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<A href="metricsview.html#kernpair" >Kerning glyph pairs 1</A>
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<A href="metricsview.html#kernclass" >Kerning by classes</A>
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<H1 ALIGN=Center>
Font Info
</H1>
<P>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo.png" WIDTH="614" HEIGHT="548" ALIGN="Right">
<P>
The Font Info dialog is available from all views. It allows you to name your
font and various other useful bits of information. In a
<A HREF="fontview.html#CID">CID keyed font</A>, things are more complex.
Each CID keyed font is composed of man sub-fonts; this command works on the
current sub-font while there is a <A HREF="cidmenu.html#FontInfo">separate
command</A> to access the information for the font as a whole -- that dialog
looks the same. The dialog is composed of many different sub dialogs.
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="fontinfo.html#Names">Names</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="fontinfo.html#PS-General">General</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Layers">Layers</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#PSUID">PostScript Unique IDs</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="fontinfo.html#Private">PostScript Private Dictionary</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="fontinfo.html#TTF-Values">OS/2</A>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="fontinfo.html#TTF-Values">OS/2 Misc</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="fontinfo.html#TTF-Metrics">OS/2 Metrics</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#SubSuper">OS/2 Sub/Superscripts</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="fontinfo.html#Panose">OS/2 Panose</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Charsets">OS/2 Charsets</A>
</UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="fontinfo.html#TTF-Names">TTF Names</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#SSNames">StyleSet Names</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#gasp">Grid Fit</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="fontinfo.html#TeX">TeX</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Size">Size</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="fontinfo.html#Comment">Comment</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#FontLog">FONTLOG</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#MarkClass">Mark Classes</A>
<UL>
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<A HREF="#MarkSets">Mark Sets</A>
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<LI>
<A HREF="#Lookups">Lookups</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#WOFF">WOFF</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Mac-Style">Mac Style</A>
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<A HREF="#Mac-Features">Mac Features</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Dates">Dates</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Unicode">Unicode Ranges</A>
</UL>
<H2>
<A NAME="Names">Names</A>
</H2>
<P>
PostScript fonts have several different names, but basically there are two
important ones: the family name (like Times) and the fontname (which is the
family name with a bunch of modifiers like Bold Italic Condensed tacked on
to the end. The FullName is designed to be read by humans, while the others
are for machines, this name can contain spaces (like "New Century Schoolbook-Bold
Condensed"). Finally there is the weight name. All of these names should
be in ASCII. If you wish to enter names with characters outside this range
look at the <A HREF="#TTF-Names">TTF Names</A> Section.
<P>
The copyright field can contain whatever you want to put there, but it's
a good place to put a copyright.
<P>
In most fonts the version field is a string (and so has minimal constraints
on it), but in CID keyed fonts it must be a floating point number.
<P>
You may also specify a separate version number to be used in any sfnt generated
from this database; this should be a floating point number. Or you may leave
this field blank. If you leave it blank FontForge will generate a default
value based on other version information specified elsewhere.
<P>
Normally when <A HREF="generate.html">generating a font,</A> FontForge will
use the fontname as the base for the default filename of the font file (the
base to which the extension is added). But that is not always what you want.
You may wish to attach a version string to the fontname, or abbreviate it,
etc. The <CODE>Base Filename</CODE> field allows you to specify this to
fontforge.
<P>
Many of these names are similar to the english names of the
<A HREF="fontinfo.html#TTF-Names">TTF Names</A> section. If nothing is specified
in that section then the names specified here will be used by default in
ttf files.
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-general.png" WIDTH="614" HEIGHT="546" ALIGN="Right"><A
NAME="PS-General">General</A>
</H2>
<P>
This sub dialog contains a rather random collection of settings.
<P>
The Ascent and Descent are (in this current definition) Macintosh concepts
rather than PostScript, their sum, however, provides the size of the em-square
and that is very much a postscript concept. For postscript fonts this number
is set by strong convention to be 1000, while in most TrueType fonts it will
be 2048 (also a convention, but TrueType claims rasterization is faster if
the sum is a power of 2). Since both TrueType and Type1 (postscript) fonts
represent numbers as 16-bit integers ascent and descent must be less than
32767. TrueType is more restrictive and requires their sum to be less than
16384.
<P>
If you change the size of the Em you may choose to have all the outlines
(and kerning info) scaled to have the same proportion to the new value that
they had to the old. Warning: <FONT COLOR="Red"><STRONG>If your font has
truetype instructions scaling may break the font as entries in the <CODE>'cvt
'</CODE> table will not be scaled.</STRONG></FONT>
<P>
The Italic Angle indicates the slant of the font. FontForge can attempt to
guess a good value for you by looking at the stems of certain letters ("I"
for instance).
