button on the toolbar to activate a tool Activate one of the standard editing tools on the Tools toolbar to finish using the macro tool The default macro tools do the following Line tool draws lines Click the mouse button anywhere and drag the mouse to draw a line If the nodes are visible View gt Show Layers gt Nodes you can continue defining a new contour by drawing a new line from the end node of the previous line Curve tool does the same but draws curves It emulates the curve drawing process that is common for Macromedia Fontographer and Freehand Drop tool just a whimsical example when you drag the mouse it adds a series of filled circles of random radius We will not document the process of creating new tools here It is a relatively complex programming job If you are interested please visit our website for more technical documents related to AsiaFont Studio macro programming Edit Macro Panel If you feel ready to create your first macro program you can start by openin
423. remove a hint replacement point 1 Position the cursor on the node that has an HR mark 2 CTRL Click the mouse and select the Remove this replace point command from the popup menu AsiaFont Studio will combine hints from the two segments trying to make an optimal hint selection It will not let hints overlap 511 512 Adding and removing hints AsiaFont Studio automatically chooses the hints that should be included in the hint set that belongs to the contour segment beginning from the new hint replacement mark To modify this hint set you can add or remove hints from it To add a hint to the hint set 1 Position the mouse cursor on the hint that you want to add The cursor should be between two hint lines 2 Crrui click the mouse The selected hint will be highlighted and you will see the popup menu with two commands Add this horizontal hint and Add this vertical hint Only one of the two commands is available depending on which hint you want to add If the popup menu does not appear it usually means that you tried to add a hint that will overlap one of the hints that is in the current hint set If the popup menu appears but includes a different set of commands it means that you missed and selected the wrong hint or no hint at all Wrong hints are hints that overlap any of the hints that are already active in the current segment To remove a hint from the hint set 1 Locate the mouse cursor somewhere b
424. resting form variations AS AGREES R Standard proportional interpolation AS AGREES R Anisotropic interpolation As with the extrapolation this feature is not a part of the MM specification and anisotropic interpolation or extrapolation will work only inside AsiaFont Studio You can use it to generate single master fonts from MM families The Axis Graph Usually design coordinates are translated to the weight vector using simple linear calculations It is possible however to define a map for non linear calculations 6 Design coordinates 72 This map sets a series of points that map the design and blend coordinates Between these points linear interpolation is used this is called a piece wise linear function Usually this kind of axis graph or axis map in some literature is used for the Optical Size axis The Optical Size axis usually has a dynamic range of 6 72 The design coordinate 6 means the version of the typeface adjusted for 6 pt type The design coordinate 72 represents the typeface design for 72 pt type Between these values the blend coordinates are mapped using the axis graph as in the picture above This mapping gives better control of the variation of the design for the different design coordinates In this case it causes a more rapid change in the appearance of the typeface at smaller optical sizes than at larger The value of the leftmost and rightmost design coordinates of the axis graph 6 and
425. rite the additional data and tables that make the difference between plain TrueType and TrueType based OpenType OpenType CFF otf CFF flavored OpenType font format Refer to the OpenType Fonts chapter for more information about the OpenType fonts PC Type 1 pfb Single master Type 1 font format in a binary form This is the format for Type 1 fonts that is expected by Windows Multiple Master fonts exported as single master Type 1 fonts are converted to a single master font with the default weight vector of the font PC Multiple Master Multiple Master Type 1 font format If your font is single pfb master then this item is not available in the popup UNIX Type 1 raw Single master Type 1 font format in ASCII 7 bit form This ASCII pfa format is used in most UNIX systems and can be directly downloaded into PostScript printers UNIX Multiple ASCII 7 bit form of the Type 1 Multiple Master format If Master raw ASCII your font is single master then this item is not available in pfa the popup FontLab AsiaFont FontLab and AsiaFont Studio internal font format This Studio vfb format it is used when you select the File gt Save As command Below the format selection popup menu is the Options button that opens the Export Options dialog box described later in the chapter and a legend field that describes the currently selected options for TrueType and Type 1 formats d Options Type 1 options make
426. rofessional AsiaFont Studio features Tools Gives access to editing modes that you will use to work on glyph shapes and operations from the Tools gt Operations menu Edit Probably the most important a mixed toolbar containing the main editing tools and frequently used operations Vector Paint A set of painting tools that allow you to paint vector contours Macro Gives quick access to pre written macro programs that can automate various font editing tasks It is available if the Python 2 x system is properly installed Show Layers Controls the appearance of basic Editing layer It is analogous to the View gt Show Layers menu Lock Layers Allows one to lock unlock the Editing layers It is analogous to the View gt Lock Layers menu Mark Contains commands from the Mark submenu of the Font window s context menu 25 26 You may notice a few italic terms We will describe them later Specifically panels and Glyph window will be described in a few pages Editing layers in the Glyph Window chapter and macro programs in Macro Programming OK we are almost ready to open a sample font but before we do let s talk about customization of the AsiaFont Studio user interface Customizing AFS User Interface As you may infer from the title of this section some of the AsiaFont Studio user interface which means the toolbars and keyboard shortcuts is customizable We believe our default interface is the easiest to use but if for
427. rols the curve removal feature from do not simplify Simplification outline to extreme The bigger value you choose the more level curves AsiaFont Studio will try to remove smooth Auto alignment Controls the auto alignment feature in a range from do not level align to extreme Auto alignment automatically corrects relative position of lines and curves for example if two adjacent curves are almost smoothly connected but not precisely auto alignment will correct that 468 Blend Blend amount 50 This transformation blends the mask and outline layers A single option lets you choose the position of the intermediate design between the mask and outline layers Outline and mask layers On the example above outline layer is black weight and mask layer is regular Below are samples of the Blend transformation with different values of the parameter 10 50 80 469 Hints and Guidelines Transformation Hints transformation actions let you automate some hinting actions Remove hints guides Lets you remove hints and links or guidelines Convert to instructions Converts Type 1 hints to editable visual TrueType instructions ee ee eee arene Perera ere pone cnr ap Sea Oi distaste te esheets a PE E ae TE a ee ee ee ee ace eee R enna eee ae OSS eee Remove hints guides Remove horizontal hints Remove horizontal guidelines vi Remove vertical hints _ Remove vertical guidelines W Also rem
428. rom the AFS Samples folder To open the metrics window select some glyphs in the Font Window and click on the New Metrics window command in the Window menu CMD OPTION SHIFT M shortcut You will see a new window S O 3 Preview Metrics FLCaslon ABCD ABCD IE y e m HE B et G Sa d no macro jae m E Glyphs that are currently selected in the Font window or the glyph that is in the active glyph window will appear in the metrics window The metrics window has a main editing field scroll bars and command area with a local toolbar To choose a string of characters to preview or modify use the string selection control ABC lo The popup button to the right of the control allows you to choose a pre defined string To the right of the button there is an options button Click it to get access to the Metrics windows Options dialog box where you can customize the window 39 One powerful option in this dialog box is support for a second preview string The second string appears below the main preview string and can be used to compare different characters The second string is not directly editable Metrics Window Toolbar The Buttons on the toolbar mean i Open metrics file With the metrics window you can import metrics and a kerning information from AFM PFM or MMM in the case of a Multiple Master font i Save metrics file You can save AFM PFM AMFM and MMM fi
429. roved legibility Designs of the same character for 6 and 72 pt point size When scalable fonts appeared this typography feature wasn t compatible with the technology so it all but disappeared We had scalable fonts that could be shrunk or enlarged to any point size but the price for this was a little decrease in the quality of typeset text With Multiple Master fonts it is possible to define two optical size master fonts one for small point sizes and another for large point sizes and use MM interpolation to create the proper font design for the final selected point size 72 pt mas er font 6 pt mastr font 601 602 In the following example you can see two lines of text typed with the same font but different optical size selection ABCabc The text font ABCabc The header font For better comparison both lines were typed at the same point size 28 pt but with the different optical sizes Note the different contrast and inter character spacing Style This design axis can cover many different design properties Here s one example of what you can do with it APU Ad IPU EH EH EE HHHHHH HHHHHH There is no standard definition or real property of this axis And there is no standard for its dynamic range Design Coordinates and Weight Vectors You know that all axes have ranges These ranges can vary from 0 to 9999 but a more practical range of 0 to 1000 is usually used Somehow we have to define a way to desi
430. rowse the font through the Font Window In AsiaFont Studio you can choose one of four so called Encoding modes that allow you to select a subset of the glyph collection and show it in the top part of the Font Window for easier access In the following sections you will find more information about encoding modes Unicode and name based identification and the character glyph model Characters Codes and Glyphs A font is a collection of glyphs that usually have a common design Each font has a header that stores top level information such as the font name and style in an organized way Character Mapping Text in digital form is a collection of codes integer numbers When text is entered into a computer we with the help of a text processor program replace characters with codes When text is printed or previewed on the screen the printing program performs the reverse process replacing codes with character shapes glyphs that it gets from the font Text The quick brown Font ABCDEFGHIJKL ab lcidefghijkilmn A character mapping standard is a set of rules that defines the relation between characters and the codes that are used to represent these characters in the computer There are many mapping standards used in the world to help use different languages The main difference between mapping standards is the size of the code There are one byte double byte and multi byte mapping standards With a one byte mapping stand
431. rs available in the font in the current font Because this is not an undoable operation the warning dialog asks you to save the current metrics and kerning data in the temporary file 437 438 Adjusting Metrics and Kerning If you want to change metrics or kerning by some fixed value and the manual process will take too much time you can use the Transform dialog box 1 Switch to the Font window 2 Select the glyphs that you want to process 3 Open the Transform dialog box using the Tools gt Transform command Do not confuse this with the Transform Selection operation 4 Inthe dialog box select the Metrics gt Adjust metrics action Transformation Select an action p Hints and Guidelines ow Metrics Set width 600 C Set sidebearings 50 550 Center glyph Autospacing 5 2 1 2 Adjust metrics 0000 by units gt Effects Current action Adjust metrics and kerning Adjust by B Units A 4 LL gt Right sidebearing Shift the Mask layer Width i C Kerning __ Use the measurement line Apply to whole font Cancel In the options area select the metrics that you want to change Left sidebearing Right sidebearing i Width a kerning 7 Enter the amount by which you want to adjust the values and select the units which can be font units or a percentage of the source value Enter a positive number to increase metrics distances or kerning or a negative value to d
432. rt visual TrueType hints W Autohint unhinted glyphs v Export embedded bitmaps L Do not reorder glyphs Copy HDMX data from base to composite glyph i Use Unicode indexes as a base for TrueType encoding Use following codepage for first 256 glyphs Do not reencode first 256 characters _ Export only first 256 glyphs of the selected codepage Put MS Char Set value into fsSelection field Use following codepage to build cmap 1 0 table i Mac i OS Roman default Autohinting Options The TrueType format is more complex and more flexible than Type 1 so you have many more options to customize There are two groups of TrueType export options glyph export including control over instructions and Unicode export 153 154 Glyph Options Glyph export options control how AsiaFont Studio exports glyphs and the first four options are related to the export of TrueType instructions Export hinted AsiaFont Studio will export TrueType instructions of any TrueType fonts type original manually edited or automatically generated only if this option is on To create a completely unhinted TrueType font switch off this option Keep existing If this option is on and the original TrueType instructions TrueType instructions were saved when the font was imported then AsiaFont Studio will try to restore the original instructions where possible If you want to drop all the original TrueType instructions switch this op
