Hi there, I've been adhering to the naming of my glyphs (in my generated fonts) according to what Adobe does and what Thomas Phinney suggests (see for example
https://github.com/tphinney/font-tools/blob/master/AL-4.enc) using as a glyph name “uni018F” instead of the readable “Schwa” or “uni0394” instead of “Delta”. I keep on wondering on what basis the decision is made to use a uniName (uni2089) instead of a readable glyph name (nine.inferior) for specific glyphs.
Comments
When your font is ready for release, FontCreator will automatically rename glyph names to the recommended names, e.g. uni018F. You can also decide to leave out the glyph names, to reduce the file size.
You’ll find the answer to your example question in that spec.
The purpose for that specification has to do with the accurate interpretation and reconstruction of underlying Unicode text encoding from raw glyph names, primarily from PDFs created in certain workflows where original text encoding does not get embedded in the document.
Most type designers I know prefer to use “designer-friendly” names in development sources, and then deal with whether to convert to AGL-compliant production names during final production processing. (Not everyone does, and not in all cases.)
Wondering, does Microsoft adhere to the Adobe glyph lists too? A question I can easily research the answer to myself but maybe you know by heart