<P>
The underline position and height provide a program using this font a hint
as to where it should place a line if it wants to underline text printed
in this font.
<P>
If you want your font to have <A NAME="vertical">vertical</A> metrics (generally
this means you are working on a CJK font) then check the <CODE>[*] Has Vertical
Metrics</CODE> checkbox. This will enable the Vertical Origin field, and
will mean that when you generate a truetype or opentype font a vertical metrics
table will be added. The Vertical Origin is the vertical offset from the
origin of the design coordinate system to the origin for the purposes of
vertical metrics.
<P>
<A NAME="Interpretation">Sadly</A> the encoding is not always sufficient
for understanding the font's behavior. For example a unicode font designed
for a chinese system will look very different from a unicode font for a japanese
system (The same unicode character may map to very different chinese or japanese
glyphs). To handle this FontForge has the concept of "Interpretation".
<P>
When you create a new glyph in a font, fontforge will assign it a name based
on the current
<A HREF="encodingmenu.html#namelist">namelist</A>.<BR CLEAR=ALL>
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-layers.png" WIDTH="607" HEIGHT="547" ALIGN="Right"><A
NAME="Layers">Layers</A>
</H2>
<P>
You may control how many and what types of layers are available in your font.
<P>
Fonts may be either outlined or stroked, or (if you configured FontForge
for <A HREF="multilayer.html">multi-layered editing</A>) type3. You may choose
which kind of font you want.
<P>
You may also decide what kind of splines you want in the font in general,
often all the layers will use the same type of splines (so there are radio
buttons to make that easy), but it isn't required each layer may be in its
own format.
<P>
If you mark a layer as quadratic (or check <CODE>[*] All layers Quadratic)
</CODE>then FontForge will use quadratic
<A HREF="overview.html#spline">Bézier</A> splines for this layer rather
than cubic Béziers, this means that FontForge will be using the native
spline format of truetype rather than postscript (or opentype). When FontForge
generates a font it will convert from whatever format is used internally
to whatever format is required for the font, so there will be no problem
if this is set incorrectly, but setting it correctly for your font means
you get a clearer idea of what the outlines will look like. I find quadratic
splines harder to edit with because each spline is less flexible, but the
advantage of actually seeing what your truetype font will look like may outweigh
that.
<P>
You may also mark a layer as a foreground layer or a background layer. Background
layers can hold images. Pasting into an empty glyph in a background layer
will not set the width. Splines in background layers do not make a glyph
worth outputting.<BR Clear=ALL>
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-psuid.png" WIDTH="376" HEIGHT="608" ALIGN="Right"><A NAME="PSUID">PostScript
Unique ID</A>
</H2>
<P>
<FONT COLOR="Red"><SMALL><STRONG>NOTE:</STRONG></SMALL></FONT>
<A HREF="UniqueID.html">Adobe now says</A> that both XUID and UniqueID are
unnecessary.
<P>
The XUID field is a collection of numbers separated by spaces and enclosed
in brackets. This allows you to specify the extended unique ID of the font.
If you have set the XUID preference entry then FontForge will assign values
to all new fonts (by appending a number unique to this font to the end of
your preference item). Adobe recommends that the XUID be changed every time
the font is changed, so each time you generate a postscript font, that font's
XUID (if present) will be incremented by 1 (This incrementing does not happen
in CID-keyed fonts, where the XUID behavior is too complex for this simple
trick). (The XUID field is only meaningful in PostScript fonts).
<P>
The UniqueID field is an older convention for the same purpose as XUID. If
you do not fill in this field then FontForge will pick a random number for
you in the allowable range. If you want your font to have no unique id then
give this the value of -1. If you have talked to Adobe and been assigned
a real UniqueID then you may use this field, otherwise leave it blank. (The
UniqueID field is only meaningful in PostScript fonts)<BR CLEAR=ALL>
<H2>
<A NAME="Private">Private</A> -- <SMALL>(font-wide postscript hinting)</SMALL>
</H2>
<P>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-private.png" WIDTH="480" HEIGHT="548" ALIGN="Right">This
sub-dialog shows most entries in the font's Private dictionary. The interesting
things in this dictionary are mostly concerned with hints appropriate for
the entire font. I shall not go into detail about the meanings of the various
entries, that is best understood by reading
<A HREF="http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/PDFS/TN/T1_SPEC.PDF">Adobe's
Type1 specification</A>.
<P>
Don't try to change these until you understand what they mean.
<P>
The dialog is shown at right. It consists of a list of dictionary key/value
pairs. The keys are on the left, values on the right. Generally you will
want to use the standard PostScript keys (these are available from a pulldown
list that appears when you press one of the little grey buttons).
