These settings control what happens when you open a Type 1 font or a Multiple Master font in FontLab Studio.
If the option Decompose all composite glyphs is on, FontLab Studio will
decompose all composite glyphs in the imported font. Composite glyphs have no unique outline themselves, but “borrow” outlines from other font glyphs. Good examples of composite glyphs are accented glyphs, like ‘À’, ‘å’ or ‘ñ’. In each of these the composite character is composed of a character glyph outline and an accent glyph outline from elsewhere in the font. FontLab 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 significantly modify 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 FontLab Studio commands.
The option Generate Unicode indexes for all glyphs should be usually
on. We strongly recommend keeping it that way if you plan to convert your Type 1 font to TrueType or OpenType format. TrueType and OpenType formats 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 FontLab Makes Unicode Indexes
FontLab Studio uses a file STANDARD.NAM that is a mapping file that contains a list of PostScript names and corresponding Unicode indexes.
When you import a Type 1 font and the option Generate Unicode indexes for all characters is on FontLab takes the 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 more than 4000 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. If FontLab 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.) For glyph names preceded with “!” in the mapping file, FontLab Studio will generate Unicode indexes based on these glyph names but will not generate glyph names for the Unicode indexes if the user chooses Glyph > Glyph Names > Generate Names. In that operation, only glyph names without exclamation marks are considered.
Note 4: The default mapping file can be changed using Options > General Options > Unicode and OpenType > Default Unicode-Name mapping table.
Generate basic OpenType features…
When enabled and the user opens a Type 1 font that is encoded using the Adobe StandardEncoding, FontLab Studio will generate a basic set of pre-defined OpenType Layout features. This can be useful for quick conversions of Type 1 fonts into OpenType, or as a starting point for writing your own OpenType Layout feature definitions
Find matching encoding table if possible
When enabled, FontLab Studio will try to match one of the encodings available from the combo box in the Names mode to the encoding that the font uses. If FontLab Studio cannot match the encoding, the opened Type 1 font will show the encoding “Imported”.
Opening OpenType & TrueType
These settings control what happens when you open a TrueType / OpenType TT (.ttf) or an OpenType PS (.otf) font in FontLab Studio.
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 FontLab commands, but if you turn this option on, UPM will be converted during the font import
Decompose
composites When enabled, all composite glyphs will be automatically decomposed. Refer to the previous section for more information about automatic decomposition. Note: When FontLab opens TrueType / OpenType TT fonts with rotated or slanted components, it will always decompose them
Store custom TrueType/ OpenType tables
Some TrueType fonts have additional tables that are not a part of the TrueType or OpenType specification, or that FontLab Studio cannot interpret. If you want to read these tables and have them written in an unchanged form into the generated font, enable this option.
To view the stored custom tables, go to Font Info > Binary and custom tables.
This feature is very useful if you are working with additional tools, like Microsoft VOLT or VTT programs. If the “Store custom TrueType/OpenType tables” option is active, FontLab will not change or destroy tables that these tools include in TrueType fonts. Please refer to the “OpenType Fonts” chapter for more discussion on this.