433. rting Cyrillic characters on PostScript printers and in Windows Standard encoding for supporting Cyrillic characters on Macintosh computers Standard encoding for supporting fonts that include mathematical and other characters Standard encoding used in Windows 75 76 Additional Encodings All encodings are stored in text files that can be edited in any text processor This is not recommended but may help if you find that our standard encodings do not work for you If you want to define a non standard encoding save the file in a AFS Encoding directory How to Create a Custom Encoding File To create a custom encoding file 1 Duplicate one of the enc files located in the Encoding directory to use as the basis for your new encoding file 2 Open the copy in any text editor SimpleText or TextEdit will do and then edit it following the same structure that you find in the original file 3 Change the name of the encoding and the encoding index in the first line of the file The first line should have the following structure FONTLAB ENCODING 7 Adobe Symbol Encoding FONTLAB ENCODING is the prefix of the file used to detect properly made encoding files and must not be changed Note the space between and the encoding index 7 is the index of the encoding vector You must not change the encoding vector indexes of any of the encoding vectors or they will become unusable If you make your own enc
434. s amp Guides menu contains several commands related to hints Remove Hints Removes vertical or horizontal or all hints and links This command is duplicated in the rulers context menu Automatically generates hints for the current glyph Autohinting options can be adjusted in the Type 1 page of the Preferences dialog box Ei kut laci Automatically generates a hint replacement program a pecs for the current glyph Refer to the Hinting chapter for more information about hint replacement Convert Links to Hints Converts all links to hints Same commandes are duplicated in the Glyph Window context menu which appears if you Crri click in an empty area of the editing field Some commands are available also in the Hints amp Guides toolbar Hints Guides 342 Autohinting Options You can customize the autohinting algorithms using the Type 1 page of the Preferences dialog box Application gt Preferences command Type 1 Autohinting Options Min width Max width Min length Aspect ratio Horizontal 20 200 70 gt Vertical 20 200 70 2 All values are relative to UFM 1000 units Remove all existing hints before autohinting Width limits Declares the minimum and maximum width of hints that the autohinting algorithm is allowed to create Min length Declares the minimum length of the nearest vertical or nearest horizontal vectors or curve control vectors that can be a candidate for building a hint
435. s that are open in AsiaFont Studio If that is not enough you can run the transformation program in batch mode processing multiple fonts that are not open in AsiaFont Studio To select fonts for transformation 1 Select Fonts in the Fonts List as the Transformation range Current character only Selected characters All characters in the font v All characters in the characters list All characters which are not in the list All opened fonts Fonts in the Fonts List 487 2 Click on the button to the right of the Transformation range control to open the Fonts List dialog box Fonts List Options _ Append suffix to the font names Append suffix to the file names Destination format Same as source HH Destination folder Preferences Cancel te F P iy 3 Click on the button to add fonts to the list using the standard File Open dialog box Note that you may select multiple font files to add Fonts Macintosh HD Users alex Documents TestFonts FuturBooCObl otf Macintosh HD Usersialex Documents TestFonts FuturBoot otf Macintosh HD Users alex Documents TestFonts Combilum Bol Macintosh HD Users alex Documents TestFonts Combilum Macintosh HO Users alex Documents TestFonts BaltiClta ott Macintosh HD Users alex Documents TestFonts BaltiCBol ott ci Macintosh HD Users alex Documents TestFonts BaltiC otf 4 Toremove a font from the list select it and click on
436. s of the Unicode ranges and subranges may be changed They are placed in a text file that you can edit in any text editor You can add your own ranges or subranges that for example may include only one character whose placement is very important to you How to Edit the Unicode Ranges Definition File The Unicode ranges definition file is located in the Data directory and has the name uranges dat To change this file open it in a text editor You will see the following text FONTLAB UNICODE RANGES 0Ox0000 0x007F CO Controls and Basic Latin 0x0000 0x001F CO controls 0x0020 0x007F ASCII 0x0080 0x00FF C1 Controls and Latin 1 Supplement 0x0040 OxOOFF ISO 8859 1 aka Latinl 0x0100 0x017F Latin Extended A 0x0100 0x017F European Latin 0x0180 0x024F Latin Extended B The first line of this file is an identification line It should not be changed or AsiaFont Studio will not accept this file as a valid Unicode range definition file All other strings have the same structure lt first index of the range gt lt last index gt lt range s name gt Note that there is no space before a range s name but there are four spaces before a subrange s name Using this simple method you can indent ranges names as you wish 81 82 Codepages Codepages are tables that map character codes one byte long to the Unicode indexes Depending on the size of the page these tables may have 256 or 65 536 records one for each possi
437. s preview appears in the preview panel and press OK or enter more information to narrow your search Use the buttons at the bottom of the dialog box for additional features to select in the Font window all glyphs in the list to mark in red in the Font window all glyphs in the list These features are very useful for managing big fonts For example open the Choose Glyph dialog box change it to Names mode and enter A as the search pattern In a standard Latin font it will list all glyphs that begin with the uppercase A A Aacute Acircumflex Adieresis AE Agrave Aring Atilde If you mark or select them you can easily create a glyph group that you can use in advanced features like class based kerning or OpenType features Renaming Glyphs Usually it is not necessary to manually rename glyphs because their names and Unicode indexes are assigned automatically when you move glyphs in the Font window But if you want to see the information and correct it select the Rename Glyph command from the Glyph menu Or just press Cmp on the keyboard You will see a dialog box Rename Glyph Current glyph name and Unicode index es Hie uH 0041 New glyph name and Unicode index es HAE A P gt Mo 0041 P Options _ Replace existing glyphs with the same name or Unicode index rd Keep replaced glyphs with the new name or Unicode index Rename glyph in all classes Rename Next Glyph In the top
438. s the outline that AsiaFont Studio will look for and the right pane shows the outline it will use as the replacement The two buttons to the right of each pane mean B Place the Clipboard contents into the pane Place the current selection into the pane In our sample you need to place the Clipboard contents original outline into the left pane click on the Ei button and the selection into the right pane button Click the Find Next button to find the next appearance of the source outline in one of the glyphs The first such glyph located will appear in the Glyph Window and the outline that is found will be selected Click Replace to replace the old outline with the new one or click Replace amp Find to replace and find the next location of the outline Check L Local search only to limit the search area to the current glyph only If this option is unchecked AsiaFont Studio will look for the outline in all glyphs of the font Building an Outline From Blocks Now you know how to select parts of an outline and copy it so let s do a few experiments to show how to use this knowledge Suppose that we have an T character and we want to create an H character 1 Open the T in the Glyph Window double click the T cell in the Font Window use the Glyphs Bar in the Glyph Window or just browse the font with the arrow buttons 2 Cut the character in the middle Activate the Knife tool press the mouse button at the left o
439. s well Double click a font glyph name in the list to activate the Font Glyph window containing that font glyph All other operations are accessible from the toolbar Opens the Font Info editor for the font selected in the list ta Closes the selected font or glyph window If you have unsaved changes AsiaFont Studio will issue a warning message Merge fonts adds glyphs from the font selected in the list to the currently active font contained in the active Font window eco Opens a menu with macro programs that can be applied to the font selected in the list al Saves the workspace file 127 128 Merging Fonts With the Fonts panel you can also merge fonts append all the glyphs from one font to another During this process AsiaFont Studio will try to keep hinting information composite glyphs and kerning pairs AsiaFont Studio will also try to keep the Unicode indexes and names of the appended glyphs If copied glyphs have names that already exist in the destination font AsiaFont Studio will add a suffix with a number to the name To merge fonts 1 Open the two fonts you want to merge 2 Open the Fonts panel 3 Activate the font to which you want to append glyphs double click the font name in the Fonts panel 4 Inthe Fonts panel select the font from which you want to append glyphs 5 Click the Append button we in the Fonts panel toolbar Merging fonts is very useful when you have
440. sample in the Font Window or Metrics Window pa M eemico less equal jgreaterquestiq at A Mg pip ell B cibiericw bdl Title Name The Glyph Window The Glyph Window has the following parts e Toolbar area e Toolbar area expand collapse button e Control marks area e Editing Field e Top and left rulers e Left Top box e Scroll Bars e Glyphs Bar e Glyphs Bar expand collapse button e Lock button e Meter panel button e Note icon area e Glyph mark area The Local Toolbar is the command center of the Glyph Window You can switch it on and off by pressing the small button at the top of the vertical scroll bar H There is a popup menu with zoom selection and two pairs of buttons The first pair of buttons is used to select the zoom mode The second pair of buttons is used to apply Undo and Redo operations Some editing tools which we discuss later may have their own toolbars The collection of common tools that are available in the Edit and Sketch modes and reside in the local toolbar is called the Glyph Toolbox The glyph toolbox is invisible by default To make it visible uncheck the option in the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box Do not show Glyph toolbox and VectorPaint toolbar There is a control marks panel in the right top area of the local toolbar aj maoM 1 m Con rol Marks This panel duplicates some of the information that appears in the character cell of the Fon
441. se the parameters for the algorithm in the Parameters area of the Autometrics dialog box All the parameters are displayed We recommend that you experiment with various parameters using the autometrics application 427 428 Quick Save and Quick Open You can use these commands to temporarily save the current state of the metrics and kerning information To quick save a metrics file SAVE AFM in the AsiaFont Studio folder press the button on the toolbar To open a previously saved file press the button The Warning dialog box appears prompting you to save the current modified state of metrics into the same temporary file Editing Kerning To edit kerning data switch the Metrics Window to Kerning mode by pushing the k button in the mode selection area or select the Kerning command in the popup menu that appears if you CTRL Click in the editing area of the Metrics Window When you switch to the kerning mode you will see the total number of defined kerning pairs for the current font appear in the property area of the Metrics Window Pairs 814 To make the Kerning Editing controls visible you must select the pair that you want to edit Position the mouse cursor on the right glyph of the pair in the editing string and click the mouse button You will see the Kerning Editing control appears in the property area and the kerning line and handle appear in the editing area Pairs 814 Kerning 85 B 74
442. se together are combined into a single record 3 The list is then sorted again The most frequently used elements are then selected and used as standard stems 503 Additional Control Data Some additional data may be set to control the hinting process BlueScale Controls PPM when overshoot suppression is switched off BlueFuzz Expands alignment zones in both directions You can set all these values on the Additional Hinting Parameters page of the Font Info dialog box Type 1 hinting global hinting parameters A ii i Set values for the master Single master m FB threshold 0 5 Blue Scale as it is HH is equal to 0 039625 BlueShift 7 BlueFuzz 1 BlueScale is the PPM size at which overshoot suppression is switched off If PPM is less than BlueScale then overshoot suppression is applied If it is equal to or exceeds BlueScale overshoot suppression works only if the distance from the aligned point to the base line of the alignment zone is less than the BlueShift value and the scaled distance is less than half of a pixel 504 The BlueScale value is stored in Type 1 fonts in a very strange format but in the Alignment Zones page you can set it using one of three different ways directly in the form that the Type 1 specification describes i e it looks like a floating point number as a PPM size or as a point size on a device with 300 DPI resolution Use the BlueScale combo box to select the
