A Great Summer Offer for a Brilliant Tool

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

Ah well, this time not even an advertorial, but just a plain advertisement (so, you're warned!):

We often hear people state that DTL OTMaster is a great tool, but that it’s considered a bit expensive. From the 1st of July till 21 September the latest edition (3.7) of OTM will be offered with a 50% discount on the standard licensing price of €255.

Version 3.7 contains a lot of new functionality. From the import/export of Ideographic Variation Sequences (IVS) to the editing of feature parameters, and from an autohinter for edited or newly added glyphs to support for COLR+CPAL tables. One can read about all details in Karsten Lücke’s wonderful manual.

Some use OTM for font-spelunking, other use it for Open(Type)-heart surgery. Some use it for compiling OpenType Layout features (directly in the font, or exported for proprietary workflows) by applying the elegant automatic subsetting, while others use it for instance for mark (to mark) positioning. OTM is the ultimate Swiss (or actually German/Dutch) knife for CFF- and TTF-based OpenType, TrueType, and TTC (TrueType Collection) fonts.

A complete listing of the functionality in OTM 3.7 can be found here. DTL OTMaster can be ordered directly with forenamed discount at DTL’s FontTools shop or at FontLab Ltd.

Matthew Butterick

Some DTL customers were surprised by limitations not mentioned in Frank’s advertisement of a 50% discount.

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

The same DTL customers were happy to notice that we adapted the manual though.

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

Fact is that even in case we would have reduced OTM’s functionality with 50%, it would be a bargain still IMHO. On FontLab’s web site OTM is described as ‘[…] the world's best OpenType table editor’ and its qualities are formulated briefly as follows:

‘DTL OTMaster unveils the mysteries of your OpenType and TrueType fonts without your having to slog through text dumps or binary code. It makes the editing of tables easy and smooth by using a visual interface so you can actually see what the numbers in the tables mean. Furthermore, it comes with a built-in Glyph Editor for proofing and editing contours, a kern Table Viewer with a kerning class editor, a GSUB/GPOS Table Viewer for visually testing OpenType Layout tables, and even the option to import and export OpenType Layout features files.’

I fully agree ;-)

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

I’m very pleased to inform you that the OTM summer promo is a huge success. Obviously 50% discount makes a major difference for all of those doubters. ;-)

On Google’s font list currently there is a lively discussion on the development of Devanagari fonts and I was surprised to find out that it was unknown to many that OTM generates a nice log file when compiling OT Layout features. This way errors and mistakes in the features can easily be traced. This is a excerpt from the discussion with an example that I generated with OTM 3.7:

--------------------------------------------------------------

Just had a short look at the features. The lookup 'PreBaseSubstitutionslookup2' contains duplicate substitutions:

 sub \isigndeva.tha \radeva_viramadeva  by \isign_ra_virama.tha;
   sub \isigndeva.tha \radeva_viramadeva  by \isign_ra_virama.ja;

    sub \isigndeva.tha \radeva_viramadeva \anusvaradeva  by \isign_ra_virama_anusvara.tha;
    sub \isigndeva.tha \radeva_viramadeva \anusvaradeva  by \isign_ra_virama_anusvara.ja;

If one of each is removed then there seem to be some more errors:

HOT [ERROR] MarkToBase or MarkToMark error: A previous statment has already assigned the current mark class to another anchor point on the same glyph 'rvocalicdeva'. Skipping rule.  [/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea 814]
HOT [ERROR] MarkToBase or MarkToMark error: A previous statment has already assigned the current mark class to another anchor point on the same glyph 'kadeva'. Skipping rule.  [/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea 816]
HOT [ERROR] MarkToBase or MarkToMark error: A previous statment has already assigned the current mark class to another anchor point on the same glyph 'khadeva'. Skipping rule.  [/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea 818]
HOT [ERROR] MarkToBase or MarkToMark error: A previous statment has already assigned the current mark class to another anchor point on the same glyph 'ngadeva'. Skipping rule.  [/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea 820]
HOT [ERROR] MarkToBase or MarkToMark error: A previous statment has already assigned the current mark class to another anchor point on the same glyph 'chadeva'. Skipping rule.  [/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea 822]
HOT [ERROR] MarkToBase or MarkToMark error: A previous statment has already assigned the current mark class to another anchor point on the same glyph 'ttadeva'. Skipping rule.  [/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea 824]
HOT [ERROR] MarkToBase or MarkToMark error: A previous statment has already assigned the current mark class to another anchor point on the same glyph 'tthadeva'. Skipping rule.  [/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea 826]
HOT [ERROR] MarkToBase or MarkToMark error: A previous statment has already assigned the current mark class to another anchor point on the same glyph 'ddadeva'. Skipping rule. 

[…]

Et cetera, et cetera.

[…]

HOT [ERROR] lookup name "abvmAboveBaseMarklookup1" not defined [/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea 1215]
HOT [ERROR] lookup name "abvmAboveBaseMarklookup2" not defined [/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea 1216]
HOT [ERROR] lookup name "abvmAboveBaseMarklookup3" not defined [/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea 1217]
HOT [ERROR] lookup name "abvmAboveBaseMarklookup1" not defined [/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea 1224]
HOT [ERROR] lookup name "abvmAboveBaseMarklookup2" not defined [/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea 1225]
HOT [ERROR] lookup name "abvmAboveBaseMarklookup3" not defined [/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea 1226]
HOT [ERROR] lookup name "abvmAboveBaseMarklookup1" not defined [/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea 1233]
HOT [ERROR] lookup name "abvmAboveBaseMarklookup2" not defined [/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea 1234]

[…]

Et cetera, et cetera.

[…]

HOT [FATAL] aborting because of errors
[ERROR] Hatch Features, feature file "/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea" failed with error code 1.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Another thing that came up in the discussion is the editing of the naming table. Also this can be exported in OTM and the text file can subsequently be easily edited (in batch, if applicable) and imported.

Nicolas Silva

I just bought a License of OTMaster (few minutes ago) because we are developing a devanagari font and Frank is helping us discover the potential of OTM to check the OT layout features.

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

Nicolas: ‘Frank is helping us discover the potential of OTM to check the OT layout features.’

I reckon that Nicolas is especially referring to the detailed log file (File -> Messages) that OTM generates when OT Layout features are compiled. At the Google Font Directory list it turned out that FontForge is more tolerant with this stuff than the AFDKO, and hence OTM.



Even the just-released Noto Sans Devanagari version 1.05 fonts contain features that if re-compiled in OTM return errors.



Also at the GFD-list it turned out that much of the functionality that OTM offers, seems to be unknown still. For instance the fact that the FreeType rasterizer is built-in, which is convenient for inspecting hinting generated with TTFA.



When it comes to the positioning of mark stuff, I'm quite curious how this is done with the different available font tools. In OTM there is a GUI for this, besides the option to position marks numerically. So, one can use the structure of for instance a Noto font as template and subsequently import the features file. From what I have seen, one can basically work the same way in FontForge, although the editor of OTM seems a bit more convenient and elegant (but I’m biased, of course ;-).

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

We often hear people state that DTL OTMaster is a great tool, but that it’s considered a bit expensive. We actually think that €255 is an incredible bargain. So, there will be no discount this summer. Sorry!

Nicolas Silva

OTMaster is a great tool, specially when you can have the budget for any tool but not any tool could keep integrity in tables as OTMaster does.

leksendesign

@LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland I am receiving the Hatch error you mentioned above but not sure how to resolve it:

[ERROR] Hatch Features, feature file "/Users/blokland/Desktop/Devnagari/Lohit.fea" failed with error code 1.

Thank you!