FontLab → Paste Special → TrueType Instructions

Christoph Koeberlin
Christoph Koeberlin Posts: 51
in Type Design Software
FontLab offers this promising option in the “Paste Special” dialogue, but it doesn’t seem to work (at least not the way i understand it). Does anybody know what this option is for?
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  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,190
    Is it specifically the TT instructions that you are trying to copy in this way? I've never tried this, but I suspect it will only work under some very specific conditions. I think it only works with FL visual hints, not with compiled hinting, i.e. you can't copy hints from a compiled font to a new font. And I imagine it will only work if very specific outline compatibility conditions are met.
  • Jason Campbell
    Jason Campbell Posts: 100
    If I copy a (fontlab) instructed glyph, and then Paste Special int an empty slot, the glyph outline is pasted in but it is uninstructed. I assumed that's teh way it's supposed to work, but perhaps not?
  • Christoph Koeberlin
    Christoph Koeberlin Posts: 51
    Thanks, John & Jason!
    I expected this command to be a possibility to copy the (uncompiled) TrueType instructions from one glyph to another. I synchronized all stems, zones etc but still no instructions were copied. I even tried to copy the instructions within one vfb, from one glyph to another (identical) glyph, but still.
    – So, meanwhile I’m quite sure that this is an empty promise.
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,190
    Yes. I can't get it to work, even if the target glyph is identical to the source glyph and within a single VFB.
  • Deleted Account
    Deleted Account Posts: 739
    edited August 2013
    I don't use, but i thought there was a special copy for the special paste.
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,190
    edited August 2013
    Not so far as I am aware. When you copy a glyph or selection of glyphs in FontLab, all the glyph-specific information is copied to the clipboard. The 'Paste Special' option allows you to select which aspects of that information you want to copy to a target cell or cells. In the case of FL TT hinting, this is certainly information that is copied, and is pasted if you use a simple paste operation of the whole glyph(s) within the same VFB. But for some reason the TT hinting information is not separately copyable, even though Paste Special suggests that it should be.
  • Christoph Koeberlin
    Christoph Koeberlin Posts: 51
    Thanks for confirming, John!

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