443. see the Font Window change All the characters that are in the codepage appear in the yellow area All other characters are in the gray area below Select the MS Windows 1252 Latin 1 codepage and you will see how your font will look in the Windows standard Western codepage All codepages in AsiaFont Studio are defined in editable text files so you can change any codepage if you think it is wrong please let us know or you can define your own codepage We do not recommend changing any of the codepages supplied with AsiaFont Studio They are extensively tested and are based on the documents from the companies who supply them Double byte If your font contains many characters from one of the Far East languages you may need to use double byte codepages If you select one of these codepages you will see an additional control to the right of the codepage selection list iz MacOS Chinese EUC TW Eine Sle Sinians Seo Siei Siro Siri Sirs Sirs Sire Sire 5iF9 aaa anee Ejja a a ey P a This control allows you to select a page of the codepage Theoretically we may have 256 pages of 256 codes each which gives us 65 636 codes In practice none of the known codepages has that many codes and usually less than half of that number How to Make a Codepage Definition File Codepage definition files extension CPG are text files that have the following structure FONTLAB CODEPAGE Oxffff MacOS Cyrillic
444. serif font Use the preview panel to see the effect of your actions To apply the new metrics click the Apply and Save button Click on the Save button to store the metrics assistance information without actually changing the glyph metrics The editing field below the preview panel lets you change the class definition Click on the button to accept changes To create a new class press the 4 button Use the toolbar buttons to perform additional operations in the Metrics Assistance dialog box ra Open data file Opens the data file with the metrics assistance n information AsiaFont Studio can open data files saved by itself and metrics assistance files saved from Fontographer In the latter case AsiaFont Studio will automatically generate classes and import all information that is compatible with the AsiaFont Studio metrics assistance feature M Save data file Saves current metrics assistance information to the data a file so you can apply it to different fonts Select all Checks all classes in the list x Deselect all Unchecks all classes in the list 451 452 Class Based Kerning and OpenType Fonts By default AsiaFont Studio will keep a class based kerning structure when you open an OpenType font that has it For each kerning class AsiaFont Studio will automatically generate a class name and mark the first glyph in the class as the key glyph This feature allows you to work with the huge k
445. sform dialog box with the Tools gt Transform command and select the Convert to Instructions command in the Hints and Guidelines section Hinting Sidebearings With AsiaFont Studio s TrueType hinting tool you can set instructions that will control the horizontal position of a character s sidebearings This gives you precise control over a character s metrics at small PPM sizes In the editing field of the Glyph window you can see yellow marks that designate sidebearing points There are left and right sidebearing points The left mark controls the position of the left sidebearing and the right mark controls the right sidebearing 3 Sidebearing points are always aligned in the horizontal direction You may apply any command to the right sidebearing point but the left point can be used only as a source of links or interpolate commands By moving the right sidebearing point you can control the amount of white space at the right side of the character Usually the position of the right sidebearing point is controlled by a rounded single link command or by a final delta instruction Because the length of the single link with rounded distance cannot be less than one pixel you can set this command and be sure that left or right whitespace will never disappear Both sidebearing points may be used as sources of any command just like any other point of a character s outline How AsiaFont Studio Implements Commands that Move Sidebearing
446. shift 50 This action is similar to the Shadow action but it simulates a 3D thickness of the glyphs Sanno The parameters of this action are the same as in the previous section 3D Rotate Y Rotation 30 degrees Z Rotation 30 degrees With this action you can rotate your glyphs in 3D space Sample The parameters of this action set angles of rotation for glyphs around imaginary axes Z Rotation means rotation around the vertical axis Y Rotation is around the horizontal axis The vertical axis goes through the middle of the glyph Gradient fe Top to bottom Bottom to top Number of stripes 40 Begin from position 400 Proceed to position 1000 Here s what you can do with this effect re al wll hy Ili l pind juimaril h nm i J wml yumi ly uml MMN jili Ih pr I As parameters of this effect you can set the number of stripes that appear on your glyphs the starting and finishing line of the effect and the direction of the gradient The starting and finishing lines can be manually set to let you customize this effect and make it look the same in all glyphs Note that these values are set in font units so they are relative to the fonts UPM value 479 480 Random Horizontal offset 5 Proportional offset cr Vertical offset This effect randomly shifts a glyph s nodes It is especially interesting when combined with other effects like Gradient an
447. siaFont Studio data structures to the programming interface Please note that this chapter covers only the very basic features of AsiaFont Studio macro programming We will be providing more information specifications and sample programs on our web site www fontlab com The Python Programming Language Python is a very high level object oriented programming language It combines a very clear and easy to understand syntax with great power flexibility and extensibility Python works on all known platforms and is intensively maintained and updated by many professionals around the world It is not surprising that during the last few years Python has become a de facto standard for macro programming related to fonts AsiaFont Studio continues this trend and extends it to a new level providing full integration of macro programming tools with its user interface More information about Python programming manuals and samples are available on the official site http www python org which we recommend highly if you are not already familiar with the language We will provide minimal instruction in Python programming in this chapter as that is better obtained elsewhere We will assume that if you plan to write AsiaFont Studio macro programs that you have read the Python tutorials and have some experience in Python programming 704 Installing Python When you run AsiaFont Studio 4 for the first time it will know nothing about ma
448. sing traditional methods Classes are also actively used to define OpenType features that are applicable to a set of glyphs so we will return to this subject in the OpenType Fonts chapter Classes Panel To define glyph classes in AsiaFont Studio you need to use the Collection Classes panel Open the panel using the Collection Classes panel command from the Window menu You will see a panel with two pages Collection and Classes Activate the Classes panel 6 6 Collection Classes Collection Classes No glyphs in this class This panel contains a toolbar a list of classes a class preview panel a class definition panel and a status bar that tells you how many glyphs are defined for the current class 441 442 On the toolbar there are several buttons amp _ File operations ee Reset classes Open classes Save classes Reset classes removes all classes Open classes opens the class information from the text file Save classes saves information about the font classes to a text file E Choose view mode Use this button to select one of the class preview modes in the drop down menu EJ Large Icons List Details Select class Selects all glyphs that belong to the current class in the Font window x Remove glyph Removes the glyphs selected in the class preview panel from the class 24 Add component Adds the glyph selected in the class preview panel to the curre
449. size at which overshoot suppression is switched off If PPM is less than BlueScale then overshoot suppression is applied If it is equal to or exceeds BlueScale overshoot suppression works only if the distance from the aligned point to the base line of the alignment zone is less than the BlueShift value and the scaled distance is less then half of a pixel The BlueScale value is stored in Type 1 fonts in a very strange format but in the Alignment Zones page you can set it using one of three different ways directly in the form that the Type 1 specification describes i e it looks like a floating point number as a PPM size or as a point size on a device with 300 DPI resolution Use the BlueScale popup to select the BlueScale editing method and edit it in the is equal to edit field 208 BlueScale Formulas The actual value of the BlueScale value is calculated as PPM 1 63333 800 0 The BlueFuzz value allows you to expand the action range of the alignment zones in both directions Thus if you have defined a zone like 700 715 and BlueFuzz is equal to 2 then the actual zone used will be 698 717 This is usually used when you are not sure that you correctly set all the alignment zones or when the characters are not all precisely aligned The normal value of this parameter is 0 but by default it is set to 1 BlueScale TrueType hinting algorithms do not use BlueScale BlueFuzz and BlueShift values 209 210 Format
450. sk using the mask s snap feature or some other techniques that will be discussed later The mask layer can be filled in two ways by copying the selected part of the outline to the mask layer or by using the Assign Mask command To copy the selected part of the outline to the Mask layer use the Copy to Mask command in the Tools gt Templates menu If nothing is selected in the outline layer the entire glyph outline will be copied To get access more quickly to the commands in the Tools gt Templates menu select the View gt Toolbars gt Templates option It switches on the Templates toolbar 6 Templates hs Bee O00 3 PS Ble S fa 325 326 Editing Mask To edit the mask layer with the usual editing tools you need to activate it with the Editing Layers panel vy Editing Layers Ww Outline Metrics wi Guides Hints m Mask Alternatively you can use the Edit Mask command in the View gt Show Layers menu When the Mask layer is selected for editing the outline layer will be shown as a mask and may be filled if Preview mode is active so you can use it as a reference Use any tool of the Edit mode to create edit or remove the nodes and contours of the Mask layer outline Re Activate the Outline layer when you are finished working on the mask Mask Operations All operations related to the Mask layer appear in the Tools gt Templates menu Paste Mask Adds the contents of the mask laye
451. small color point that will show you the temporary point that you are moving 3 Drag the mouse and observe how the shape of the curve changes After a few experiments which can be undone you will have enough experience to use this method of editing Several notes that you should remember 1 Innon node editing guiding objects are not sticky So temporary points do not snap to the grid guidelines hints or anything else 2 Ifyou choose a temporary point near one of the ends of a curve you will move that end not just change the curve s shape This is a useful method to locate a curve s endpoints 3 When you press the mouse button to begin non node editing you will see that the endpoints of the curve as well as the control vectors appear simplifying the editing of this primitive 4 Ifyou want to highlight the line or curve but don t want to modify it hold down the Comp key while clicking on the line or curve If you drag a point on a curve its control vectors may change direction To fix the direction of the control vectors hold down the OpTion key and double click the node You will see the connection mark turn yellow OpTion double click it again to remove the fixed state Alternatively you can Crri click the node and use the Connection gt Fixed option to control this feature You can also fix the direction of all control vectors when you edit a curve using non nodes editing Open the Preferences dialog box
452. smooth At a sharp connection the two connected graphical primitives curve and curve or vector and curve are absolutely free in their angle relative to each other at the connecting node At a smooth connection the direction of the vector and the control vector of a curve or the control vectors of two sequential curves are kept collinear lie on the same straight line I e the angle between the two primitives at the node is fixed at 180 degrees Smooth connectic BS A 7 Sharp connectio It is very important to maintain the smoothness of the glyph s contours at the appropriate places Small corners sharp connections that are invisible when glyphs are small become visible and ugly when you print large text Furthermore rasterizing programs that convert outline glyphs into bitmap images on paper do not like outlines where sharp connections are present in places where the outline should be smooth 247 248 Outline Appearance You can view an outline in contoured or filled mode These modes are equivalent for all editing operations but the filled mode is a little bit slower However in the filled mode you always see how the glyph will look in the resulting font Switch between modes with the button on the Show Layers toolbar j Outline mode Preview mode Smoothed Contour By default contour is rendered with black color and sometimes it may result in jaggies m Optionally you can smooth the contou
453. some reason you don t like it you are free to make any changes you want If you don t want to change anything in the AsiaFont Studio user interface you can fast forward to the next section You cannot customize menus in AsiaFont Studio 4 for Macintosh yet The customization of toolbars is also restricted to switching them on or off or arranging them on the screen The general idea of keyboard customization is simple there is a long list of commands that you can use with keyboard shortcuts Through customization you can assign any command to a combination of keys pressed on the keyboard 27 28 Customization of the Keyboard Select the Tools gt Customize command and the Customize Keyboard dialog box will appear Customize Keyboard Category Set Shortcuts For File Default Commands Cu rrent keys ea Close 7 Cmd F f Close All i Font Info Generate Mac 5uitcase Generate font Mew Font Open Font ee S Print Revert y Press New Shortcut Key Description v Edits font header fields search Reset All m In the left area of the page you can select the command that you want to customize Choose the commands category in the top popup menu and the command itself in the list below You will see a short command description below the commands list To easily find a particular command by its name type it in the Search field at the bottom of the dialog box On the right p
