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 FontLab 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.
The Font Window consists of the command bar at the bottom, and a glyph
table, where a single cell represents each glyph:
Each cell has a caption at the top that shows some identification
information – it may be the name of the glyph, its code in various forms or some other character information.
Tip: You can change the font size used to display the caption in Tools > Options > Font Window > Glyph Cell.
The Font Window command bar has two alternate forms – it can be placed either at the top or at the bottom of the Font Window.
You can switch between the top and the bottom location of the command bar by clicking on this button in the top-right corner of the Font Window.
The left combo box located on the Font Window command bar (if in top position) or the Caption popup menu (in the bottom position) lets you
select one of the caption modes:
Depending on the selection, a different text string will appear in the caption:
Name The glyphname (the so-called PostScript name of the glyph)
Unicode The Unicode codepoint assigned to the glyph, in hexadecimal form
Index The glyph index, i.e. the physical location of the glyph in the font
Width The glyph’s advance width
Left SB The glyph’s left sidebearing
Right SB The glyph’s right sidebearing
Decimal The local character code in decimal form
Hex The local character code in hexadecimal form
ANSI The ANSI character that corresponds to the local character code
Macro A custom entry that can be shown using a special Python macro (defined in the init.py file inside of the Macros/System folder). By default, the entry option shows the number of components in composite characters but the user can write his own macro to display other information here.
The glyph cells may have different colors. By default, the background of the glyph cell may be grey or white, and the caption may be white, red or yellow. Additional colors may appear if the user used the Mark command to color-mark the glyph cells.
A grey cell background means an empty glyph. This means that the glyph does not exist in the font and that the glyph cell is displaying a glyph placeholder. The placeholder usually consists of a glyph template image. FontLab Studio 5 ships with a very extensive set of pre-installed default glyph template images. These are based on the Andale Mono WTG font (courtesy of Monotype Imaging, http://www.monotypeimaging.com/ ) and cover the entire Unicode 3.2 character set. Note that the default glyph template images are low-resolution, monospaced and in a “sanserif” style. They should not be used as direct source of information about the
You can select another set of glyph template images in Tools > Options > Font Window > Templates page – refer to the “FontLab Studio Options” section for details.
A white cell background means that a glyph exists in the font.
If the glyph cell background is white and there is no image in it, we speak of a blank glyph. A blank glyph means that the glyph exists in the font but does not contain any outlines or components. If the white cell includes a
pale grey image, it means that the glyph there is a bitmap background in
the glyph but no outline or components.
If the cell includes a black image, it means that the glyph exists and is non-blank, i.e. it contains an outline or a component.
A yellow caption of a glyph cell means that the glyph is part of the
currently selected encoding, codepage or Unicode range, or, as we say, is “in the yellow zone” (see next section). Glyphs that are not part of the current encoding have a grey caption.
A strong red caption with yellow text of a cell means that the character
has some naming conflict: one name is used for different glyphs or the glyph’s Unicode codepoint does not correspond to its name. You should usually correct either the glyph name or the Unicode codepoint for glyphs with red captions.
The small marks that appear in the glyph cell mean:
Left-Top Blue mark Glyph has more than one Unicode codepoint assigned
Right-Top Yellow-red or yellow-green
mark
Glyph has compatible mask layer
Left-bottom Green or red
‘H’ mark Glyph has hint replacement program or overlapping Type 1 hints. A Green mark means that the program is correct.
The red “H” mark means that you should correct the hint replacement program.
Right-bottom Brown or blue
‘T’ mark Glyph has TrueType hints, either original (blue mark) or manually set visual (brown mark)
Middle-bottom Red rectangular
mark
The meaning of all the small 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. Read more about that later in the “Marking Glyphs” section.
When you modify a glyph in any way, a black bar below their caption appears. The black bar indicates glyphs modified since the last save. When you save a font, all black bars disappear.