The FontAudit tool in FontLab VI name them 'zero-length handles" and identify as an error, offering a quite precise auto fix. For me, who made not dozens or hundreds, but thousands of zero-length handles because I was not aware they are an issue, this was a real rubber ring.
The auto-fix in FL5 (clicking on the curve with Alt-Shift*) is not very robust, but I guess they improved it?
* Which just happens to be the Windows keyboard switching hot-key, which means I have to immediately hit it again to undo it otherwise I'll be typing in Armenian...
(BTW by "rubber ring" do you mean a flotation device? Is that from Portuguese? :-)
Yes, it was improved. And the resulting handles can be further adjusted with Tunni lines (another new tool in FontLab VI) or the Proportional test also added to FontAudit.
And yes, it is a flotation device. Is uncommon to name it this way? Maybe it is more a British expression as I learnt it from a Smiths' song. :-)
And yes, it is a flotation device. Is uncommon to name it this way? Maybe it is more a British expression as I learnt it from a Smiths' song. :-)
I think the rubber ring referred to in the Smith's song is probably the sort of inflatable water toy, rather than the flotation device, which is known in England as a life preserver.
Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer said: allows you to work with zero handles by fixing them automatically at export time.
Nice! Is there also a way to see what it's doing during editing? In FL5 at least I usually have to tweak the result (although as per Igor, FL VI is better).
Morissey’s lyric may also be interpreted as a lament for the passing of the vinyl record, which he associates with the music of his youth—it was written around the time CD sales surpassed vinyl. A rubber ring is not only a flotation device for young swimmers, but an important part of a turntable, possibly three, in fact: the belt drive, the o-ring between the cartridge head and the rest of the arm, and the ring the platter sits on. In all these, the purpose of the rubber is to insulate the signal from untoward vibration.
Comments
I recall this has been discussed here before, but can't think of appropriate search terms it seems.
It's a shame, since they can be so elegant.
John Hudson said: http://typedrawers.com/discussion/2563/search-fail
* Which just happens to be the Windows keyboard switching hot-key, which means I have to immediately hit it again to undo it otherwise I'll be typing in Armenian...
(BTW by "rubber ring" do you mean a flotation device? Is that from Portuguese? :-)
And yes, it is a flotation device. Is uncommon to name it this way? Maybe it is more a British expression as I learnt it from a Smiths' song. :-)
Over here we like our terms properly sterilized.
Best to avoid it in shipping fonts. In short:
- Display issues in all Apple renderers
- Rendering bug in some printer drivers
- Post-processing problems (drawing a parallel path or a thick contour can be difficult for host application, or things like autohinting may fail)
- Conversion problems (as John mentioned)
For Glyphs, I wrote the FixZeroHandles plug-in which effectively allows you to work with zero handles by fixing them automatically at export time.