454. stance and the stem width is more than either the stem or the distance In manual mode you select a stem to which you want to connect a link in the stems popup menu and switch on the radio button to the left However if the difference between the distance and the selected stem is too high AsiaFont Studio will not connect the link to the stem To keep from connecting a link with a standard stem switch on the None option 543 544 Single Links The single link connects an outline point to a point whose position is set by another command If you set a single link that linked point will always be at the given distance from the base point Original stem vw lt lt Resul ing stem Single link instruction A single link may be linked with one of the standard stem widths If it is so linked then the distance to the base point is replaced by the scaled and rounded stem width So if several links are connected to the same stem width the distances from the base points will always be the same Single links are very straightforward they have one base point and one affected point If a single link is connected with one of the standard stems the linking distance is always rounded to the grid If the link is not so connected then it may be rounded or not depending on the currently selected Round distance option PF Round distance Rounding distances is the default option for this command because it usually gives bet
455. t Mode 233 Vendor Code 186 Ventura Publisher 191 Vertical Metrics 357 Vertical Preview 281 VFA 52 137 VFB 49 52 Visual Ascender 232 Visual Descender 232 Visual TrueType Hints 523 VOLT 57 158 699 701 702 W Waterfall 282 Weight 600 weight vector 604 WeightVector 632 Width 600 WinAscent 196 WinDescent 196 Windows Menu 126 Windows Symbol Encoding 157 Workspace 129 www fontlab com 48 59 703 705 715 721 X x height 193 XUID 186 Z zero point 241 zoom mode 230 731
456. t PANOSE Family Kind Latin Text Record Value a Obtuse Square Cove In the PANOSE identification system 10 numbers describe a font Each number represents one identification category The most important category represented by the first number defines the kind of font is it a normal Roman font a hand written font a decorative or symbol font The meaning of all the other categories depends on this setting In all categories the first two values 0 and 1 mean Any and No Fit Any means that the value of this category is not important No Fit means that the category value for this font is not among the available values To set the PANOSE identification numbers first select the font family kind After that select the category in the Record popup menu and the value in the Value popup menu Here is a table of the categories and possible values for the Latin Text family Serif Style Cove Obtuse Cove Square Cove Obtuse Square Cove Square Thin Oval Exaggerated Triangle Normal Sans Obtuse Sans Perpendicular Sans Flared Rounded Weight Very Light Light Thin Book Medium Demi Bold Heavy Black Extra Black Proportion Old Style Modern Even Width Extended Condensed Very Extended Very Condensed Monospaced Contrast None Very Low Low Medium Low Medium Medium High High Very High Stroke No Variation Gradual Diagonal Gradual Transitional Variation Gradual Vertical Gradual Horizo
457. t Window so that you can instantly get important information about the current glyph 225 Three icons may appear in this area i The glyph has either imported or visual TrueType hints a The glyph has a Mask layer that is compatible with the outline Below the Local toolbar and at the left of the window you may see rulers that are used to preview positions of various structures in the glyph space You may switch the rulers on and off with the View gt Rulers command or using the context menu that appears if you Crri click one of the rulers In the bottom left corner of the Glyph Window you will find a little button Click it and you will see the Glyphs Bar a small subset of the Font Window that lets you quickly browse the font or select characters for editing Let s stop for a moment and describe the Glyphs Bar 226 The Glyphs Bar To open the Glyphs Bar you click on the Glyphs Bar expand button lor press the B or Tas key when the Glyph Window is active understgrave a b e C e ible die fig h HONAN If the Glyphs Bar is open you use the SH1FT TaB keys to switch between the editing area and the Glyphs Bar When the Glyphs Bar has focus it is slightly highlighted To customize the Glyphs Bar s appearance use the Size popup menu Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons in the footer Use the Title popup menu to control the cells caption None To hide the cell s caption Name Unicode Choice of inf
458. t are available to the operating system To select the supported codepages automatically press the Auto button AsiaFont Studio will analyze the Unicode information available in the font and will automatically detect which codepages this font can support To add a codepage to the list of supported codepages select a codepage in the left list and press the gt Add button To remove a codepage from the list of supported codepages select a codepage in the right list and press the Del button To reset the list of supported codepages press the Reset button The Meaning of Supported Codepages In Mac OS prior to 8 5 and Windows 3 1x this information is not used In Mac OS starting from 8 5 Windows 95 and Windows NT a font that has more than one standard Mac OS Roman or 1252 Latin 1 codepage supported will appear as a font available for different scripts So if for example you set Latin 1 and Cyrillic codepages for a font with the name MyFont in Windows 95 and NT it will appear as MyFont Western and MyFont Cyrillic Type 1 Character Set Type 1 fonts do not have such extensive support for multiple codepages The character names they use to identify characters are mapped to codes through the encoding vector There is one parameter that is used to tell Adobe Type Manager used to support Type 1 fonts in Windows how to interpret the encoding vector This is the Microsoft Character set Some of the values for Microsoft Chara
459. t are used by the hinting program in some glyphs AsiaFont Studio will replace any stem linked link with a simple rounded link Stem Rounding Control over stem widths rounding is necessary for two reasons 1 To control a font s contrast If your font is low contrast like Courier or Arial you may want to set the jump PPMs for vertical and horizontal stems equal This way the font will never get high contrast as when vertical stems are 2 pixels wide and horizontal stems are only 1 pixel wide 2 To synchronize the scaling of stems with close widths like the stems that control straight and round vertical stems in uppercase characters At large PPM sizes they should be different but they have to make the 1 2 and 2 3 width jumps together Bigger jump values are necessary when you are working on a black or extra black font where 5 pixel width stems appear at low PPMs To change stem rounding 1 In the list select the stem that you want to edit 2 In the edit fields change the PPM sizes at which this stem makes its various jumps from one pixel up to 6 pixels Press the button to automatically optimize the stem rounding while z trying to keep optimal contrast Use the button to reset all stem PPMs to linear values 567 568 Advanced Options Click on the button in the Options panel and click on the Advanced button in the Stems dialog box You will see a dialog box expand which includes the adva
460. t option lets you specify the shape of the brush stroke This is the sample of the stroke above with different stroke shapes When you finish selecting options click OK to expand the selected contours Make Parallel Path With this operation you can create a path that is parallel to any existing path The method of selecting contours for processing is simple all contours that have at least one node selected will be taken into account If no nodes are selected the whole glyph outline is processed Select the contours that you want to process and choose the Tools gt Outline gt Make parallel path command from the menu You will see a dialog box for specifying the options of the command Parallel Contour Relative position Left O Right Both Remove the original _ Generate closed contour Contour offset 20 8 20 o M Uniform e a Cancel The relative position section lets you specify the side of the original path at which the new path will be created Left and right side option original path is not selected Select the Both option to generate parallel contours on each side of the source contour Contour offset defines the distance at which the new path will be created Use the Uniform option to have the same distance set for X and Y directions Check the Remove the original check box to remove the source contours and keep only the generated parallel paths Check the Generate closed contour check box to create c
461. t to paste Outline Left sidebearing Right sidebearing Adv width Left Kerning Right Kerning Mask i Guidelines 7 Eal BoOOoOOae to let you choose what glyph information you are pasting Check the checkboxes and click OK to finish pasting glyphs When pasting with this special command the destination selection does not have to be continuous i e you can select cells to be replaced in any order and combination 97 98 Copying Glyphs to Another Font You can use two methods to copy glyphs from one font to another 1 Use the Copy and Paste commands from the Edit menu as described in the Copying glyphs section or Drag them to the other font and drop them there The drag and drop method is easier and more visual Appending Glyphs to the Font Instead of the Edit gt Paste command you can use the Append command from the Font window context menu to add glyphs from the Clipboard to the font When AsiaFont Studio appends glyphs it respects the glyph names and Unicode indexes so on the first attempt glyphs will be placed in the expected code positions in the font Here is an example Your first font contains Latin glyphs but has no Cyrillic glyphs A second font is a Cyrillic font with the matching style and you want to add Cyrillic support to the first font 1 Select the Cyrillic glyphs in the second font this will be easy if you select the MacOS Cyrillic codepage or the Cyrillic Unicode range an
462. tand how AsiaFont Studio handles CID fonts we will give you some information about their internal structure To print text from digital format we find in the font that we want to use for printing images of all the characters that are used in the source font Because the sequence of possible characters codes is not linear we need some kind of mapping table that allows us to find a correlation between the character codes and their position in the font file If we separate this mapping table from the font allowing the font to store only graphical and metrical information about characters but not encoding information we have a very flexible scheme of encoding For one font that contains a known collection of characters we may have several different mapping tables that will allow us to support more than one encoding scheme for that font That is exactly how CID fonts are built A complete PC CID font consists of two files a CMap file that includes mapping information and a CID font file that includes a specially organized collection of characters Macintosh CID font has a structure of Macintosh TrueType font with embedded cmap table 59 60 The CID fonts are used when a very large number of characters need to be represented in one font The largest number of characters in one font occurs in the Chinese Japanese and Korean languages CJK languages CJK fonts contain thousands of characters that may be divided into several groups of char
463. te font Note that while blend coordinates are used internally externally design coordinates are used A special weight vector called the default weight vector should be set in the font header to define a standard intermediate design of the MM font A MM font is seen as a typical Type 1 font by a PostScript device or program and this Type 1 font is an intermediate instance of the MM font with the default weight vector Extrapolation The Multiple Master font specification allows only interpolation of the master designs to define an intermediate font In addition to that basic feature however the multiple master font structure allows linear extrapolation of the designs also This feature allows us to artificially extend the design range of the MM font which sometimes produces interesting results AS AGREES RUNAS AS AGREES R Standard dynamic range for the Width axis AS AGREES RUNAS AS AGREES Extrapolated range for the Width axis AS AGREES I Extrapolated Weight In real life this feature lets you extend font families with very little effort for instance build an MM font using the normal and bold styles and then add light and extra bold using the extrapolation feature 605 606 Anisotropic Interpolation Standard MM fonts have the same interpolation values for both the X and Y directions In AsiaFont Studio it is possible to define a different interpolation weight for directions With this you can make inte
464. ter control of the position of the destination point There is a special kind of single link called the aligned single link It can be described as a combination of a single link and the Align command on the linked point You can t set a normal Align command at the end of the link but you can use an aligned link in this case To make a link aligned switch on the Round destination option on the Options panel f Round destination Aligned single links use the current Align mode To set a single link oy 1 Select the single link tool 2 Position the cursor on the base point Don t forget that the position of the base point must be set by an instruction 3 Press the mouse button and drag the mouse to the point that you want to link A circle will highlight it Release the button Hold the Suirr key down if you do not want to connect the single link to a standard stem width If you hold the Suirr key the stem settings in the Options panel will not work If the base point of the link is not aligned by some other command AsiaFont Studio will automatically set an Align command on it Hold down the Cmp key if you want to prevent this 545 546 In the Glyph Window the single link command appears as a directed line with a mark in the middle The mark is yellow if the link is connected to a standard stem width and gray if it is not If the link is connected the stem name may appear near the mark Base pont TIA
