insigne

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Posts: 132 · #1 - 2019-12-08, 06:10

Hello, I have successfully exported a variable font (made with FL5) from FL7.

Myfonts has a new validation gate, and although my static fonts are fine (exported from FL5) the variable font is flagged with overlaps, cannot be installed on OSX and incorrect path direction.

As I understand, the overlaps are fine in a variable font so this validator is being a bit overzealous. The installation works as well and font names show up fine in photoshop and the font is fully functional. However, the display in fontbook is a bit odd with .notdef characters.

Now, what I believe is the only issue: path directions.

Your documentation says "[color=rgba(0, 1, 2, 0.

][font="IBM Plex Serif", Arial, sans-serif]this all doesn’t matter in FontLab VI anymore.[/font][/color][color=rgba(0, 1, 2, 0.

][font="IBM Plex Serif", Arial, sans-serif] "[/font][/color]

[font="IBM Plex Serif", Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]https://help.fontlab.com/fontlab-vi/Contours/[/font]

In fact, in FL5 you could set the start point for that path and change from TT to PS direction, but none of that appears to be configurable anymore.

Also, when you set the start point, it mangles multiple master fonts because this does not replicate to the other layers (!!!!!!).

So, how can this be solved?

Posts: 87 · #2 - 2019-12-14, 04:39

I was able to get rid of the warnings by Setting start point with Actions (there you can select All masters), then correcting some glyphs that had the start point set differently in different masters. I checked for winding directions using FontForge, by selecting Set correct direction and then seeing which glyphs have changed, then correcting them in the FL source (using commands from the Contour menu: Reverse direction and Set Start Point — it is handy to assign shortcuts to them using the Ctrl+Shift+P Command Palette, I assigned Ctrl+Shift+Q to Set start point since there was no shortcut assign, and Ctrl+Alt+I is the default for Reverse contour, I think; these are for Windows). You can also try the validation module in FontForge but I found that the mentioned method is more straightforward as the validator will complain about self-intersecting paths a lot.

This is all a bit dumb though, since TT fonts are supposed to be winding counter-clockwise, and the MF validator requires clockwise winding for TT Variable fonts. I'm not sure which is correct though, but for the sake of passing MF validation, it appears the PS winding style is required.

Posts: 132 · #3 - 2019-12-14, 08:47

Helpful, thank you.

Correct winding directions in FL7 variable font

Discussion started on FontLab 7

Correct winding directions in FL7 variable font