
Frequently Asked Questions
==========================

.. epigraph::

   | **Sir Toby:** Thy most exquisite reason, dear knight?
   | **Sir Andrew** I have no exquisite reason for't,
   | but I have reason good enough

   -- Twelfth Night, II, iii, 130 -- Shakespeare


(or many of the questions I've been asked so far)


General questions about FontForge
---------------------------------

* :ref:`Why a font editor, aren't there enough fonts already? <faq.font-editor>`

  * :ref:`Why did I write it? <faq.write>`
  * :ref:`Why do I give it away? <faq.give>`
  * :ref:`Does working on FontForge provide the same kind of pleasure as working on pots or baking bread? <faq.Pots>`
  * :ref:`Why doesn't it use the native MS Windows or Mac windowing system? <faq.native>`
  * :ref:`Why is FontForge based on a non-standard widget set? <faq.widget-set>`
  * :ref:`Why isn't FontForge written in C++? (or Why C++ is not my favorite language) <faq.C-plus-plus>`
  * :ref:`Why do I release FontForge under the BSD license and not GPL? <faq.bsd-license>`
  * :ref:`Why does FontForge load libraries at run time rather than being linked with them? <faq.libraries>`
  * :ref:`Why is there no future roadmap for FontForge? <faq.roadmap>`


General questions about fonts
-----------------------------

* :ref:`Is it legal to modify a font? Is it ethical? <faq.legal>`
* :ref:`What is a 12point font? <faq.pointsize>` (What measurement of the font
  determines the point size)

  * :ref:`How do I set the line spacing on a font? <faq.linespace>`
* :ref:`How big will my glyph be? (What are em-units?) <faq.em-units>`
* :ref:`What's a good license to use on an open source font? <faq.license>`


Using FontForge & Installing fonts on various systems
-----------------------------------------------------

* `How do I install FontForge? <https://fontforge.org/en-US/downloads/>`__
* :ref:`Minimum requirements <faq.Minimum>`

  * :ref:`Why does FontForge use so much memory? <faq.excessive-memory>`
* :ref:`How do I install the fonts once I've made them? <faq.font-install>`
* :ref:`Why won't FontForge's fonts install on some MS Windows systems <faq.Bad-Windows-Install>`
* :ref:`How do I edit fonts from my macintoy? <faq.How-mac>`

  * :ref:`How do I create a mac font family? (How do I get the mac to group my fonts so that the italic and bold styles work)? <faq.How-family>`
  * :ref:`Why doesn't ATM work with my fonts? <faq.Mac-ATM>`
* :ref:`How do I edit fonts on MS windows? <faq.windows>`

  * :ref:`Why don't my fonts work on windows? <faq.Bad-Windows-Fonts>`
* :ref:`I generated an opentype (or truetype) font and windows wouldn't install it. Why not? <faq.otf-diffs>`
* :ref:`I have a truetype font with opentype tables, but windows displays the "TT" (truetype) icon and not the "O" icon. Why? <faq.DSIG>`
* :ref:`What do all the different font names mean? <faq.names>`


Font Conversions
----------------

* :ref:`Converting from one outline format to another <faq.outline-conversion>`
* :ref:`Converting from one bitmap format to another <faq.bitmap-conversion>`
* :ref:`Converting from an outline format to a bitmap <faq.outline-bitmap>`
* :ref:`Converting from a bitmap format to an outline <faq.bitmap-outline>`
* :ref:`Converting from Apple's Advanced Typography to OpenType <faq.AAT2OT>`
* :ref:`Converting from OT to AAT <faq.OT2AAT>`
* :ref:`Importing glyphs from Inkscape <faq.Inkscape>`


Questions about Hints and TrueType Instructions
-----------------------------------------------

* :ref:`How do I make it use hint substitution? <faq.hint-subs>`
* :ref:`How do I make it use flex hints? <faq.flex-hints>`