465. ters This table is recommended for TrueType fonts but only if you understand all the options and parameters The first page includes only one option Export the PCLT table which controls table export Note that you can define table parameters but not export the table all values will be saved to your AsiaFont Studio font file VFB Extra information on many of PCLT fields can be found in the HP PCL 5 Printer Language Technical Reference Manual available from Hewlett Packard Boise Printer Division Our description of various PCLT fields is partially copied from the PCLT table specification available online at http www microsoft com typography otspec pclt htm PCLT Identification PCLT identification 4 fey Native format Converted format Vendor code Unique code 0 Copy T1 UID Typeface family code 0 TypeFamily vendor code reserved KA Native Converted Only original font vendors can select Native format If you are format modifying an imported font select Converted format Vendor code Single character code of the font vendor assigned by Hewlett Packard Boise Printer Division to major font vendors Below is a list of registered font vendors A Adobe Systems B Bitstream Inc C Agfa Corporation H Bigelow amp Holmes L Linotype Company M Monotype Typography Ltd Unique code Font s unique code 24 bit integer Using the Copy T1 UID button you can copy the Type 1 Unique ID value into
466. th another class The Class form of the substitution requires that the number of glyphs in the source and destination classes be the same A single substitution rule is specified in one of the following formats substitute lt glyph gt by lt glyph gt format A substitute lt glyphclass gt by lt glyph gt format B substitute lt glyphclass gt by lt glyphclass gt format C You can use the codeword sub instead of the longer substitute Format B specifies that all glyphs in the target glyph class will be replaced by the same replacement glyph Format C specifies that any of the glyphs in the target glyph class must be replaced by its corresponding glyph in the order of glyphs in the glyph classes in the replacement glyph class If the replacement is a singleton glyph class then the rule will be treated identically to a format B rule If the replacement class has more than one glyph then the number of elements in the target and replacement glyph classes must be the same 677 678 For example sub a by Asmall format A sub one fitted oneoldstyle one taboldstyle by one format B sub a z by Asmall Zsmall format C sub Capitals by CapSwashes format C The third line in the above example produces the same effect in the font as sub a by Asmall sub b by Bsmall sub c by Csmall Hi ves sub z by Zsmall Sample applications of this rule Replace different types of figures sub ordf
467. th green color in the font window Assigning a Master With this command you can take glyphs from one font and put them into one of the masters of the current MM font The glyphs of the fonts are linked using their names so the glyph with the name zero in the assigned font will be placed into the master of the glyph with the name zero in the font where the master is being assigned When you select the Assign Master command from the Tools gt Multiple Master menu you will see the dialog box Assign Master Select a master which you want to replace by different font wt wd op Do not insert points v Do not interpolate compatible outlines Choose font that you want to put into the master of the current font MinionkiM FLCaslon You have selected font MinionMM ABCabcl123 Weight Width OpticalSize ma 621 622 There is a list of masters in the popup menu in the top of the dialog box Select one of the masters to be assigned here There is a list of all open fonts below the masters popup menu Select the font whose glyphs you want to put into the selected master of the current font If you select a Multiple Master font scroll bars and edit controls will appear allowing you to select an intermediate design of the font If you switch on the Do not insert points option then AsiaFont Studio will copy outlines as they were in the source font regardless their compatibility with the outlines in the destinatio
468. that you use this command only for stems for which the position is not very important or for stems that will be used as the basis for hinting The double link command does not have base points but it sets the position of points To set a double link 1 Select the double link tool t 2 Position the cursor over one of the points you want to link Press the mouse button 3 Drag the cursor to the point you want to link to the first point A circle will highlight any point over which you move the cursor Release the mouse button when the desired point is highlighted Hold the Suirr key down if you do not want to connect the double link to a standard stem width If you hold down the Suit key the stem settings in the Options panel will not work 549 550 In the Glyph Window the Double link command appears as a line with two arrows and a mark in the middle The mark is blue if the link is connected to the stem and gray if it is not connected If the link is connected the stem width will appear near the mark First linked pont Secondlinked pont x In the Program panel a double link command appears as Stem name DoubleLinkV 12 lt gt 36 0 where 12 and 36 are points that are linked and 0 is the number of the stem to which this link is connected or ns if it is not connected to the stem How the Double Link Command Works 1 The original not grid fitted positions of two linked points ar
469. the button Click the button to remove all fonts from the list 488 5 Use the Options controls to define the optional suffixes that will be added to the font name and to the file name during transformation Options Mi Append suffix to the font names Outline Mi Append suffix to the filenames q In the same area you can select the destination format in which the font will be exported Destination format Same as Source Type 1 PFB TrueType TTF FontLab VFB Type 1 PFA OpenType CFF OTF Use the Same as source choice to leave the font s format unchanged The font s customized export options if source fonts are in AsiaFont Studio format or the currently selected export options will be used to build the destination font Note that you are not required to have any transformation program and you can use this batch transformation feature to convert fonts from one format to another 6 Enter the path to the destination folder or use the button to select it from the one of the existing folders Destination folder Macintosh HD Desktop 7 Click OK to complete the definition of the list After you start the transformation AsiaFont Studio will open fonts from the list apply the transformation program adjust the font and file names if specified and save the resulting fonts in the specified formats to the selected folder on your disk 489 Hinting This chapter is about hinting Type
470. the Normal sub family Arial Arial Italic Arial Bold and Arial Bold Italic 175 176 OpenType Specific Names OpenType specific font names E E Family Name Style Name Regular Mac Name Build OpenType Names x Reset Names The OpenType format adds several new name records that are needed to use OpenType fonts on PC and Mac Family Name Preferred Family Name name 16 This name is used to create a family containing more than 4 styles You need to use the same Preferred Family Name in all fonts that you want to put into a big family and make the Preferred Style Name different for each of these fonts The Preferred Family name appears in the font menu as the font name Please note that this information is used only by new applications that can handle OpenType fonts Adobe InDesign or other new Adobe programs are good examples Style Name Preferred Style Name name 17 Used to complement Preferred Family Name and defines a font style in a big font family This is the name that appears in the submenu of the fonts list Family Typeface Futura Light Gill Sans Light Italic Helvetica Neue Regular Optima Italic Bold Bold Italic You need to include the Preferred Family Name and Preferred Style Name on this page only if they are different from the Family and Style names you defined on the Basic Names page Mac Name Macintosh compatible full name name 16 If you want the name
471. the TrueType hinting for the Preview panel the Pixels layer in the Glyph Window and the preview window in the Options panel To get a preview AsiaFont Studio implements the following steps 1 AsiaFont Studio creates a very small TrueType font that includes the empty notdef character current character and all characters from the sample string of the Preview panel 2 All characters in this font are mapped to codes starting from the 0x3F 63 code of the question character The empty character is mapped to 0 as usual 3 This font is exported in PC TrueType format ttf using all the TrueType export settings including grayscale settings maintaining the existing instructions setting and autohinting A special font name is set for this font to avoid conflict with any installed fonts 4 This font is saved in the temporary directory and installed in the system All previews are made with this font When the font is no longer needed it is uninstalled and the font file is removed Like the Type 1 hinting preview panel the TrueType hinting preview panel can be opened and its options can be customized Please refer to the description of the Type 1 hinting preview panel on page 514 for more information Font Smoothing Use the Use font smoothing if allowed by system checkbox in the options dialog to switch the smoothing on and off Mac OS X and Classic render text in different ways To control the system smoothing in Mac OS X use the Gene
472. the Align button in the Axis panel Switch on the Auto Align check box to make alignment of the intermediate preview to the active master automatic so that when you select another master as active the preview will automatically follow it and you will see a filled preview of the master that you are working on Extrapolation The Axis panel allows you to select not only design coordinates that are within the axis dynamic range but to go beyond that point thus extrapolating the master designs If one of the values is out of defined dynamic range the editing control background turns yellow Width O il Anisotropic Interpolation Click on the to open the anisotropic interpolation dialog box X Axis Interpolation Select the axis Weight B i E ee E 615 Select the axis in the list at the top and use the graph to define the relationship between X and Y interpolation The X axis on the graph represents the X interpolation position on the design axis The Y axis represents the relative Y interpolation Here are some examples of the possible X Y interpolation relationships Isotropic proportional interpolation This is the default setting ta ba ie P in m J G wh o Fixed Y width axis Width does not change when you move the slider The weight X axis changes linearly along the weight axis To edit the graph use same mouse commands as when you are editing a glyph s outline Cup Opti
473. the Font Map toolbar Click it and you will see the Font Map rearrange to represent your font with the applied double byte codepage In this mode every row represents 256 glyphs that are assigned to the specific first byte You will see this button In the following picture you can see a Traditional Chinese font in Unicode mode in the left picture and in Codepage 950 mode right eee eee eee ere eee eee eee ee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee Unicode mode Codepage 950 In the codepage mode green pixels represent codes in the codepage that are covered by one of the glyphs in the font Cyan pixels mean codes in the codepage that are not covered by any glyphs in the font Notes Sometimes you may need to add a description or some other information to a glyph In AsiaFont Studio you can do that using the Notes function A Note is a small text box that you can attach to the glyph It is visible in the Font window and in the Glyph window To add a note to a glyph in the Font window select it Crri click and select the More gt Add Note command in the context menu You will see a Note window Enter the text of the note and click the button in the bottom bar to accept changes or to reject the changes and close the window There are also keyboard shortcuts CMD ENTER to accept changes or Esc to exit without saving If you have entered something in the note box you will see the note icon
474. the Show Layers toolbar Open any character for editing and activate the Wt1 layer switch on preview mode and select an intermediate position of the design coordinates in the Axis panel Weight Look in the top right area of the Glyph window There is a special mark rightmost that may be gray red or green Tig A red mark shows that the mask layer is not compatible with the master Incompatible means that mask and outline layers have different numbers of contours so AsiaFont Studio cannot match the points and curves A green mark means that the mask and outline layers seem to be compatible and you may apply the Mask to Master action This action replaces the contents of the active master with the contents of the Mask layer If the Mask layer is completely compatible with the outline you will instantly get a properly made master for the active layer AsiaFont Studio uses the Blend algorithm to match points in the Mask and outline layers Sometimes it can produce incorrect results so we recommend you check your outlines after you complete the Mask to Master operation 625 626 You can apply the Mask to Master action to several characters at once 1 Activate the Font window Note the mask compatibility marks in the top right corner of the characters cells 2 Select the characters to which you want to apply the Mask to Master action 3 Click on the Tools gt Templates gt Mask to Master command 4 Adia
475. the interpolate command This command sets the position of a point in the same proportion between two other points as it was in the original outline Or the intermediate point could be aligned to he grid and serve as the starting point for a single link or another interpolation command This command has two base points and one affected point To set the interpolate command 1 Select the interpolate tool EA 2 Position the cursor over the first base point 3 Holding the mouse button down move the cursor to the interpolated point and release the button 4 Move the cursor to the second base point and click the mouse button In the Glyph Window the interpolate command appears as two directed lines from the interpolated point to base points 553 554 In the Program panel the interpolate command appears as InterpolateV 34 gt 11 lt 38 where 11 is the interpolated point and 34 and 38 are the base points Customizing the Command To customize the command CTRL Click the command icon small green circle In the context menu you can use the Delete command to remove the command and the Align destination menu to align the destination point to the grid In the Programs panel the Interpolation command options look like this From To 25 Point 41 Closest boundary Align The Options panel allows you to choose the source and destination points for the command and to customize the alignment of the destin