<P>
Note: The values must be things which PostScript can parse. This means that
<CODE>ForceBold</CODE> must have a value of "false" or "true", and "False"
or "faux" will not work. Similarly the decimal point in numbers must be "."
(not ","). If you enter a "," by mistake FontForge will convert it for you.
<P>
For example the <CODE>BlueValues</CODE> entry specifies certain key regions
of the font in a vertical direction. For instance it might contain the baseline
serif, the x-height serif, the cap-height serif. It is expressed as an array
of numbers, grouped in pairs. The first number of a pair is the low end of
the region and the second is the high end. So in the example at right, the
value of <CODE>BlueValues</CODE> is <CODE>[-20 0 437 457 583 603 623
643</CODE>.
<P>
When the <CODE>[Guess]</CODE> button is enabled FontForge thinks it can make
a reasonable guess for the value of the currently selected entry.
<P>
The <CODE>[Histogram]</CODE> button is similar, it will bring up a
<A HREF="histogram.html">dialog showing a histogram</A> of the values of
an attribute of the font. The hope is that this will allow you to pick a
good value for the entry.
<P>
You may also delete an entry from the dictionary with the <CODE>[Delete]
</CODE>button. Some entries (such as <CODE>BlueValues</CODE>) must be present
in any type1 font, but you may still delete them. FontForge will simply guess
at a reasonable value when it needs to generate the font.
<P>
Certain keys affect things other than hints. The <CODE>lenIV</CODE> entry
controls how much random padding is placed around the type1 strings when
the font is generated. Normally this will be 4, but if you want to save space
(4 bytes per glyph in pfb format, 8 bytes in pfa) you may choose another
value. The UniqueID key represents the font's Unique postscript ID. If you
provide a value here then FontForge will copy it into the UniqueID field
in the Font Dictionary. (this is different from True Type's UniqueID. They
perform the same function but are formatted differently).
<P>
Some of these entries are only meaningful for PostScript fonts, others will
be used by the truetype autoinstructor.<BR CLEAR=ALL>
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-ttfvals.png" WIDTH="376" HEIGHT="608" ALIGN="Right"><A
NAME="TTF-Values">OS/2</A>
</H2>
<P>
This sub dialog contains settings important for Windows platforms, most of
these settings live in the 'OS/2' table of a truetype or opentype font. The
pane also includes a few pieces of data that do not live in the 'OS/2' table
but are logically related.
<P>
The weight class provides a numeric value describing the boldness of the
font. A normal face will usually have a boldness of 400, and a bold face
will usually be 700. This must be a number between 100 and 900.
<P>
The width class allows you to provide a numeric value saying how condensed
or expanded this font is.
<P>
The PFM Family is used when generating PFM files and classifies the font
into some rather broad categories (Serif, Sans, Monospace, Script, Decorative).
<P>
You can control whether you want to allow your font to be embedded into other
documents (most commonly pdf). You can restrict it so that it can never be
embedded, it can be embedded into documents that can be printed (but not
edited), it can be embedded into documents that can be edited, or it can
be embedded into an editable document and later extracted and installed on
a different system. You can also control whether the document producer is
allowed to extract the glyphs it needs and make a new font from them (which
saves space) or whether they must include the entire font if they use any
of it. Finally you can restrict the embedding so that only bitmap versions
of the font may be embedded. (meaningful in CID keyed postscript fonts as
well as TTF and OTF).
<P>
The "Vendor ID" is a four character ASCII field used to identify the creator
of the font.
<P>
The IBM Family is another classification scheme for fonts.
<P>
Finally you may order lookups in the GSUB (or morx) table.
<P>
These entries are only meaningful in TrueType and OpenType fonts (though
the Embeddable entry (generally called FSType) will be set on CID keyed fonts
even if they are not in an OpenType wrapper.<BR CLEAR=ALL>
<H3>
<CODE><A NAME="Order"><IMG SRC="GSUB-Order.png" WIDTH="185" HEIGHT="294"
ALIGN="Right">GSUB/morx</A></CODE> Ordering
</H3>
<P>
This dialog allows you to control the order features in which are to be executed
by the word processing program. If you have loaded an opentype or truetype
font then the original order will be maintained. As you add more features
they will appear at the bottom of the list (which may not be appropriate).
You may select a feature name and use the buttons to move it up and down
in the list. Things at the top of the list are executed first, things at
the bottom last.
