Suggestions and Bug Reports — TypeDrawers

Use of "Mute" button ?

Yves Michel — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 17:17:44 +0000

Cuuld you explain the use of this button, please?

typedrawers.com offline every now and then?

Linus Romer — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 08:03:08 +0000

Over the last two weeks, I have been unable to access typedrawers.com from Switzerland about half of the time. Depending on the browser, I received either an 'ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR' or a 'PR_END_OF_FILE_ERROR'. Are other users experiencing this as well?

Notifications via Email not working?

Lars Schwarz — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 13:09:55 +0000

Not receiving any notification Emails for topics I've bookmarked.

I've checked "email" in my notification preferences ("Notify me when people comment on my bookmarked discussions").

Yes, I do have specified an email address in my profile and I did check my spam folder.

Paragraph spacing in input and preview does not match final display

Stephen Coles — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 19:33:39 +0000

Just reposting this report so it’s not lost.

Typedrawers’ CSS has built-in spacing below paragraphs, but that doesn’t show in the input field (or the Preview), so people add an extra linebreak to get space between paragraphs. If you do a single return, you get space between the two paragraphs. So it’s a bit of a bug that needs to get fixed in either the input or the display styles.

Suggestions: Color Fonts coming out as Black Squares?

Supherb — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 16:56:16 +0000

Hello fellow members,

Trying to get my first Colored fonts working. I am using Fontlabs 8, every time I export them, they just display as Black Squares, see the attached screen shot below.

Am new to typeface designing, so there is a lot to learn. What am I doing wrong?

notdef in Oculi text font makes it a bad choice

Thomas Phinney — Sun, 12 Jan 2025 20:07:43 +0000

Currently Typedrawers is using Oculi for body text.

I quite like the typeface, but the notdef is a joke, both literally and figuratively. It needs a traditional notdef rather than a fun one, if it is going to work well for Typedrawers.

The skull-styled notdef in Oculi is just confusing, especially at normal text size. Here it is enlarged:

Asking for free fonts on Type Drawers

Eris Alar — Sun, 06 Oct 2024 02:16:52 +0000

In a recent post a user asked about a free font.

In my personal opinion, asking about free fonts on TD should be accepted and not discouraged because:

A) we don’t know where in their design journey the asker is, so helping them learn about well made type and where to get it helps them and others reading

we can highlight why paying for type has value

C) TD can only thrive if we are welcoming of new voices

I only started buying type after being on Typophile for years and learning lots there.

I’m also pro having a type ID section but I know that is a lost cause here. I bought *lots* of type after asking for help identifying it or seeing others post in the type ID section of Typophile.

Reset password problem

Thomas Phinney — Thu, 05 Sep 2024 00:01:31 +0000

Not for me, but for Santiago Orozco:

https://typo.social/@sannorozco/113081759840824843

Differences in Display Between Installed Fonts and Web Fonts

Kazunari Tsuboi — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 05:08:21 +0000

I'm facing a very perplexing issue and would greatly appreciate any insights.

When trying to display Mongolian script on Chrome in Windows 11, I noticed that the Mongolian Vowel Separator (MVS) is being ignored. The font I'm using is Mongolian Baiti MS, and this issue occurs when displaying text on Google Chrome using the font installed on Windows.

Unicode strings are here.
ᠶᠠᠪᠤᠯ᠎ᠠ

U+1836

U+1820

U+182a

U+1824

U+182f

U+180e

U+1820

What puzzles me is that the display changes when I use the exact same font as a web font. For testing, I referenced the TTF file with @font-face and displayed the text using the web font. Despite using the same text string and the same font, the final vowel shape affected by the MVS appears differently.

The desired display result for Mongolian script should look like this.

I have a few questions for the community:

Has anyone encountered this issue in other languages or scripts?
Is the difference in behavior between an installed font and the same font used as a web font a bug or expected behavior?
If I want to report this issue, where would be the appropriate place to do so?

Fill out your profile to be found in the member directory

Stephen Coles — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 16:58:43 +0000

I discovered today that you can use the TypeDrawers search to find members, not just discussions. And you can narrow the search to any profile field by clicking on the “More Filters” button on the top of the page. This is a reminder for folks who want to be found this way to complete their profile page, as this feature has expanded quite a bit over the years and many of us may not have noticed it was there.

Account > Email > Needs Confirmation

piotr_s — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 11:56:37 +0000

When I try to edit my profile, I can see a warning next to an email field label saying: "Needs Confirmation". My profile is rather a new one (I set it up about two months ago), I haven't got any email message with a request to confirm my email address so far (I've checked a spam folder several times). I've also tried to change my email address (to the same one) to check if any confirmation email occurs in my inbox folder - with no result.