476. the match remaining rules i e subtables in the lookup will be skipped Example 1 Ignoring specific sequences The ignore substitute rule below specifies that the substitution in the substitute rule should not occur for the sequences f a d f e d or ad d Note that the marked glyphs in the exception sequences indicate where a substitution would have occurred this is necessary for the OpenType layout engine to correctly handle skipping this sequence ignore substitute f a e d ad d substitute a e n d by d alt Example 2 Matching a beginning of word boundary ignore substitute LETTER f i substitute f i by f_i begin The example above shows how a ligature may be substituted at a word boundary LETTER must be defined to include all glyphs considered to be part of a word The substitute statement will get applied only if the sequence doesn t match LETTER fi i e only at the beginning of a word Example 3 Matching a whole word boundary ignore substitute LETTER a n d a n d LETTER substitute a n d by a_n_d In this example the a_n_d ligature will apply only if the sequence a n d is neither preceded nor succeeded by a LETTER Example 4 This shows a specification for the contextual swashes feature feature cswh Glyph classes used in this feature BEGINNINGS A N P Z Th m BEGINNINGS_ SWASH A swash N swash P swash Z swash T_h swash m begin ENDINGS a e z
477. ther font glyphs Good examples of composite glyphs are accented glyphs like A a or i In each of these the composite character is composed of a character glyph outline and an accent glyph outline from elsewhere in the font AsiaFont Studio has all the necessary tools and operations to work with composite glyphs so it s usually not necessary to decompose them on import But if you want to markedly rearrange the glyphs and do not want to worry about composites you can use this option Of course you can always decompose or recompose the glyphs later using AsiaFont Studio commands When AsiaFont Studio opens TrueType fonts it always decomposes composite glyphs that have rotated or slanted components The second option is usually on We strongly recommend keeping it that way if you plan to convert your Type 1 font to the TrueType format The TrueType font format uses Unicode indexes to access characters so having the indexes set properly is paramount However if you do not plan to make a TrueType font you may switch this option off As in the case of the first option you can always make Unicode indexes later How AsiaFont Studio Makes Unicode Indexes In the AFS Mapping directory you will find the file STANDARD NAM This file contains a database that links the PostScript names of characters with Unicode indexes When you import a Type 1 font and the option Generate Unicode indexes for all characters is on AsiaFont Studio takes th
478. ting you to choose whether to replace the existing glyphs or save them by moving them to the end of the encoding You have dropped glyphs at the places used by the glyphs with names listed below 4 7 o00oF EF Keep replaced symbols under new names Sa d Cancel Leave Keep replaced symbols under new names checked to save the glyphs I e put the new glyphs in the cells and move the existing glyphs to cells at the end of the encoding or clear it to replace them I e delete the existing glyphs Note that even if source selection is not continuous the destination selection will be continuous ae o F oc H Aao kea E a lo Pes at gu Pe ow is dir ol Gee If you are working in the Index mode when you move glyphs they will not replace existing glyphs that they overlay Instead moved glyphs will be inserted in front of the existing glyphs in the glyph sequence of the font 93 94 Saving the Font Most of the font modification operations are not undoable so we recommend you save your work regularly To save a font that you have opened from an existing font file in AsiaFont Studio or other format use the File gt Save command or click on the Save button on the Standard toolbar To save all opened fonts click the File gt Save All command or this button on the Standard toolbar Font s will be saved in AsiaFont Studio format vfb extension to the directory where the original font was opened imported
479. tion in the Transform or Transform Range dialog box AsiaFont Studio 1 2 2 1 2 2 2 3 3 1 3 2 Converts all hints to links to find what points are linked by the hint For every horizontal link If one of the linked points is in the top or bottom alignment zone adds an AlignTop or AlignBottom command and connects another point to it by the SingleLink command Automatically links the SingleLink command with one of the standard stems If none of points is in the alignment zone links them by a DoubleLink command or by a single link command if one point is linked to another outline point Checks all outline points and if one of them is on the same horizontal line as one of the linked points links it by the SingleLink command It doesn t do this if the point is adjacent to an already connected point For every vertical link Connects two points by the DoubleLink command or by the single link command if one of the points is linked to another outline point Checks all outline points and if one of them is on the same horizontal line as one of the linked points links it by the SingleLink command It doesn t do this if the point is close to an already connected point AsiaFont Studio optionally detects cusp points and links them to one of the single and double link commands For single and double link commands that connect round points like on the left and right sides of the O AsiaFont Studio may option
480. tion links will stick to the Mask layer After you complete work with the Interpolation tool use the Edit tool to fine tune the master 627 628 Multiple Master Metrics You can set metrics for Multiple Master fonts as easily as you can for a single master font Of course you can use the Edit tool to adjust sidebearings but it is much easier to do it with the Metrics window When a MM font is opened in the Metrics window its three modes preview metrics and kerning work slightly differently The preview mode shows the intermediate font in the sample window Use the Axis panel to select the design coordinates of this intermediate font In metrics and kerning modes only a master font can be previewed in the Metrics window You can use the Masters panel to select the master to preview and edit or you can select it from the master selection popup menu that looks and works exactly as in the Glyph window Ty wWdo wto Wd1 WtO wd0d Wt1 Wd1 Wtl So to edit metrics and kerning information select the master that you want and edit it as a single master font AsiaFont Studio will automatically track all changes and complete the Multiple Master data for the font Another difference is the save format for the metrics file If a MM font is open then a binary MMM Multiple Master Metrics file is used to store the metrics data Or you can save a set of text AFM files for each master and linked MM file Select the format that you want t
481. tion off Export visual TrueType AsiaFont Studio will convert manually set visual hints TrueType instructions only if this option is on Autohint unhinted If this option is on AsiaFont Studio will try to glyphs automatically generate TrueType instructions for all unhinted glyphs How AsiaFont Studio Autohints TrueType Fonts on Export When autohinting is allowed and AsiaFont Studio finds a glyph that has no TrueType hints of any kind original hints imported from the TrueType font file or manually edited visual hints it begins to make TrueType hints automatically If this glyph has Type 1 hinting information then AsiaFont Studio converts this information to visual TrueType instructions and converts the instructions to the TrueType hinting code If Type 1 hints are not present then AsiaFont Studio automatically generates Type 1 hints as the first step then converts the Type 1 hints into TrueType visual instructions and converts the visual instructions into TrueType native instructions The next three options control glyph ordering export of embedded bitmaps and building an HDMX table Export embedded If this option is on AsiaFont Studio will export bitmaps embedded bitmaps if they are present If you don t want to save bitmaps in the font switch this option off Do not reorder glyphs If this option is off AsiaFont Studio will try to reorder glyphs to match the Mac cmap encoding table this is a requirement of the specification Ac
482. tivate this option to prevent glyphs from reordering Copy HDMX data from If this option is active AsiaFont Studio will copy HDMX base to composite glyph data device and point size specific font metrics from the base component of the composite glyph to the composite glyph Of course this will happen only if their metrics are the same Unicode Options Most TrueType fonts use Unicode indexes for the glyph encoding information Therefore if you want to make a TT font that will always work your Unicode glyph mapping tables must be perfectly correct Here is a description of the Unicode export options Use Unicode indexes If this option is on then AsiaFont Studio will use the as a base for Unicode indexes that are set for the font s glyphs as the TrueType encoding source of Unicode encoding information See below Use the following AsiaFont Studio can optionally reencode the first 256 glyphs codepage for the of the font letting you create a single codepage font for first 256 glyphs some codepages This is very similar to using the Glyph gt Glyph Names gt Reencode glyphs command before export The popup menu contains several choices The first option Do not reencode the first 256 characters means that reencoding is off All other options in the list let you select a remapping table to perform reencoding Export only the first This option is enabled only if you choose one of the 256 glyphs of the remapping codepages in
483. to closest edge of pixel or center of pixel A E g gt Y ian v To set an alignment command on the outline at 1 Press the align button on the toolbar 2 Position the mouse cursor on the point that you want to align 3 Click the mouse button Hold the Suirr key if you are setting vertical commands and the point is inside an alignment zone In the Program panel the Align command appears as AlignV 12 1 AlignH 22 0 where 12 and 22 are point indices and 1 and 0 are the codes of the alignment rounding method as shown in the table above 540 Align commands are the very first commands in any hinting program They do not have base points and affect only one point Customizing the Align Instructions You can customize Align instructions with the context menu Crri click the point to which the align command is to be applied and you will see the menu a Delete command enie luan oe v Closest pixel edge m Left bottom edge Right top edge Center of pixel Double grid You may delete the command attach or detach it from the alignment zone this option is available only if the point is in the zone and change the alignment type Another way to customize the command is to use the Program panel in expanded mode Point 119 Align Closest pixel edge H 541 542 Links Links are the most important visual commands They are used to set relationships between outline points and to set distan
484. to copy all the missing components If your answer is Yes then AsiaFont Studio will automatically append all the necessary components to the destination font so that all the composites stay unchanged Duplicating Unicode Indexes In AsiaFont Studio you may assign more than one up to 63 actually Unicode indexes to a glyph Visually this means that a glyph that has several Unicode indexes will appear several times when one of the Unicode modes Ranges or Codepages modes is selected in the Font window To distinguish the original copy of the glyph from the duplicates the latter are marked by a small blue mark in the left top corner of the glyph cells To make a duplicate of a glyph select it you may select many glyphs at once position the mouse cursor on the selection press the COMMAND and OPTION keys press the mouse button and drag the selection to the place where you want it to be duplicated It is important to have the COMMAND and OPTION keys pressed when you release the mouse button You can later correct Unicode indexes assigned to the glyph by using the Rename Glyph dialog or the Glyph Properties panel described later 101 102 Deleting Glyphs To remove glyphs from the font 1 Select the glyphs that you want to remove 2 Select the Delete command from the Edit menu or from the popup menu Or press the DELETE or BACKSPACE key on the keyboard 3 A dialog box appears asking you if you are sure that you want to delete
485. to each of the glyphs contained in the current font which is referenced as fl font if len g 0 and len g components 0 This line compares the length of the glyph outline and the length of the components array which contains all components with zero and if there are neither outline nor components it executes the next line print g name If the condition given in the second line is true this line prints the glyph name As you can see with only 3 lines of code we have solved a problem that typically takes about 30 minutes to perform AsiaFont Studio Python Classes In this section we will discuss a basic set of AsiaFont Studio we will use FontLab wording here since AFS is based on FontLab code classes and variables The full specification is available as a separate document for download from our site www fontlab com and most classes are also self documented For example to print a short reference of the class Font type in the Edit Macro panel print Font __doc__ And check the Output panel for the reference Note the two underscore characters before and after the doc 715 FontLab The highest class in the FontLab hierarchy is a class named FontLab You cannot create it explicitly but the object of this class is always available and is named fl This class contains seven most important members ifont Index of the active font ee ee a eee ne Gig a ee sgh iene ete end eee a