<P>
<FONT COLOR="Red"><STRONG>Caveat: </STRONG></FONT>Although the OpenType spec
claims that the execution of features (actually lookups) will be ordered
by their appearence in the lookup table, MicroSoft claims that they will
apply features in the order that they think best. So the order specified
in the font may be ignored.<BR CLEAR=ALL>
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-ttfmetrics.png" WIDTH="376" HEIGHT="608" ALIGN="Right"><A
NAME="TTF-Metrics">OS/2 Metrics</A>
</H2>
<P>
The Windows Ascent and Descent fields are badly defined in the OpenType spec,
which says that they should express the maximum range of the Windows "ANSI"
glyphs. If one uses this definition, non-"ANSI" glyphs are cropped. These
should be the maximum range of all glyphs to avoid cropping. But even that
will not always work. If you have a line with marks which are repositioned
with GPOS, then the marks may be cropped, so Windows Ascent should include
the maximum possible height of repositioned marks (or any other GPOS vertical
repositioning feature).
<P>
This is too complex (and too ill defined) for FontForge to figure out, instead
FontForge gives you a couple of options.
<OL>
<LI>
You may set WinAscent and WinDescent directly. Turn off the "[ ] Is Offset"
checkboxes and any value you provide will be used as is.
<LI>
Or you may specify an offset to be added to the maximum ascent and descent
of the font (which FontForge will compute for you when it saves the font).
If you don't have a mark to base feature, then I recommend that you set the
offsets to 0, and check the "[*] Is Offset" checkboxes.
</OL>
<P>
Both WinAscent and WinDescent should be positive numbers.
<P>
The Typographic Ascent and Typographic Descent are <EM>supposed</EM> to represent
the line spacing of the font on the windows platform. Sadly very few applications
actually use them (most applications use the Windows Ascent/Descent described
above).
<P>
In traditional (Latin) typography, the unleaded line spacing should be 1em,
and that is what Adobe recommends for these fields (they should sum to the
Em-Size specified in the <A HREF="fontinfo.html#PS-General">General</A> pane).
The Typographic Ascent should be the same as the font's Ascent, and the
Typographic Descent should be the (negative) of the font's descent.
<P>
The "[*] Is Offset" checkboxes behave much as they do above, except they
specify offsets from the font's ascent and descent rather than its bounding
box.
<P>
The Typographic descent should be a negative number, the ascent a positive
number.
<P>
You can also specify the default line gap, or leading between lines.
<P>
The mac uses a different set of fields for the same concepts, and stores
them in the 'hhea' table rather than the 'OS/2'. The HHead Ascent and Descent
are used to specify clipping (in some applications) and line spacing. They
behave very much the way the Win Ascent & Descent behave (they are based
on bounding box values). And the 'hhea' table has its own line gap field.
<P>
And if your font has vertical metrics enabled (See
<A HREF="fontinfo.html#PS-General">General</A> above) you will be able to
set the default spacing between vertical columns of text. (the equivalent
to LineGap in vertical text).
<P>
<A HREF="faq.html#linespace">See the FAQ </A>for a discussion on the complexities
involved in setting the line spacing. <A HREF="baseline.html">The 'BASE'
table</A> provides a more precise method for setting line
spacing.<BR CLEAR=ALL>
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-subsup.png" WIDTH="376" HEIGHT="608" ALIGN="Right"><A
NAME="TTF-SubSuper">OS/2 Sub/Superscripts</A>
</H2>
<P>
The OS/2 table also contain information on scaling and positioning subscripts
and superscripts.
<P>
Most fonts don't really need this control. If you leave the [*] Default check
box on, then FontForge will generate some reasonable values on output (if
nothing significant changes, it will use the values shown here). If you want
control of these values, turn off the checkbox and the text fields will be
enabled for you to change.<BR Clear=ALL>
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-panose.png" WIDTH="376" HEIGHT="608" ALIGN="Right"><A
NAME="Panose">Panose</A>
</H2>
<P>
This sub-dialog allows you to describe your font in 10 different dimensions.
The exact meanings of many of these entries vary from script to script, and
even the Latin ones are not clear to me, I have merely typed them in as specified
in the <A HREF="http://fonts.apple.com/TTRefMan/RM06/Chap6OS2.html">true
type docs</A>. Better information is available from
<A HREF="http://www.panose.com/">HP</A>,
<A HREF="http://www.agfamonotype.com/hardware/pan1.asp">AGFA</A> and
<A HREF="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/gdi/fontext_48aa.asp">MS</A>,
<A HREF="http://forum.high-logic.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=941">discussion</A>.
<P>
If you leave the [*] Default checkbox set then FontForge will generate reasonable
values when the font is output, otherwise you may set these values manually.
<P>
These entries are only meaningful for TrueType, OpenType and SVG
fonts.<BR Clear=All>
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-charsets.png" ALIGN="Right" WIDTH="614" HEIGHT="546"><A
NAME="Charsets">Charsets</A>
</H2>
<P>
The OS/2 table contains two fields which give some information about the
characters in the font. Windows is very picky about using fonts if the proper
code page bits are not set. If you leave the [*] Default checkboxes set then
FontForge will generate reasonable values when the font is output. Sometimes
you need to override that behavior if you wish Windows to use a font with
an incomplete code page.