Also: can I change my username after creating an account (e.g. to a full name instead of a shortened version of it) if I change my mind in the future? Currently such an option is disabled in my profile.

Sorry to bother you if these two little things are just features, not bugs here .

The Search Bar

Jamie Clarke — Fri, 17 May 2024 10:06:20 +0000

Hi all,
Does the search bar on Type Drawers work?*
I was looking for discussions on thing like: Glyph Order, and 'Swash" but nothing comes up.
Is it broken or user error?

*This topic might have been discussed before but of course I can't search for it.

Search Not Working?

Dyana Weissman — Wed, 01 May 2024 16:47:12 +0000

Just for me, or everybody else?

Edit Profile Bug

PabloImpallari — Mon, 01 May 2023 20:52:37 +0000

Edit profile is not working for me.

The board seems to delete topics that are over a hundred pages ago

Vasil Stanev — Sat, 01 Apr 2023 20:17:32 +0000

Hello, this might be a stupid oversight on my part, but,as of 1st of April 2023, I don't seem able to see threads that are older than June 2016. I don't see board pages with numbers over 100. I'm afraid we're losing some important nuggets of typografic knowledge - in WayBackMachine I am able to see some posts from the 2012, but some of it is fractured or altogether missing. Is there a way to get those old threads back?

TypeDrawers podcast?

Eris Alar — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 12:27:19 +0000

I am thinking I’d like to start a video podcast YouTube channel* based around TypeDrawers where I chat with different members about their history, news related to type, threads on the site, and anything else related.

Does this seems a good idea? Who would need to approve such a thing?

*audio only version would be exported too with the goal to have on regular podcast venues

Is there a way to edit posts?

J. Bridges — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 19:28:21 +0000

Is there a way to edit posts? I often screw up but I have not figured out how to edit or delete a post. Maybe I am stupid.

Splitted user

Vasil Stanev (Unused) — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 13:51:46 +0000

Hello, the forum logged me out and when I try to log back in, I am directed to the user I don't use anymore, which is Vasil Stanev (unused). I don't know how to log into my regular user, which has a black letter S with a smiley face. Both users have the same name.

Noto Sans on the site without hinting.

Vasily Draigo — Mon, 30 May 2022 17:03:16 +0000

Google replace Noto Sans with hinting to fonts without hintng and the fonts on the site are connected via Google Fonts.

Fontmake Error: Expected glyph class name

David Massara — Sat, 02 Apr 2022 12:56:09 +0000

Hi everyone!

As mentioned in the title, I am trying to export a variable font using the terminal and Fontmake but this error is still giving me a problem.

fontmake: Error: In 'Desktop/OTWalla/DesignSpace-UFO/OT_Walla.designspace': Generating fonts from Designspace failed: /Users/David/Desktop/OTWalla/DesignSpace-UFO/masters/OTWalla-Black.ufo/features.fea:3:1: Expected glyph class name

Does anyone have any idea?

At the moment there are no features or any OpenType options on the font.

Best,

Superfluous extra space inserted automatically

Florian Pircher — Fri, 28 Jan 2022 14:50:12 +0000

Sometimes this happens inline (Comment_56232), sometimes it breaks a paragraph (Comment_56515). I have seen such cases more and more over the last month.

This is what happens when editing such a post:

Layout Changes

James Hultquist-Todd — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 02:37:14 +0000

The format of TD has been the same since its inception. I don’t really like showing every thread and relegating the subforums to the side. Every other forum I’ve ever been part of has used the traditional layout wherein the user has to select the subforum they want to read.

If the forum does expand to include sections for other writing systems, or typography, or whatever may happen, I think a layout change would be inevitable to navigate the threads. If anyone has any insights, I’d love to hear it.

Research fonts with minimum 3 Variants

men sin hong lin — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 06:23:43 +0000

Please anyone can suggest me where i can download free or paid fonts with 3 Variants for CALT.

I really need it.

Any suggestion.

