Igor Freiberger

@igorfreiberger.bsky.social

Independent type designer with focus on high quality typography for minority languages. FontLab team. Fonts with full Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Armenian, and Georgian scripts, plus phonetics and symbols. Porto Alegre, Brazil

FontLab Tip: Stems In File > Font Info you can define stems for each master automatically (1). A stem is a repeating value for vertical (2), horizontal (3), and diagonal stems (4). It can also be a value for distance in the apex of a curve (5). +

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FontLab Tip: Workspaces After you arranged your FontLab interface, save it as a Workspace in Window > Workspaces > Save Workspaces. Double-click its default name to rename (1). Drag its name to reorder the menu (2), import (3) and export (4) a Workspace with these buttons.

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FontLab Tip: Custom Shortcuts Customize shortcuts in Tools > Commands and Shortcuts. All commands from menus are available (1). Use this field to find a command (2), type the shortcut and set it (3). In use shortcuts can't be set, click the red alert to remove them first (4).

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FontLab Tip: Sidebearing Secrets In Glyph panel, you can set the values for left and right sidebearings. But you're not limited to integers. Add a = before the value to lock it –so changes in contours will not affect the sidebearing (1). +

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FontLab Tip: Nonspacing Elements In the Elements panel there is a column to assign the nonspacing attribute (1). Elements marked with it are not considered in sidebearings or glyph width. But why this option does exist? +

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FontLab Tip: Indicators in Font Window I Font Window shows: a gray line (1) when the glyph was modified; a red line (2) when there is an error with glyph name or Unicode code; a blue icon (3) when the glyph is an auto layer; and a note icon (4) when it has a note.

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FontLab tip: Preview in Glyph Window While working in Glyph Window (1), at any moment you can preview the result simply holding the Space key (2). You also can use View > True View (or Shift + Space) to make the filled areas always visible (3).

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FontLab Tip: Sliding Nodes in Diagonals Select a node in a diagonal segment (1). Hold the Alt/Option key and move it. The node slides along the diagonal, which angle does not change (2). If the node is a tangent, the handle position is also preserved.

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FontLab Tip: Moving Nodes But Not Handles Select a node with handles (1), hold Alt/Option key, and move it. The handles are not moved (2). This works with any kind of node (3) and also with multiple nodes at once (4). Multiplier keys (Shift and Ctrl) can be used together.

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FontLab Tip: Moving Nodes But Not Handles Select a node with handles (1), hold Alt/Option key, and move it. The handles are not moved (2). This works with any kind of node (3) and also with multiple nodes at once (4). Multiplier keys (Shift and Ctrl) can be used together.

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FontLab Tip: Coloring Many Glyphs at Once 1. Select the glyphs in Font Window. 2. Go to Glyph > Flatten Layer. 3. Open the Color panel. 4. Choose and Apply any color. Done. Why flatten? Since color is an element attribute, you need a single element in each glyph to do this.

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FontLab Tip: Adding Gradients III Besides the linear gradient, FontLab offers the radial (1) and the conical gradients (2). Both are fully editable using the controls from Elements panel. A sample of all gradients can be seen in (3).

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FontLab Tip: Adding Gradients I In the Elements panel, click in the color button and select one kind of gradient (1). Select the initial colors to change them in the gradient control (2). Slide the triangles to change how the gradient is built (3).

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FontLab Tip: Adding Colors II In the normal editing mode, the Glyph Window show the element colors with a very light tint to avoid visual pollution (1). Don't worry, the colors are there. Just hold the Space key to preview the glyph (2).

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FontLab Tip: Adding Colors I Colors are applied to elements. Just select the element in the Elements panel and open the color table using the dot at right (1). You can also use the properties area, where there is more options, including color stroke (2).

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FontLab Tip: Element Guides II Just like Font and Glyph guides, an Element guide can receive a name (A), a custom color (B), be locked (C), get is position numerically defined (D), a thickness (E) and an expression using values and parameters, like "ascender/2".

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FontLab Tip: Element Guides I Element guides belong to the element active when it was created and can be linked to nodes. To create it, choose the Guides tool (G), hold Alt and drag. These guides are good to mark sidebearings (A), anchor positions (B) or geometric middles (C).

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FontLab Tip: From Straight to Curve To turn a straight (1) into a curve, hold Alt and click it (2). The handles have he same size and angle at the beginning, but of course you can freely mode them (3). To turn one of the nodes into a tangent, just double-click it (4).

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FontLab Tip: Docking Panels II You can click on the top right button to alternate between the docking modes. With a panel already docked, the option to pin the panel is available. With it, the panel can't be dragged out its position.

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FontLab Tip: Docking Panels I With the pointer over title bar, drag a panel to window limits or beside other panels to dock it. If the panel shows icon 1, it can be docked anywhere. With icon 2, it only docks to other panels. Icon 3 does not dock. Click the icon to change it.

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FontLab Tip: Alternative View View panel concentrates options to show, lock and snap to objects (1) and to show/hide visual aids (2). But you can have a second, alternative set up. Just click this small button (3) to commute between the two views.

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FontLab Tip: Select from Miniatures You can double-click the miniatures shown in the Elements panel to select elements or their contours. This works for groups of elements (blue), elements (red), and contours (orange). Especially useful in complex glyphs.

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FontLab Tip: Global Mask A Global Mask is a mask that appears in all glyphs, usually a reference used for some glyphs and later erased. Create it by selecting any contour (1) and go to Tools > Mask > Copy to Global Mask (2). Erase it with Tools > Mask Clear Global Mask (3).

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