<P>
These entries are only meaningful for TrueType, and OpenType
fonts.<BR Clear=All>
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-ttfname.png" WIDTH="602" HEIGHT="534" ALIGN="Right"><A
NAME="TTF-Names">TTF Names</A>
</H2>
<P>
TrueType (and OpenType) fonts are allowed to have different names in different
languages. So a French user might see CaslonItalic displayed as CaslonItalique
in a font menu, while a German user might see CaslonKursive. There are about
20 different strings which may be customized into various different languages.
Customizing one string does not mean that you must customize the others (indeed,
often only the Style string will be customized).
<P>
The image at right shows the dialog, displaying all the strings set for the
given font. You may order these strings based on type of string (ordered
as below), on language (ordered by unicode), or by a variation of language
which displays strings for the language of the current locale first, then
English strings (because, in general, these will be the most important for
the user) and then ordered by language thereafter.
<P>
Certain strings in English (Copyright, Family, Styles, Fullname, Version)
will always be present. If you do not set them explicitly they will be taken
(possibly with modifications) from the equivalent postscript strings on the
<A HREF="fontinfo.html#Names">Names</A> pane. You may not remove these strings,
and if you wish to modify them you must first detach them from the PostScript.
In the example at right the strings bound to PostScript are shown in red
(Copyright, Family, Styles), while Fullname and Version have been detached
and modified.
<P>
You may change the language of a string by clicking the mouse on the language
field of that string -- a popup menu will appear giving you a choice of all
supported locale/languages. (You may not modify the language of the special
English strings mentioned above).
<P>
You may change the string type in a similar manner, again you may not change
the special English strings.
<P>
If you click with the right button on a string you will bring up a different
popup menu which will allow you to:
<UL>
<LI>
Detach a string from its PostScript equivalent if any (so you can modify
it)
<LI>
Delete a string entirely (except for the special strings bound to PostScript)
<LI>
Edit a string in a larger window.<BR CLEAR=ALL>
</UL>
<P>
If you click with the left button on a string value you may edit that string
in line, if it is small enough,
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-ttfname-bigedit.png" WIDTH="343" HEIGHT="341" ALIGN="Right">otherwise
in a larger window.
<P>
If you wish to add a new string, click on the <New> entry at the bottom.
You will be given the standard language popup and it will create a new string
for you.
<P>
The various strings and a brief description of their meanings are:
<DL>
<DT>
Copyright
<DD>
Allows you to specify the copyright message
<DT>
Family
<DD>
The font's family name
<DT>
Styles (SubFamily)
<DD>
This should (in English) have values like "BoldItalicCondensed". This is
the most likely string to change in different languages.
<DT>
Fullname
<DD>
The concatenation of the Family name and the Styles name
<DT>
UniqueID
<DD>
This is a string that uniquely identifies the font in a human readable fashion.
Its format is quite different from postscript's UniqueID and FontForge will
create an appropriate string if you don't specify one (rather than copying
from postscript).
<DT>
Version
<DD>
A string containing the version number of the font.
<DT>
PostScript Name
<DD>
(FontForge will not let you set this directly. It will be set automatically
to the postscript fontname, only one instance of this tag is allowed in the
font and it must be ASCII)
<DT>
Trademark
<DD>
A string containing any trademark information for the font.
<DT>
Manufacturer
<DD>
The name of the company that distributes the font.
<DT>
Designer
<DD>
The name of the person who designed the font.
<DT>
Descriptor
<DD>
A description of the font and its characteristics.
<DT>
VendorURL
<DD>
An URL pointing to the font's vendor.
<DT>
DesignerURL
<DD>
An URL (often an e-mail address) pointing to the font's designer
<DT>
License
<DD>
A string describing the license terms under which the font is marketed.<BR>
If you want to use the <A HREF="http://scripts.sil.org/OFL/">SIL Open Font
License</A>, there is a button at the bottom of the dialog which will add
that directly (so you don't need to type it in).
<!-- The warning below is no longer needed - the stuff got fixed properly
-->
<!--
<P>
MicroSoft recently (2009) released a security patch in which they decided
that font's whose 'name' table was bigger than 5K were insecure. Personally
I cannot fathom their logic, but that's OK, I usually can't. Unfortunately
many licenses <EM>are</EM> bigger than 5K, the OFL is for one, so it is now
"better" to include a link to a license website rather than the full text
of the license -- at least it is if you want your font to work on Windows.
-->
<DT>
License URL
<DD>
An URL pointing to a page describing the terms of the license
<DT>
Preferred Family
<DD>
This is to get around a quirk of windows where only four Style names are
allowed per family, so font families with more than four styles would get
different family names above, but the preferred family name would be the
same. This should only be specified if it differs from the family
<DT>
Preferred Style
<DD>
This is similar to the above, except it applies to the style.