486. tomatic TrueType Hinting There is no special command TrueType autohinting in AsiaFont Studio There is Type 1 autohinting and automatic conversion of Type 1 fonts to TrueType instructions This is a more flexible solution to the TrueType autohinting problem because it allows you to use all the correct Type 1 hints that you have or to build both hints at once To automatically generate visual TrueType hints for the whole font 1 Select the Transform Range command from the Tools menu 2 Ifyou have a Type 1 font outlines of 3 4 order curves with a Type 1 hints set select Convert Type 1 font to TrueType from the program selection popup menu Convert Type 1 font to TrueType Transformation program Sample program TrueType Autohinting 3 Ifthe font has no hints at all select TrueType Autohinting from the program selection popup menu 4 Click on the Load amp button to the right from the program selection popup menu 5 Choose an application range for the selected program Current character only Selected characters All characters in the font All characters in the characters list All characters which are not in the list All opened fonts Fonts in the Fonts List 6 Press the OK button to start the process 577 578 Working With Bitmaps Setting complex instructions program and multiple delta instructions may take a lot of time An alternative is to create bitmap versions of the glyphs for most im
487. top anchor and then the _bottom anchor 99 351 352 Using the Anchors Panel Use the Anchor panel to preview virtual composites Open the Preview panel Window menu or the button in the Panels toolbar Select the Anchors page of the preview panel Preview OpenType Features Preview 4 l ncha rs Open the base glyph in the Glyph Window The Anchor panel will immediately list all of the anchors and all matching accent glyphs that have link anchors Preview OpenType Features Preview Anchors Anchor top Rd circumflex Wi tilde Rd dieresis v breve The left list includes all accent glyphs that can be linked with the base glyph using one of the defined anchors The first 10 resulting virtual composites are previewed in the sample string Use the check boxes to the left of the accent list to choose which composites to preview Ki circumflex tilde wi dieresis wi breve Choose another anchor in the list to update the accent list with accents that can be connected to that anchor Anchor top 5 Double click one of the virtual composites to select one of the accented glyphs for preview Preview OpenType Features Preview Anc hors Mic ML CLO As you can see now the anchor list includes all virtual composites that can be created using the selected accent glyph and the selected anchor Double click one of the virtual composites to select it for previewing
488. u choose a bigger zoom mode you will see a more detailed symbol and you can do the editing operations more precisely However in the larger zoom modes not all of the symbol will lie inside the editing field so you will have to use the scroll bars to see the different parts of the symbol There are fixed zoom modes and custom zoom modes You can select one of the fixed zoom modes in the Zoom popup menu located in the upper part of the Glyph Window 100 gt When you choose a fixed zoom mode AsiaFont Studio will return to this glyph mode on every Zoom Out command To magnify part of the glyph select the Zoom tool e button on the toolbar or the key on the keyboard and declare a custom zoom mode This mode is temporary and you can always return to the previously selected fixed zoom mode by clicking on the button or by clicking on the key Alternative keyboard shortcuts are Command Space then Zoom in click Command Option Space Zoom out then click Command 1 2 3 4 5 6 Set fixed zoom mode from 6 25 to 200 Space and drag Scroll hand cursor appears After you select the zoom tool al move the mouse pointer to one of the corners of the rectangular area that you want to zoom on and press the mouse button Then holding the mouse button down define the zoom in area by dragging the cursor to form a rectangle Release the button and the new zoom mode will be selected Quick Zoom Selection You can quick
489. u may use the CTRL TAB and CTRL SHIFT TAB key combinations to browse pages 169 Command Bar In the bottom area of the dialog box you find the command bar Apply and change font 4 E Copy Cancel 5 Apply i The Left part of the bar allows you to select a font for header information editing without closing the Font Info dialog box Use the arrow buttons to browse open fonts 4 b or click this button to select a font from the list ArialMT x Arial BoldMT BalticaC Italic To the right you find four buttons Copy Allows you to copy font header information between open fonts Cancel Cancels any changes and closes the dialog box Apply Accepts changes but lets you continue so you can see the results of your changes in the Font Glyph or Metrics windows OK Accepts changes you made to font info and closes the dialog box 170 Copying Font Info If you want to copy font info from one font to another you can do it with the Font Info dialog box 1 Open both fonts 2 Activate the font to which you want to copy information 3 Open the Font Info dialog box 4 Click on the Copy button 5 In the dialog box select the font from which you want to copy information Copy Font Info Select the font to copy Font Info data from ArialMiT BalticaC Italic FOOD Copy only the current page gt Copy all Font Info data Using the options below the list you can copy only t
490. u or by clicking the button on the Panels toolbar You will see a panel containing three pages OpenType Features Preview and Anchors The OpenType Features and Anchors pages will be described later so activate the Preview panel now Preview hamburgevons namburgevo The Preview panel can work in two modes string preview and waterfall preview You can choose the mode with this button Note that the waterfall preview is possible only when the Glyph Window is active You can scroll the sample string in the Preview panel just drag to scroll the window or Crri click to reset to the initial position High quality rendering provided by the FreeType library is used to show glyphs in the preview panel so the visual resolution is higher than the pixel resolution of your screen and is close to what you can get on some printers In preview mode the preview panel shows the glyph string in the top area of the window hamburgevons fs 277 278 You can type any text in this area or you can drag drop glyphs selected in the Font Window or in the Collection Classes panel To preview a glyph that cannot be easily encoded by a single keyboard character enter the slash character and then the name of the glyph jexclamdown asterisk breve ring evo To enter Unicode characters type the Unicode index in hexadecimal form exactly 4 characters after the backslash 00ee 00ef 00f0 00f1 00f4 aoe 110no0 To cho
491. u select the File gt Generate Mac Suitcase command Click on the triangle on the left of the suitcase icon to see its contents If you feel the style is not what you ve expected click Cancel and check the fonts Font Info fields carefully The toolbar contains the following buttons Add Opens the menu allowing you to add open fonts to the list ee the standard File Open dialog allowing you to open suitcases from the i i Opens the FOND Info dialog box for the selected suitcase or Font Info dialog box for the selected font What you can do with these commands To add all fonts that have been opened with AsiaFont Studio in their Font windows click on the Add button and select the Add all command from the menu Adc ii Arial Arial Bold Arial Italic Arial Bolditalic FLCaslon AsiaFont Studio checks the FOND Name field in every open font and creates suitcases one for every different FOND name If several fonts have this field the same they will be combined in one suitcase with this name 140 If the list of suitcases is not empty and it is so after you select the File gt Generate Mac Suitcase command you have the possibility to add only those fonts that are compatible with this suitcase in the list choose the Add possible command from the Add pulldown menu To remove all the fonts from the list click on the x button To remove a suitcase or a particular font in a suitcase select it in the list
492. ubtable created will still be in the same lookup so the editor must ensure that the coverages of the subtables thus created do not overlap For example pos Y Yacute period 50 In first subtable subtable Force a subtable break here pos A Aacute Agrave quoteright 30 In second subtable If the subtable statement were not present both rules would be represented within the same subtable Known Features OpenType feature processing is an application centric system The application knows which features it needs to apply and then searches the font for these features If a feature is present in the font it is applied To implement this system features must be standardized and registered so everybody will know what a feature with a particular name does The Microsoft Typography group performs feature registration http www microsoft com typography The full list of registered features may be found in this document OpenType Layout tag registry http www microsoft com typography otspec ttoreg htm This document contains descriptions of all name tags that can be used in an OpenType font for script language and feature names We will provide brief definitions of the most commonly used features init medi fina and isol Features These features are most commonly used in Arabic scripts and allow one to define four forms of Arabic characters initial final medial and isolated J g ae ot Isolated Final Medial Initial
493. ure called Mask to Master to simplify the combination of several single master fonts into one MM font Multiple Master Outlines in AsiaFont Studio In AsiaFont Studio all outlines are multiple master compatible from the very beginning Every node of the outline has a layered structure Node type and other op ions Node positon on layer 1 Node posi ion on layer 2 Node positon on layer 3 Node positon on layer 4 Thus a Multiple Master font in AsiaFont Studio is not a combination of several separate master fonts but a single multilayered font This means that in AsiaFont Studio it s impossible to make master fonts incompatible because they are just the different layers of the same font 609 610 Defining an Axis If you want to convert a single master font to a Multiple Master font you must define a new design axis Select the Tools gt Multiple Master gt Define New Axis command You will see a dialog box Define New Axis Name the axis FullName Weight Assign the short name two letters Short Name Wt f Recalc Select the axis type Axis Type Weight f Recalc b zil Convert hints to links before addition of the new axis 2 Cancel To define an axis you must enter an axis name a short name and select an axis type Select the name of the axis in the Full Name popup menu You can enter your own custom name but we strongly recommend you use only names that are in the list in order to make the font
494. urves Straight lines we ll call them vectors are just straight lines that connect two sequential nodes Type 1 curves are Bezier curves 314 order cubic b splines To modify the form of the curves two additional sub nodes are used N r End Point Bezier Contol Point 7 7 X Ds Contol Vecbr a lt 4 End Point These sub nodes are called control points and the vectors that connect the control points with the curve s ends are called control vectors In the Glyph Window vectors straight lines end in square in black white mode or red in color mode dots and curves end with round or green dots 245 TrueType curves are 2 4 order curves quadratic b splines that have one control point called the off curve point Control o f curve point a a End on curve point End on curve point Some TrueType curves may appear linked together and form a long supercurve where intermediate on curve points do not really exist but are implied by the rasterizer On curve point Implied on curve points Off cu ve point TrueType curves end with points that look exactly like vector points Off curve points of the TrueType curves have a plus in black white mode or light blue in color mode appearance 246 Connections The type of connection between graphical primitives is very important if you want to keep the contour smooth at appropriate nodes There are two types of connections sharp and
495. utline where you want to start the curve Click the mouse button Hold the Suirr key down to make a smooth transition between the new curve and the old outline Position the mouse cursor on the place on the outline where you want to finish the curve Click the mouse button Again hold the Suirr key down to make a smooth transition Note that the starting and finishing points must be on the same contour Repeat steps 2 and 3 as many times as it takes to approximate the outline Double click to accept the changes you can also press the RETURN Or ENTER key on the keyboard or press the Esc key to reject the changes Set This operation lets you set the position of the nodes very precisely Of course you can use the nodes property panel but this operation may simplify the job 1 Activate a Set operation by selecting Set in the Operations submenu of the Tools menu or pressing the button on the Tools or Operations toolbar 2 Click anywhere in the editing field to set up a reference point If you click close to any of the guiding elements or close to one of the nodes the reference point will stick to that object The reference point will be highlighted 3 Position the cursor on the node you want to move and click again The destination node will also be highlighted and a dialog box appears Relative Offset Absolute Position Esse eliris W O SS Cancel In this dialog box AsiaFont Studio shows the rel
496. ving the font for Windows 201 Supported Unicode Ranges Supported Unicode ranges b k M Basic Latin x M Latin 1 Supplement M Latin Extended A oak M Latin Extended B _ IPA Extensions Spacing Modifier Letters Combining Diacritical Marks Greek Cyrillic Armenian OOOO Hebrew TrueType and OpenType fonts must declare Unicode ranges that the font can support so that the operating system can decide which characters to represent In TrueType format this information is stored as the ulCodePageRangel and ulUnicodeRange fields in the OS 2 table The Supported Unicode ranges dialog is relatively simple you can see a list of all Unicode ranges with a check box to the left of each name If the check box is checked it means that range is supported Buttons to the right of the list mean x Uncheck all ranges Automatically check ranges using information about Unicode indexes assigned to fonts characters 202 Hinting Settings Hinting Settings Standard stems T1 hinting Additional hinting parameters Information in this section is related to hinting which is described in full detail in the Hinting chapter The information below is copied there also so if you re not interested in hinting right now you can skip this section 203 204 Alignment Zones Type 1 and TrueType hinting alignment zones pe ai Set alignment for the master Single master Set local alignment zones Set family alignment zones