  * :ref:`How can I tell if it is going to use flex hints? <faq.flex2>`
* :ref:`My glyphs are all perfectly hinted, why do some stems have different widths (or appear fuzzy, or fade away completely)? <faq.fuzzy>`
* :ref:`I loaded a ttf font, made a few changes and generated a new font. The changed glyphs don't look anywhere near as nice as the originals. Why? <faq.ttf-degrade>`


Questions about :doc:`Font Formats </appendices/bibliography>`
--------------------------------------------------------------

* :ref:`What's the difference between OpenType and PostScript (or TrueType) fonts? <faq.Open-difference>`
* :ref:`What is the difference between AAT (Apple Advanced Typography) and OpenType? <faq.AAT-Open>`
* :ref:`Why does a font, which worked fine under 10.3 fail on Mac 10.4 (Tiger)? <faq.Tiger-Open>`
* :ref:`What on earth are the cidmap files, and should I care about them? <faq.cidmaps>`

  * :ref:`(What is a CID-keyed font?) <cidmenu.CID>`
* :ref:`Why doesn't TeX work with my fonts? <faq.TeX>`

  * :ref:`Why doesn't FontForge let me edit an '.mf' file? <faq.mf-files>`
* :ref:`Is it safe to use non-integral coordinates? Will it screw up in Word or anything? <faq.non-integral>`
* :ref:`Why isn't my Open Type font much smaller than the .pfb file? <faq.Open-size>`
* :ref:`When I load an otf or a type1 font most of my references have been replaced by inline copies. How do I get my references back? <faq.Missing-Refs>`
* :ref:`Does FontForge read in the old kerning information from fonts? <faq.kern-info>`
* :ref:`How do I set a particular bit in the OS/2 table (or any other)? <faq.mensis>`
* :ref:`What's an sfd file? <faq.sfd>`

  * :ref:`Why are they so big? <faq.excessive-memory>`


Mathematical questions
----------------------

* :ref:`Does the simplify command lose accuracy? <faq.simplify>`
* :ref:`How does FontForge convert a cubic spline into a quadratic spline for truetype? <faq.cubic-quadratic>`
* :ref:`How does FontForge convert a quadratic spline into a cubic (when reading truetype)? <faq.quadratic-cubic>`


Image file questions
--------------------

* :ref:`Why does fontforge say "EPS file is too complex to be understood"? <faq.complex-eps>`
* :ref:`Importing glyphs from Inkscape <faq.Inkscape>`


Random questions
----------------

* :ref:`FontForge's grey background distesses me. How do I change it? <faq.background>`
* :ref:`The fonts FontForge uses in its GUI are too small (too big) how do I change them? <faq.fontsize>`
* :ref:`How do I mark a font as monospaced? <faq.monospace>`
* :ref:`How do I tell fontforge about a new encoding? <faq.new-encoding>`
* :ref:`How do I add a glyph with a new name? <faq.new-name>`
* :ref:`Why does fontforge give some glyphs the wrong name? <faq.glyphnames>`
* :ref:`After I generate a font and quit, why does FontForge ask if I want to save the font? I didn't change anything. <faq.save-no-change>`
* :ref:`Why does my window get iconified when I want to minify the view? <faq.minify-iconify>`
* :ref:`Why isn't there a character named "mu" in my greek font? <faq.no-mu>` (or
  "Delta", or "Omega", or "pi1")
* :ref:`Why doesn't Edit->Copy copy glyph names as well as glyph info? <faq.no-copy-names>`
* :ref:`Why does Edit->Paste complain about name duplication? <faq.copy-names>`
* :ref:`How do I set the default glyph of a font? <faq.default-char>`
* :ref:`I looked at kaiu.ttf or mingliu.ttf and the outlines looked nothing like the correct glyphs. What's wrong? <faq.mingliu>`
* :ref:`When I use Element->Build->Build Accented Glyph to build one of the Extended Greek glyphs (U+1F00-U+1FFF) FontForge picks the wrong accents. Why? <faq.greek-accents>`
* :ref:`When I use Element->Build->Build Accented Glyph to build accents over "u" or "y" I get the accent over one of the stems not centered on the glyph. Why? <faq.u-accents>`
* :ref:`Why does ttf2afm crash on FontForge ttf files? <faq.ttf2afm>`
* `Where can I find a list of known bugs in FontForge? <https://github.com/fontforge/fontforge/issues>`__
* :ref:`My system keeps crashing because FontForge keeps running out of memory. What can I do about it? <faq.memory>`
* :ref:`Why is FontForge so unstable? <faq.Unstable>`
* :ref:`Why does FontForge look ugly under Xgl/Compiz? <faq.Compiz>`
* :ref:`Why don't I talk at conferences? <faq.talk>`

