Advanced OpenType Font Editor

Erwin Denissen
Erwin Denissen Posts: 299
edited June 2015 in Type Design Software
We've just released FontCreator version 9, coming with the most comprehensive coverage ever of visual editing of OpenType layout features, a redesigned font preview which instantly shows OpenType features, and major improvements to both optical metrics and automatic kerning.



It provides powerful tools for creating and editing OpenType features without the need to know how to code, but a code editor is available for those who prefer it. Apart from tttfautohint, FontCreator is a true native font editor, so no need to buy or install third-party tools or extensions.

We introduced editing glyphs in word context over 10 years ago, but with this release we’ve further enhanced it to support all OpenType features.



You can easily provide optical size information and add (localized) descriptive names for your stylists sets.



All these new features and enhancements make FontCreator the perfect font editor for all font designers. FontCreator runs under Windows, but your fonts will work practically everywhere.

FontCreator Product Page


Comments

  • attar
    attar Posts: 209
    > You can easily provide optical size information and add (localized) descriptive names for your stylists sets.

    But not character variant? (cvXX)
  • Richard Fink
    Richard Fink Posts: 165

    Irwin,

    I think it was you I discussed it with a while back. Without digging through emails to refresh myself - is ttfautohint now an independently upgradeable component?

  • Deleted Account
    Deleted Account Posts: 739
    One can add size information to the features?
  • Erwin Denissen
    Erwin Denissen Posts: 299
    Adrien: It didn't make it into the current release, but it will become available soon. I'm probably able to release an update tomorrow as right now things are pretty hectic as you may understand after a big release ;-)

    This is how it will look:



    Richard: Sure, you can download a more recent version and store it in the FontCreator installation folder.

    David: FontCreator supports the new fields in the OS/2 table used for fonts with multiple optical styles as well as the OpenType Layout Optical Size (size) feature.







  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,173
    FontCreator supports the new fields in the OS/2 table used for fonts with multiple optical styles....
    That's nice. Of limited practical value at the moment, since the unique naming issue for such fonts needs to be sorted out before the size data can be used.
  • Deleted Account
    Deleted Account Posts: 739
    edited June 2015
    Erwin. Thanks.
  • attar
    attar Posts: 209
    edited June 2015
    Shouldn’t the new OS/2 version 5 fields be added into UFO, by the way?
  • Erwin Denissen
    Erwin Denissen Posts: 299
    Adrien: We've just released a minor update to FontCreator 9. It now includes full support for character variants (cvXX).

    John: True, but we're just trying to keep up with the specs.

    David: You're welcome.
  • Deleted Account
    Deleted Account Posts: 739
    John, I think we touched on this when MS was defining size ranges instead of sizes. Now Apple is enabling size masters, so source mastering can name a size, it's range and then serve both the needs of AAT and OS/2 specs, or are you onto something else.
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,173
    At present, the range information added to the OS/2 version 5 table spec would only work for a 4-style family such as Sitka. There's not yet reliable way in the spec to address members of an extended family that differ only in design size (range). This could be addressed by adding a new name table field to capture these relationships, but the name table is already a bloated and confusing mess of identifiers, which font developers still get wrong and which software makers still misuse. Rob M and I have proposed an attributes based model, which would be much more flexible in handling standard style and size relationships, and also easily extensible for families with custom style variables.

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