Type 3.2 Fonteditor, any views?

Jeffrey Postma

Hi,

I would like to have your opinion on the Fonteditor Type 3.2 by Cr8. I stumbled upon it recently and tried the demo. I am quite impressed by the functionality of the program if you look at the low price, which is cheaper than both TypeTool and Glyphs Mini. I could not find a lot of information on it though, and would be interested to know if anyone tested it or uses it, and what the pros and cons are.

I should add that I am not a professional type designer, but a type user who occasionaly makes typefaces, mostly handdrawn display stuff. I have the indesign plugin IndyScript, which works great for me. But I would be interesting in adding some more functionality and kerning to the fonts. This is where Type 3.2 might come in... But I must add that I had some strange bug when I worked on my font in the demo version: when I saved as OTF and opened this file with Fontexplorer X Pro the font display is completely strange, not showing the characters. I know the demo version only exports the first 50 glyphs, yet these should still be visible then. I don't know if this is a bug in the demo only. The original IndyScript generated font works well fyi.

Any thoughts?

James Puckett

Is this the program that was Windows only until 2012? I think that was why I never tried it.

Ray Larabie

I've looked into Type now and again. People often ask me what software I'd recommend and Type is one I suggest. It doesn't throw a lot of curve balls at beginners. OpenType features are plain text files that can be edited and loaded. The font naming system looks intuitive. The composite glyph wizard's automatic accent placement works nicely and might encourage free font creators to support a few more languages.

I couldn't actually use this thing in a serious way. The kerning tool is rudimentary. If you can't kern in the context of words and paragraphs, then you can't kern properly. Once you've gone class, you can never go back. While it seems possible to define classes in OpenType features, it's no way to work. Adding and removing glyphs from classes is part of the design process and an essential part of the kerning process.

The font metrics window could be more helpful to beginners. I know what these numbers mean, but I think beginners would have a hard time. At least show how the metrics relate to the font by showing how they relate to E, d, x, p and comparing to the current vertical emsquare. It's really no more complicated than Fontographer or TypeTool's metrics.

I like the way it automatically handles encoding, naming and composites. Seems like it would be easier to figure out than TypeTool.

TypeTool costs more than Type and has some disadvantages that would probably be rough on beginners: FontLab's bewildering/misleading font names menu, no composite generator, so-so font metrics and a lack of an OpenType editor. However, at least you get a proper metrics windows for kerning.

Jeffrey Postma

Thanks a lot for your comments!

@James: Yes it seems the Mac version is quite recent.

@ Ray: Thanks for your elaborate reply! You kind of confirm my experience with the program. I am not quite sure which way to go now, though... TypeTool seemed reasonable to me, but the limited OT support is annoying. I have some experience with fontlab, so the interface is familiar, more so then Glyphs. I think the metrics is important to me, but seeing as Indyfont can generate OT functions like smallcaps, figure styles and swashes, what is the point of using these if these are lost when editing in Typetool?

I guess it is both a workflow and a money problem: I like IndyFont for it's ease of use, not bothering me with too many technicalities whilst still giving me good features. But I also see that editing the fonts from IndyFont in a fonteditor might give more trouble then it's worth. So when I want to be able to do kerning or add more features to a font, it is better to start from scratch. But I am not in a situation to spend a lot of money on a fonteditor, as it is more something I do on the side.

I guess what I will do is work with IndyFont, and possibly add manual kerning, using a kerning script, or do optical kerning (oh well). When my work becomes more professional I might switch to Glyphs Mini, or straight to Glyphs, as this seems to be the program with best features and interface for the money.

Or what would you recommend?

Jack Jennings

[…] sometimes it seems that program designers create programs that only appear complicated in order to appear professional.

Classy marketing…

Jeffrey Postma

Here is the link to the program, where a demo can also be downloaded:
http://www.cr8software.net/type.html

Ray Larabie

If I were starting fonts right now, I don't know where I'd go either. Glyphs mini (haven't tried Glyphs) sounds like the way to go but not being a Mac user, I'd probably go with TypeTool just because of the kerning window and then use AFDKO to add OpenType features. AFDKO is pretty scary for beginners but if you're just adding fractions, ligatures and ordinals, there's not much to it and it's no more difficult that adding features in FontLab. The features editor in FontLab is basically just a text editor anyway. What you're really missing out on is the integrated font classes. If I add a Q to my O class, I can see the results when I'm kerning and make decisions based on how it reads. But I've been strictly a FontLab user for 13 years so there may be ways around this limitation that I haven't tried.

Jeffrey Postma

Ray,

thanks again for your time. I have tried the demo of TypeTool again, but can’t really warm up to it, it is just too limited to my taste, and not user friendly. And the lack of class-based kerning is really annoying... I had a look at AFDKO, but this coding just freaks me out. I am a very visually oriented kinda guy, and just cannot get used to this coded language...

I decided to give Glyphs Mini a go. It is cheap, and the user interface seems more friendly to me. It has the basic functionality I need at the moment and if I need more I can just update to Glyphs. As I want to use it especially for spacing, kerning, working out the character set, this seems the right deal at the moment. I still need to look into how everything is working, but I am getting there.

Thanks for your comments, all!

Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer

the low price, which is cheaper than both TypeTool and Glyphs Mini

I also looked at the, indeed, low price. But 52 Euros for Type is not cheaper than 40 Euros for Glyphs Mini.

Or did I miss a meeting…?

Jeffrey Postma

Yes, you are right, I should correct that. I vagualy remembered Glyphs Mini to be 99 €. I should have checked.