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

.. _faq.font-editor:

.. epigraph::

   | But Eeyore was saying to himself,
   | "This writing business. Pencils
   | and whatnot. Over-rated, if you
   | ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it

   -- Winnie-the-Pooh -- A.A. Milne


**Why a font editor, aren't there enough fonts already?**
   Well... no. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing this, and. more to the point,
   there wouldn't be thousands of people downloading it every month.

   I am often asked this question; to me it represents a misapprehension. You
   wouldn't go up to a paintbrush maker and ask if he thought there were already
   enough watercolor paintings. A font is a work of art and represents the
   individual genius of its creator. It is no more redundant than a watercolor.

   However, accepting the question at face value, here are my attempts to answer
   it... er, pragmatically.

   #. There are lots of latin fonts. There are far fewer greek, cyrillic, indic,
      thai, chinese, japanese, korean, unicode...
   #. There aren't many good quality free fonts available.
   #. Researchers into old writing systems often need to design their own fonts
   #. Even for latin, traditionally each new style of art and architecture has an
      associated style of fonts. New fonts are always being created to reflect the
      esthetics of the times.
   #. Computer font technology is constantly changing. A font-format that was
      useful 10 years ago may not be so now.
   #. Even if you are satisfied with the fonts that do exist they may not be
      complete

      * Missing ligatures
      * Missing accented glyphs
      * No matching cyrillic or greek glyphs
   #. Everybody wants a font of his/her own handwriting.
   #. Playing with fonts is fun.

   FontForge has uses beyond simply creating and modifying fonts. It can convert
   from one format to another. It can extract information from the font file. Or
   it can simply show you what the font looks like without having to install it.

.. _faq.write:

**Why did I write it?**
   .. epigraph::

      Why not?

      -- The Phantom Tollbooth -- Juster

   * Because it was fun
   * Because MacroMedia stopped development on Fontographer, and Fontographer was
     lacking features that I wanted.
   * To learn

   For a more complete description see the :doc:`FontForge history </appendices/ff-history>`
   page.

.. _faq.give:

**Why do I give it away?**
   * Because I approve of free software and hope that the availability of good
     products on a good operating system will encourage people not to use
     proprietary systems.
   * Because programming is a lot more fun than marketing and giving things away
     is easier than selling them.
   * Because I'd have to spend more time doing QA if I sold it (and QA isn't much
     fun).

.. _faq.native:

**Why doesn't it use the native MS Windows or Mac windowing system?**
   * FontForge is not a commercial product and is not bound by the constraints of
     the market.
   * Doing that port doesn't interest me.
   * I don't have time nor do I have the skill to take that task on.
   * I'd like to encourage people to use Linux/unix

   Of course, if I were to use either :ref:`gtk or qt <faq.widget-set>` some of
   the difficulties of porting would vanish. But unfortunately I don't like
   either of those widget sets.

   Now... if *you* would like to do the port, that would be wonderful. I
   encourage you to do so.

.. _faq.widget-set:

**Why is FontForge based on a non-standard widget set?**
   I wanted a widget set that would handle Unicode reasonably well. In
   particular I thought support for bidi text was important for hebrew and
   arabic typography. As I was unaware of any widget sets that did that, I wrote
   my own.

