Issue with importing SVG Glyphs from Inkscape to FontForge

Michel Kern
Michel Kern Posts: 20
in Type Design Software
Hi All
I wish I could buy a FontLab licence later on but ATM, I try to learn and progress with Inkscape and FontForge. When I import SVG glyphs created with Inkscape they have a very bad aspect in FontForge since I used group/ungroup or "binary" (e.g. substract) of simple shapes (e.g. a black circle inside a white circle). All the shapes are displayed and I dont see ATM if I have to build the shapes without combinations or if there are solutions to make the SVG import inline with what is displayed by Inkscape.

Best Regards
Michel Kern
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Comments

  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,883
    Perhaps this is a path direction problem, once you get it in FontForge?
  • AbrahamLee
    AbrahamLee Posts: 262
    @Michel Kern, can you show a screenshot of the outlines in Inkscape and then what they look like in a FontForge?
  • Michel Kern
    Michel Kern Posts: 20
    Thanks for answering, please find here the screenshots of Inkscape vs FontForge

  • AbrahamLee
    AbrahamLee Posts: 262
    Makes sense now. What I would recommend is that you *flatten* your glyph in Inkscape. This will require you to turn anything that’s just a path into an object and anywhere you might be using masks for clipping, instead use true boolean operations. That should import properly. I can help do that later if that doesn’t make sense.
  • Michel Kern
    Michel Kern Posts: 20
    Thanks @Abraham Lee, Do you mean "use boolean operations instead of clipping" or the opposite ? I dont think I used clipping, but as I wasnt able to make boolean substraction work properly, I used "hiding half of shape with a white rectangle then group", is it this that you call "clipping" ?
  • AbrahamLee
    AbrahamLee Posts: 262
    Ah, yes, that makes more sense now! Since the UI canvas background is white in inkscape, that goes you the impression of “clipped” shapes, but FF knows better. So, yes, I still recommend proper booleans on the shapes to get them isolated. You can do that in FF, too, if you’d rather.
  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,429
    You should keep your current SVG as the 'parent source', and then duplicate the file as a 'child source' file (likely with today's date) and then edit it to make the glyph you showed only 4 contours, and import that into FontForge. 

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