<DT>
Compatible Full
<DD>
This is to get around a quirk on the Mac.
<DT>
Sample Text
<DD>
Whatever.
</DL>
<P>
These are described in the
<A HREF="http://fonts.apple.com/TTRefMan/RM06/Chap6name.html">original true
type docs</A>, but they apply to
<A HREF="http://partners.adobe.com/asn/tech/type/opentype/recom.jsp">open
type</A> as well.
<P>
These settings specify strings for the windows platform with unicode encoding.
<P>
Generally fonts will have a fairly complete set of strings in the American
English entry, with the Style string (and nothing else) translated into different
languages.
<P>
When you create a Style entry for an language, FontForge will attempt to
translate the American English style into something appropriate for that
language. It understands languages in <A HREF="fontstyles.html">the table
on the font styles page</A>, but not others so it won't always work.
<P>
So if your style in American English is "BoldItalic" then after you create
the appropriate strings FontForge will default to "GrasItalique" for French,
"FettKursiv" for German, "NigritaCursiva" for Spanish, etc.
<P>
These names are only meaningful for TrueType and OpenType fonts.
<H2>
<A NAME="SSNames"><IMG SRC="fontinfo-ssnames.png" WIDTH="614" HEIGHT="374"
ALIGN="Right">StyleSet Names</A>
</H2>
<P>
The OpenType features 'ss01'-'ss20' are magic, and you are allowed to provide
more interesting names for them than the default "Style Set 01"... This table
allows you to assign names, in various languages to the various features.
It is very similar to, though less complicated than, the previous
pane.<BR CLEAR=ALL>
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-gasp.png" WIDTH="540" HEIGHT="314" ALIGN="Right"><A NAME="gasp">Grid
Fit ('gasp' table)</A>
</H2>
<P>
The TrueType 'gasp' table gives you control over whether the rasterizer should
do grid-fitting or anti-aliasing at any given pixel size. Note that this
table only applies to <EM>TrueType</EM> fonts, it does not apply to Type2
PostScript (fonts with .otf extension).
<P>
The table consists of a set of pixel sizes with corresponding flags. For
each entry in the table the flags apply to all pixel sizes bigger than the
previous entry but less than or equal to the current entry. The table must
be terminated with a pixel size of 65535.
<P>
Pressing the [Default] button will provide you with a default 'gasp' table.
If your font contains no instructions this will be different than the 'gasp'
table for a font with instructions.
<P>
MS has recently expanded the table. Version 0 of the table had two bits for
each pixel value, version 1 has four bits, two of which control the behavior
of their ClearType rasterizer. They have also added a bit to the 'head' table
called optimized_for_cleartype; if this bit is not set then some fonts will
not be hinted.
<P>
In the table above:
<UL>
<LI>
All pixel sizes less than or equal to 8 will not be grid-fit but will have
anti-alias applied
<LI>
All pixel sizes between 9 and 16 (inclusive) will be grid-fit but not
anti-aliased.
<LI>
All pixel sizes above 16 will be both grid-fit and anti-aliased, and will
have Cleartype Symetric Smoothing done.<BR Clear=All>
</UL>
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-tex.png" WIDTH="376" HEIGHT="600" ALIGN="Right"><A NAME="TeX">TeX</A>
</H2>
<P>
This allows you to set the TeX font parameters (which are described in Appendix
F, pp 98-100 of the MetaFont Book). There seem to be 3 different types of
font parameters, those for text fonts, those for math fonts and those for
math extension fonts. The later two have additional parameters which are
accessible through the [More Params] button. The default values for the Math
parameters are probably reasonable. <FONT COLOR="Red"><STRONG>The default
values for the Math Extension parameters are probably
unreasonable</STRONG></FONT>.
<P>
These values are stored in tfm files (should you generate a tfm file with
your font).<BR Clear=All>
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-size.png" ALIGN="Right" WIDTH="453" HEIGHT="548"><A NAME="Size">Size</A>
</H2>
<P>
This allows you to set the design size of a font, the design range, and provide
a style name for this class of font.
<P>
In tradtional typography every point size of a given font would be slightly
different -- generally small point sizes would have proportionally more
white-space around the glyph and wider stems inside the glyph. This made
small point sizes more readable than they would otherwise be. Conversely
large pointsizes would tend to have less white space around them, otherwise
the letters would appear too far apart.
<P>
<A HREF="multiplemaster.html">Multi-master fonts</A> provide one method to
avoid this problem. This dialog provides another. Suppose you have a series
of font-faces designed for different point-sizes.
