Italics workflow

I expect that to be rather dependent on the application you're using. In Glyphs, I like to use «Cursify» with respect to half the x-height, which makes the glyphs stay in place rather than tilt over to the right side. I find that curved letters generally require manual re-tuning, though, especially if they're supposed to look monolinear.

Don't slant by center of selection. You will get different relative horizontal shifts depending on the height of the glyph. For instance, a tall glyph will effectively be shifted more to the left than a short glyph.

Pick a point on the y-axis to slant from and use it for all glyphs. I like to slant from 1/2 of the x-height. Some designers like to split the difference between 1/2 the cap height and 1/2 the x-height.

The way to think about is this:

• If you mix roman and italic, and you slant from the baseline, the italic will be shifted to the right relative to the roman. This will be especially noticeable with the caps.
• If you slant from the center of the x-height, the italic lowercase will be aligned with the roman lowercase, but the italic caps will be shifted somewhat to the right relative to the roman caps.
• If you slant from the center of the cap-height, the italic caps will be aligned with the roman caps, but the lowercase will be shifted somewhat to the left relative to the roman lowercase.
• If you split the difference, the italic lowercase will be shifted slightly to the left relative the roman lowercase and the italic caps will be shifted slightly to the right relative to the roman caps.

No matter how you do it, some characters in the italic will be out of alignment with the roman to some degree. I prefer to slant on the lowercase x-height because I think it's more likely that roman and italic will be mixed in lowercase text settings, not all caps settings.

And, it's okay to have negative sidebearings with italics. Sidebearings are perpendicular to the baseline, so it's unavoidable.

I usually also create an extra glyph which is nothing but a vertical line[similar to vertical bar] sloped to your italic angle and with very narrow centered sidebearings. I position it at the centerline of the xheight and use the measurement line (red) on so that the sidebearings are equal when this line is on. You can make another one for Cap center or smcp center or just shift the line up the those positions. It makes it easy to match sidebearings this way.

What's the difference between slanting from the middle and slanting from the bottom and adjusting sidebearings?

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Here's my workflow for obliques, not proper italics:

Often with obliques, I'll reduce the width before slanting to add extra emphasis. I find the rhythm changes when I squeeze & slant. I add sidebearings until the rhythm feels right.

To calculate the offset, I copy the H and the H to a new, blank font. Then I type HHHHH in the metrics window. I offset the H until is looks right and use the difference as my offset. It doesn't have to balance perfectly between the H's but the top of the H shouldn't collide with the following H. I tried using a formula and the results were similar but exaggerated. Even when I used a formula, I needed to check and adjust it visually so I don't waste my time with that anymore.

I feel like it should be a bit tighter on the right than the left... it feels correct and the lowercase italics end up exactly in the right spot. Since heavier weights usually have tighter sidebearings, the offset needs to be calculated for each weight/axis.

When I'm shifting italics to the left in FontLab, I use the adjust metrics command to reduce the left sidebearing and once more to increase the right sidebearing. That way it won't mess up my composites like the shift command does. I manually realign any 180° composites such as ¿¡>)}]ə. *

* Don't worry, they get decomposed before export.

Do you decompose the glyphs with components before slanting?

Nope. If the accents look like the need to manually offset, shift the original accents and all the component accents will shift the same amount. Don't use the shift command to move them. Go to each original accent, select all and nudge by tapping the arrow keys.

Do you have to set reference point in every glyph one by one?

I've never used a reference points in FontLab...I never figured out a use for them that didn't waste time.