   I also wanted a widget set where I could actually figure out whether the
   checkbox was checked or not checked. In far too many cases my eyes can't work
   out which is which... (Ironically the most frequent complaint I get is from
   people who can't tell whether my checkboxes are checked. I don't know what to
   make of that).

   I realize now that that there are essentially two free widget sets that are
   far better at unicode support than mine. These are
   `QT <http://www.trolltech.com/developer/downloads/qt>`__ and
   `gtk <http://www.gtk.org/>`__. I'm still not using either because:

   * Converting from one set of widgets to another is tedious. And people send me
     bugs which distract me.
   * If I spend my time doing that conversion I won't be making FontForge more
     functional.
   * QT is written in C++, and, :ref:`as I explain below <faq.C-plus-plus>`, I
     don't like C++, so that's out.
   * The more I look at gtk the less I like it.

     * The support for images is atrocious (which is odd, since it was written for
       gimp):

       * There is no support whatsoever for client side bitmaps (and I want to support
         bitmap fonts)
       * Colors are ordered RGB in color tables for index images, but BGR for 24bit
         color images
       * No simple support for transparent images without resorting to full RGBA
         images, which is a bit of overkill when I want to draw a simple bitmap.
       * There is no overarching format for images, so I can't have an image which
         itself knows whether it's bitmap, index or truecolor.
       * Fixing these was possible, but it involved a lot of very low level work on my
         part -- and I only know how to do that work on X.
     * I find the file chooser dialog really ugly. And it's so complex I can't
       figure out how to modify it to make it look nice (by my standards, that is).
     * I also can't figure out how to modify the file chooser to make it behave the
       way the fontforge's file chooser currently behaves (popup windows showing
       FontNames as you move the mouse over fontfiles, a pull down list of recently
       used files attached to the filename input box, etc.)
     * gtk+2 doesn't run natively on Mac OS, and the only people porting gtk to the
       mac seem to be working on gtk-1
     * Many of the widgets I want to use have been deprecated. Sometimes I can't
       figure out what replaces them, sometimes I am forced to used a far more
       complex widget instead.
     * So I tend to wrestle with it for a while and then decide than my current
       widgets are better after all.
     * I did get a limited version of fontforge running under gtk. I would be
       greatful if someone else would choose to extend and maintain it.

.. _faq.C-plus-plus:

**Why isn't FontForge written in C++ (or *Why C++ is not my favorite language*)?**
   I've been a little surprised to be asked this question, I had not realized my
   choice of language needed justification, but it appears to do so...

   Basically because I don't find object-oriented practices helpful in most
   cases, because I find C++ far too complex and badly designed, and because I
   can't debug it easily.

   * I grew up with SIMULA and dabbled with SmallTalk and found after a few years
     that there were very few problems where an object oriented approach seemed
     natural to me. In most cases it just seemed to impose unneeded complexities
     on the problem.
   * The semantics of a C++ program cannot be specified. The compiler is free to
     generate temporaries as it wishes. In C this is not a problem, but in C++ the
     creation of a temporary can involve calling a constructor and a destructor
     which may have untold side-effects. I find this frightening.
   * The order of execution of external constructors is unspecified. I have seen
     many inexplicable bugs caused by this
   * I find it extremely difficult to debug C++. Stepping through a statement
     often involves many unexpected procedure calls (some of which are inlined and
     not obvious). This distracts from my main purpose in debugging.
   * Finally I find the language badly specified and too complex. Its various
     concepts do not fit well together. Each compiler seems to do things slightly
     differently.

     I first met C++ in about 1981 when it was called C with Classes. I wrote the
     C++ front end for Green Hills Software's compiler suite from 1987 to 1994 and
     I tracked each new version of the language from 1.1 to ANSI.