<TABLE CELLPADDING="2">
<TR>
<TD>Ambrosia-Regular-Small</TD>
<TD><9pt</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>Ambrosia-Regular-Text</TD>
<TD>9-13pt</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>Ambrosia-Regular-Heading</TD>
<TD>14-23pt</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>Ambrosia-Regular-Display</TD>
<TD>>=24pt</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<P>
Then you would fill in this dialog to allow the font system to figure out
which font was appropriate for which point size. The dialog displays the
font's optimal size -- its design size, and the point range within which
it can be used.
<P>
In the example above all the different fonts would have the same "Style-ID"
this is an arbetrary number that links all fonts with this ID together (all
fonts in the same family, that is). However, Ambrosia-Italic-Text would have
a different Style ID. All fonts with the same Style ID should have the same
Style Name. Note that font names are now something like
"Ambrosia-Regular-Heading" -- the user should not be subjected to that
complication, as far as s/he is concerned there is just a font called
"Ambrosia-Regular" and all four of the above fonts are just instances of
it. So the Style Name of all four fonts above should be "Regular".
<P>
Adobe allows two forms of size information. In one, only the design size
field is specified, in the other all the fields must be specified. This
means that if you want to supply a design range you are also required to
provide a style id and name.<BR Clear=All>
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-comment.png" WIDTH="369" HEIGHT="506" ALIGN="Right"><A
NAME="Comment">Comment</A>
</H2>
<P>
This allows you to keep track of arbitrary comments inside your font database.
It does not correspond to any postscript or truetype entity. It is intended
to store a changelog for the font itself, but could be used for other purposes...
<P>
Various font formats allow a random comment to be placed in the font, but
no format makes use of it. This is primarily to be used inside FontForge.
The comment should be in ASCII.
<H2>
<A NAME="FontLog">FONTLOG</A>
</H2>
<P>
This has the same interface as the Comment above. The FONTLOG is an idea
stolen from the Open Font License. It is description of the font and a log
of changes made to it over time and includes some more information about
the font as well (see the <A HREF="http://scripts.sil.org/OFL-FAQ_web"> OFL
FAQ)</A>. This pane allows you to store this information within the font
itself where it won't get lost.
<P>
<BR Clear=ALL>
<H2>
<A NAME="MarkClass">Mark Classes</A> & <A NAME="MarkSets">Mark Sets</A>
</H2>
<P>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-markclasses.png" WIDTH="614" HEIGHT="475" ALIGN="Right"
ALT="Font Info Mark Classes"> The various marks in your font may be divided
into classes or sets. As I write (spring 2009) there is essentially no support
for mark sets, but that will change (Both Adobe and MicroSoft say their next
releases will support it).
<P>
The idea behind both is similar: In many lookups it is important to be able
to ignore some mark glyphs, but not others. For example when forming an arabic
ligature, the vowel marks are (usually) irrelevant to the ligature and you
would want to ignore all marks. In situations where you are positioning marks
on a base glyph you might in one case, want to ignore all marks that position
on top of the glyph while paying attention to those underneath it. And then
in another lookup, the reverse might be true.
<P>
At any rate, in some cases it is important to be able to categorize marks.
Both classes and sets let you do this. In the example right, latin marks
have been divided into those above the glyph and those below.
<P>
A glyph may appear in at most one class, while it may appear in many sets.
So when implemented, sets will be more versatile. On the other hand classes
can be stored more compactly in the font file (a slight advantage).
<P>
Once you have created your classes (or sets, or both) you may use them in
the <A HREF="lookups.html#Add-Lookup">Add Lookup </A>dialog from the
<A HREF="fontinfo.html#Lookups">Lookup</A> pane.
<P>
The Mark Set pane looks almost exactly like the Mark Class pane, and functions
similarly. From these panes you may add new classes, or edit old
ones.<BR Clear=ALL>
<H2>
<A NAME="Lookups">Lookups</A>
</H2>
<P>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-lookups.png" WIDTH="602" HEIGHT="534" ALIGN="Right" ALT="Font Info Anchors">
This pane is so complex that it merits its <A HREF="lookups.html">own
section</A>.
<P>
Briefly, lookups contain the data to do the work needed for complex typography.
There are two main classes of lookups, those which substitute glyphs (ligatures
for example) and live in the GSUB table, and those which position glyphs
(kerning for example) and live in the GPOS table.
<P>
Each lookup is composed of one or many subtables.
<P>
There are buttons to the side to create (add) new lookups and subtables,
and to edit their attributes (metadata) and their commands (data).
<P>
The order in which the lookups appear in this dialog is the order in which
they will be applied. The order of the subtables within each lookup is the
order in which they will be applied. There are buttons to the side which
will reorder things.
<P>
It is possible to merge two lookups (if they are of the same type) or to
merge two subtables (if they are in the same lookup and are similar enough).