Best Regardsm
Mensinhl

Type Drawers foundry directory

Eris Alar — Fri, 02 Jul 2021 01:39:47 +0000

Bouncing off this post of mine, I am wondering if an opt-in directory of Type Directors members (and guests) foundries (not personal details). would be of interest to this group? My thinking is a maybe start small, just a google form where members can enter details, then a locked google sheet with the results made public. I am not a web developer, but if anyone is and wanted to help then something more advanced could be made (unless Vanilla already has capability for something like this?).
Goal: A simple database of foundries represented here including their:

website
microsites for releases (if relevant)
social media handles
geographic location
places to license their typefaces

Obviously other fields could be added, I guess it depends on what people are wanting to share and find.
I don't think a listing of individual members would be helpful at this time, but obviously if people wanted it and wanted to be on it then it's possible too.

Marketplace - sell/trade specimen books and other type-related ephemera

Eris Alar — Sun, 27 Jun 2021 00:57:47 +0000

Has there been been a dedicated section here to trade or sell specimen book etc? I look on eBay and other places but I suspect that many here have copies they want to move on at different times, and still more who are looking for copies to acquire.

Bring back the Off Topic reaction

Stephen Coles — Sat, 19 Jun 2021 07:41:44 +0000

TypeDrawers has endured many discussions about reactions. Moderators of the past had good reasons for settling on a simplified set of reactions (currently: Flag/Insightful/Disagree/Agree), but given that there are far fewer active moderators today, TypeDrawers needs some more assistance from the community when rules are broken.

Being off topic is one minor — but more common — violation that doesn’t warrant a Flag: Breaking the Rules, which is a fairly drastic and nonspecific alarm that draws undue attention. But a specific Off Topic warning from multiple folks could serve as a gentle reminder without having to post a message about the violation, further dragging the discussion off topic.

I suggest bringing back the Off Topic reaction, and hiding posts that get such a reaction from 3 different members. When a member reaches a certain total of Off Topic posts, they are warned and subject to future suspension, just like breaking any of the more serious rules.

Dominating conversations should cost some money.

Stephen Coles — Sat, 19 Jun 2021 05:16:37 +0000

It’s become clear that far too many TypeDrawers discussions descend into a ping-pong between the same few people, usually folks who didn’t post the original message. To encourage a diversity of voices, and reduce the spread of conversation domination, I’m suggesting a new set of rules:

You may post up to 3 times a day to a discussion in which you are not the OP.
You may post up to 10 times a day on TypeDrawers (site-wide).
You may break these limits at the cost of $25 per post. Funds raised will be donated to a scholarship for underrepresented students in type design.

This is purely a suggestion. I am no longer a moderator and have no vote in the matter.

PowerPoint Stroke BUG

David Massara — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 08:34:48 +0000

Hello Everyone!

I currently work on a variable font with a lot of masters (32) and I receive some report from a client that the font has problems when using the stroke on PowerPoint (From the OTF files). The stroke is not centered on the font, it must be a box problem when I configured them on Fontlab (it Works fine on Adobe). I tried to change it (Safe Bottom/Top, BBox etc...) multiple times but without success. The only way was to recreate the font from the beginning. I can share with you some data from the font and a screenshot of the problem.

Does anyone already face this problem? If you guys have any idea how to resolve this I would love to know it!

Best,
M.

Just wondering about the real name policy and Multiple accounts

AbiRasheed — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 04:16:04 +0000

Your changelog says at the very bottom [Real name policy has been removed]. A pretty big change in policy that it should be included in the [READ THIS FIRST] post no? Does this mean people can use random aliases now? I thought a lot of us liked and even got used to the idea of using real names because of accountability.

Regarding multiple accounts, does this mean they can open 5 different accounts so long as they're not breaking any rules its okay? Say if someone uses 5 accounts and decides to use 3 of them in the same discussion using random aliases( no real name policy anymore so why not ) this should be okay then?

Allowing type-use topics (graphic design, typography etc)

Eris Alar — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 08:06:32 +0000

I was looking at the rules and the first one is:

--
Post topics appropriate for TypeDrawers, and post them in the appropriate category. Dialogue should remain about typeface design, lettering, and subjects that affect the community as a whole. If the topic you wish to discuss doesn’t fit in any of those categories, it’s because there are better venues for subjects like typography advice, typeface identification, and graphic design feedback.

For me personally, I don't know of any forums that are dedicated to using type, and I've learnt a lot about type usage from Typophile and Type Drawers. Equally, back in the early 00's when I join Typophile the Type ID forum was the major draw, I found it useful and also the place I wanted to spend most of my time.

So my question is, if there was a dedicated section for using type, would that be so bad? Maybe if those posts did not appear in the global feed (in case it was popular)?

I can see how the laser focus of the forum is a blessing, and I support that, I just don't know the 'better venues' for talking about using type in detail (and maybe the fix is a listing to places people do know about).