497. w Glyph window appears with this glyph prepared for editing If the list is in the Report mode click on the header to sort the glyphs according to one of their properties Searching for Glyphs Sometimes you need to find a particular glyph in your font especially in large fonts Select the Choose Glyph command in the Glyph menu or press CMD BACKSPAcE on the keyboard You will see a dialog box Get Glyph begins with Create unexisting glyph To find a glyph 1 In the left top popup menu select the method by which you want to search for the glyph Name Searches for the glyph name Code Searches for the decimal code of the glyph in the current encoding or codepage ANSI glyph Searches for the glyph that is mapped to one of the ANSI glyphs in the selected codepage or encoding Bottom Top Searches for glyphs whose bottom or top line falls in the specified range Components Searches for glyphs that have the specified number of components 2 Inthe popup menu to the right of the method select the comparison factor begins with equals to less than or more than 3 Inthe right top editing field enter the information depending on your selection that will be used to find the glyph 109 110 4 The names of all the glyphs that match the criterion will appear in the list Get Glyph A AE AEsmall Aacute Aacutesmall Abreve Create unexisting glyph Select the glyph name that you want it
498. w change Glyph 66 B from Times New Roman Bold Here is a brief description of what appears in the editing field Thick green lines Currently active set of stem hints Arrows Direction of contours There are active and inactive contour segments and active and inactive stem hints Active hints work when the active part of an outline is processed by the rasterizer The hint replacement points separate contour segments from each other You can select different active parts of the outline by clicking on the outline segment that you want to make active using the mouse The active segment always appears in black and the hints that apply to that segment appear in green 510 Inserting And Removing Replacement Points The contour segments to which you may assign hints lie between two hint replacement points green marks To define a new contour segment you add a new replacement point Remember that the node where you put the hint replacement mark will be the first node to which the hint set is applied To add a hint replacement point 1 Position the mouse cursor on the node where you want to set the hint replacement mark 2 Crrui click the mouse button You will see the popup menu with only one command Add replace point here Select it and a new replacement point will appear When you insert a new replacement point AsiaFont Studio automatically selects the hints that should be set in the new contour segments To
499. w gt Lock layers menu With the panel you can easily control all the layers at once using the check boxes in the top row All layers If you frequently need to switch some layers on and off you can use the View gt Toolbars menu to open the Show Layers toolbar In the following sections we will describe all the editing layers and their modification and control 239 240 Outline Layer The Outline layer is the most important of all the layers It stores information about the glyph shape while all the other AsiaFont Studio editing layers and most of the tools are designed to help you create good outlines Before we turn to the outline editing tools let s talk about outline structure Units of Measurement The coordinates of any object in the font are presented in a standard measurement system One unit of this system is called a font unit The scale of font units used in a particular font is the Units Per eM UPM font parameter The program that scales the font knows the UPM value of the font and can use it to properly scale it To get a text string of the same visible size a font that has a larger UPM value must be scaled with a smaller scale factor Usually Type 1 fonts have a UPM value of 1000 font units Therefore to get a text string with a height of 100 pixels assuming that we use a raster output device we would scale this font with a scale factor of 10 TrueType fonts usually have a UPM of 2048 units S
500. want to preview List of point sizes to preview in waterfall mode 5 36 38 40 42 48 Reset You can choose what sizes you need to see in the waterfall preview mode Enter the sizes separated by or use to define size ranges Click the Reset button to select the default PPM ranges Waterfall preview works in vertical mode with left to right or right to left writing mode B 10 B 12 B u B B You may print the Waterfall preview of the font if you click on the Bos ve a4 WWW tus 48 button on the preview panel toolbar 283 284 Selections Many operations can be applied not only to single nodes or graphical primitives but also to several nodes together For example you may want to move many nodes or delete part of a contour First select the nodes that you want to process To select nodes with the selection rectangle 1 Make sure that the Edit tool is active 2 Press the mouse button anywhere in the empty area and drag the mouse to surround the nodes with a rectangle Hold down the SHIFT key to reverse the selection state of the nodes To select or deselect individual nodes just shift click them To select the contour segment line or curve shift click on it To select the whole contour double click the contour not a node with the mouse cursor To add another contour to the selection SHirr double click it Alternatively you may press the Cmp key and click a
501. want to select The closest contour to the point where you clicked will be selected 3 Hold down the Suirr key to reverse the selection state of the contour Moving the Selection When multiple points are selected you can move the entire selection with the Edit tool just click on any selected point or selected part of the outline and drag the mouse Hold down the Suirt key to constrain movement to the vertical or horizontal direction only Transforming the Selection sg eee A You may rotate scale and slant a selection with the Rotate and Slant tools on the Edit toolbar 1 Select the part of outline you want to transform or remove all selections to transform the whole outline 2 Choose the tool to perform the transformation 3 Click the mouse button on the center of transformation and drag the mouse to rotate scale or slant Hold down the Suirr key to constrain the transformation 365 Selection Operations You may copy paste delete and duplicate a selected part of the Sketch outline Use the following commands from the Edit menu Copy Copy the selection to the Clipboard Paste Add the Clipboard contents to the current sketch Delete Remove all the selected points Duplicate Add a copy of the selection When you use the Paste or Duplicate command the selection is added with a shift from the original position You may control the amount of this shift on the Glyph Window page of the Preferences dialog box
502. xporting options in the Export Options dialog box are a subset of the options accessible in the Application gt Preferences gt Type 1 dialog box Usually the subset is enough but sometimes you may need to customize the full set Make PFM File Switch this option on to create a PFM Printer Font Metrics file when exporting a PC Type 1 font PFM files are used in Windows to register Type 1 fonts They contain metrics kerning and partially font header information You cannot install a Type 1 font on Windows without a PFM file This option is ignored when saving Macintosh Type 1 fonts Make AFM and INF files Switch this option on to make AFM Adobe Font Metrics and INF font INFormation files when exporting a Type 1 font These files are text files and contain descriptions of the font metrics kerning and header font names weight width encoding and other information It is possible to install a Type 1 font on Windows with Adobe Type Manager if you don t have the PFM file but do have the AFM and INF files because ATM will automatically build the PFM file using data from the AFM and INF files The AFM file is necessary to install a Type 1 font in ASCII form with pfa extension on most Unix based operating systems When saving Macintosh Type 1 fonts only AFM files are created To install an exported Type 1 font in Windows you must have the PFM or AFM IMNF files We recommend making all these files when you finally produce a
503. yellow if kerning is positive To change the kerning value click on the kerning row in the table and enter the new value Click ENTER key on the keyboard to accept the changes or Esc to cancel Use the TAB and Suirt Tas keys to select a pair in the sample string Using the Kerning Dialog You may add or delete kerning pairs linked to a selected glyph and enter precise kerning values using the Kerning Information dialog box To open this dialog box press the button on the Kerning window toolbar or select the Edit Kerning command in the popup menu You will see the following dialog box Kerning Information TRight glyph c Csmall jsmall T Tsmall U Usmall Vv Vsmiall LA A LA A A A A A A A A Left count 23 v Show kerning only for the current glyph d Cancel P In the top half of the dialog box you see a table that has information about all the kerning pairs in which the current glyph is on the left Each row of this table includes the name of the paired glyph on the right and the kerning value 433 434 You can sort this list by the names of the right glyphs or by the kerning value To sort the list click on the header of the column that you want to use as the sort key You can edit a kerning value or change the right glyph of the pair using the edit controls below the list The sample window in the bottom part of the dialog box previews the selected kerning pair You will immediat
504. you are working with non Latin fonts Preview OpenType Features Preview Anchors NpHMep pycckoro Vertical Preview If the width of the preview panel is less than half of its height which happens if you dock the preview panel to the right or left side of the screen it automatically turns itself into vertical preview mode A font s vertical metrics or glyph s vertical metrics if defined are used to vertically align glyphs Right to left preview mode still works when the Preview panel is vertically oriented so you can align glyphs to the left or to the right to check the balance of their sidebearings Be ng KK PA at ie Ui 281 282 Waterfall Preview When you are working on a glyph you may need to see it in many sizes at once Open the glyph in the Glyph Window and switch the Preview panel to the waterfall mode with this button You will see multiple sizes of the glyph previewed 0 1s 8BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB BBBB BB B S673 910111213 i4 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 23 30 i 32 33 34 3s 36 3s 40 42 43 Size is measured as PPM which means Pixel Per eM This is a resolution independent way of defining the pixel height of the glyphs For standard Mac screens the point size which you enter to define text size in text editors or page layout programs is equal to the PPM size With the Options dialog box _ you can choose which PPMs you
505. you do not care about the font s weight Weight Value Numeric weight value of the font This number defines the font weight and is used by the operating systems to organize fonts to font families AsiaFont Studio will fill it automatically when you select some Weight in the popup menu but if you want you can customize it Width The average width of the font s characters Enter a custom value or select one of the predefined width values from the popup menu Leave this field empty or select Normal width if you do not care about the font s width Font is Italic OS 2 fsSelection Switch on this check box if you are creating an italic font 173 Font is bold OS 2 fsSelection The Font is defined as bold Usually this checkbox is related to the Weight setting but it is not required For example if you are making a family containing Light and Normal styles you may need to mark the Normal style as Bold so you will not need to split these styles into two separate families More styles Press this button to open a popup menu where you can select one of the additional font styles This information is used only by TrueType fonts but we recommend you always set it properly to simplify future font identification Style Name name 2 Contains complete style information about the font We recommend that you fill in the Weight Width and Italic data to automatically generate this field using the Build Style Name button and edit this field
506. ype specific abide fay Calculate values automatically recommended Set custom values 05 2 TypoAscender 735 hhea Ascender 735 TypoDescender 265 Descender 265 TypoLineGap 200 LineGap 200 WinAscent 1002 WinDescent 700 Recalculate Strikeout position 245 Strikeout thickness 50 Recalculate In TrueType font files vertical metrics can be stored in the OS 2 and hhea tables Different programs and operating systems use vertical metrics from these tables Windows usually uses data stored in the OS 2 table while the Mac OS uses only data located in the hhea table It is important to correctly define all vertical metrics if you want your font to align properly In most cases AsiaFont Studio can calculate vertical metrics according to the system recommendations but in some cases you may want to customize these values We recommend you generally leave these values untouched in an existing OpenType font Of course if you perform heavy modification of the font you will need to update the advanced vertical metrics If you want AsiaFont Studio to automatically calculate all vertical metrics select the option Calculate values automatically If you want to customize values select the Set Custom values option and edit data in the fields below Note that if you choose Set Custom values but leave all data unchanged AsiaFont Studio will restore the original vertical metrics data from the imported font and the new updated

AsiaFont Studio 4.0 User Manual

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