<P>
It is possible to import lookups from other fonts (which must already be
loaded into fontforge.
<P>
It is possible to drag and drop lookups to reorder them, or to copy them
from one font to another (by dragging them into the other font's <CODE>Font
Info->Lookups </CODE>pane).
<P>
There is a popup menu, available by right clicking on an entry, which provides
these functions as well as:
<DL>
<DT>
Save Lookup
<DD>
Saves the currently selected lookup to an <A HREF="featurefile.html">Adobe
Feature File</A> of its very own.
<DT>
Add 'aalt' features
<DD>
FontForge can automagically generate an 'aalt' feature consisting of every
single and alternate substitution of each glyph.
<DT>
Add 'DFLT' script
<DD>
Add the DFLT script to all selected lookups
<DT>
Add language to script
<DD>
Add the specified language to the specified script in all selected lookups.
<DT>
Remove Language from script
<DD>
Removes the specified language from the specified script in all selected
lookups.
<DT>
Save Feature File
<DD>
Saves all lookups (both GSUB and GPOS) to an <A HREF="featurefile.html">Adobe
Feature File</A>.<BR Clear=ALL>
<BR CLEAR=ALL>
</DL>
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-woff.png" WIDTH="614" HEIGHT="548" ALIGN="Right" ALT="Font Info WOFF">
<A NAME="WOFF">WOFF</A> (Web Open Font Format)
</H2>
<P>
This sub-dialog allows you to specify additional information which may be
stored in a woff file. A woff file is very similar to a standard sfnt except
that its tables are compressed, and it has a few additional data fields.
It has version number fields for the WOFF file, a major and a minor version.
If you leave these fields blank then fontforge will generate defaults based
on some of the other font version information available to it.
<P>
It also has a metadata string. This is a small xml document (which ff does
not currently parse), stored in utf8. Its internal format is specified in
<A HREF="http://people.mozilla.com/~jkew/woff/woff-2009-09-16.html">a document
from Mozilla</A>. <BR CLEAR=ALL>
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-macstyle.png" WIDTH="376" HEIGHT="608" ALIGN="Right" ALT="Font Info Mac Styles">
<A NAME="Mac-Style">Mac Style</A> & FOND
</H2>
<P>
This sub-dialog allows you to set the mac style of your font. Normally FontForge
will be able to guess the style from the fontname (and various other clues),
but sometimes the name will be non-standard (or perhaps just in a language
FontForge doesn't know about), and other times you may wish to override this
default setting.
<P>
If you are happy with the default, just leave the Automatic button checked,
if you wish to override check the button next to the list box. You may select
any combination of styles (remember to hold down the control key to get multiple
selections) except for one containing both "Condense" and "Expand".
<P>
Note: If you want the style to be "Regular" then leave all styles unselected.
<P>
The mac style is stored in the header of an sfnt (truetype or opentype font
file), but is most important in creating mac font families.
<P>
The <A NAME="FONDName">FOND</A> name is only used for generating mac families.
It is a grouping level underneath the family level. See the
<A HREF="faq.html#How-family">FAQ</A> for a discussion on when to use
this.<BR Clear=ALL>
<H2>
<IMG SRC="fontinfo-macfeat.png" WIDTH="376" HEIGHT="600" ALIGN="Right" ALT="Font Info Mac Features">
<A NAME="Mac-Features">Mac Features</A>
</H2>
<P>
This sub-dialog allows you to create and remove Mac features from your font.
This will override the Mac features specified in the
<A HREF="prefs.html#Mac">preferences dialog </A>for this particular font
(for example to give a more appropriate but local name to a certain feature
setting).<BR Clear=ALL>
<H2>
<A NAME="Dates">Dates</A>
</H2>
<P>
Displays what fontforge thinks is the create date and modification date of
the font data. FontForge started retaining those dates in August of 2006,
any prior dates are conjectural and based on a best guess -- usually from
the modification time of the sfd file. When loading a font from somthing
other than an sfd file, FontForge will again make the best guess it can.
<H2>
<A NAME="Unicode"><IMG SRC="fontinfo-unicode.png" WIDTH="494" HEIGHT="552"
ALIGN="Right">Unicode Ranges</A>
</H2>
<P>
Displays information about the various unicode character ranges included
in the font.
<P>
If you click on a range, the font view will select all characters in that
range and scroll to one of them.
<P>
If you double click on a range, the font view will select any characters
not defined in the font within that range, and scroll to one of
them.<BR CLEAR=ALL>
<P>
<P>
See Also:
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="charinfo.html">The char info dialog</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="getinfo.html">The get info dialogs</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="contextchain.html">The contextual / chaining dialog</A>
</UL>
<P ALIGN=Center>
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