     Each version added new features which did not sit well with the old ones.
     Each version was badly specified. The reference implementation was wildly
     different from the specification. For example the behavior of virtual
     functions inside constructors was not specified until version 2 of the
     language and since this behavior was different from naive expectations this
     caused bugs. My favorite confusion occurred in (I think it was) the version
     2.1 specification where on one page, within a few paragraphs, the following
     two sentences occurred: "Unions may contain member functions." and "Unions
     may not contain member functions.".

   The above are my personal opinions based on my experience and explain why *I*
   do not use C++. Your opinions probably differ, few people have spent 5 years
   writing C++ compilers.

.. _faq.bsd-license:

**Why do I release FontForge with the BSD license and not GPL?**
   I just don't like GPL. It's partly prejudice, partly real.

   I don't like forcing restrictions on people.

   I'm giving away fontforge, so I do.

   The `BSD license <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fontforge/fontforge/master/LICENSE>`__
   says "Don't sue me, and include my copyright notice if you use my code" and
   that's all I care about.

   Perhaps I am naif, but I don't believe that anyone is going to start selling
   fontforge. Why would they? It makes no sense for someone to try to sell what
   I give away freely. If they add functionality to fontforge, then that's a
   different matter, but in a sense they aren't charging for fontforge, they are
   charging for the code they have added to it. It would be annoying if someone
   did that, a bit rude in my eyes, but I'm not going to say "no".

   Now someone might take a small piece of fontforge and use it in something
   else. That doesn't bother me. I know that some of my OpenType code has been
   snagged by some TeX packages. And I have snagged code for generating
   checksums from some other packages.

   I rather like helping other people. And people have helped me.

.. _faq.libraries:

**Why does FontForge load libraries at run time rather than being linked with them?**
   I dislike dependencies. The fewer the better.

   I hate when I download a package and discover it won't work unless I download
   half a dozen other packages (which, in their turn may demand that I download
   yet more packages).

   I want to download a package and just have it work.

   So I try to write as much code myself as I can and release it all together in
   a lump and not force people to wander all over the web looking for disparate
   parts.

   When I can't figure out how to do something myself I will use an external
   library if I must. Even then I will try to insure that fontforge will run if
   the library is not present on a system. When I release a binary package I
   don't want to have to release 32 packages per host depending on the possible
   presence or absence of 5 different libraries. But I also don't want to force
   someone to install a library that s/he will never use just to get fontforge
   to start.

   If a user will never look at an svg glyph then they don't need to install
   libxml2. If the user will never import a jpeg image (and there's really no
   reason to want to do that) then they don't need to install libjpeg.

   Instead, the binaries I release will try to load a library dynamically
   (dlopen) *when they need it* and not before. This will also speed up starting
   fontforge. If the library is on the system then all is happy and nice. If the
   library is not, then that functionality is lost -- but the rest of fontforge
   continues to work.

.. _faq.roadmap:

**Why is there no future roadmap for FontForge?**
   .. epigraph::

      | **TYSON:**
      | I'm not bewildered, I assure you I'm not
      | Bewildered. As a matter of fact a plan
      | Is almost certainly forming itself in my head
      | At this very moment. It may even be adequate.

      -- *The Lady's not for Burning* -- Christopher Fry

   Mostly because I don't thnk that way. I don't plan things out, I have a vague
   idea where I want to go and I explore in that direction.

   Consider python scripting. I decided to add python to fontforge. I found that
   meant it became easier to design a mechanism so users could create their own
   scripts to add import/export file formats. And then startup scripts, and
   scripts when certain standard "events" happened. And then I could allow users
   to define their own menu items. And then I figured out how to add fontforge
   to python (as opposed to the reverse). And now I realize that there is no
   reason I couldn't define a set of c-bindings so that people could call
   fontforge as a library from within C programs. And who knows where that will
   lead -- if anywhere.

   Each stage means I can see a little further, and go a little further, and
   then see a little more.

   And often ideas will come from users, someone will ask for functionality I
   had not thought of.

   I did maintain such a page for a while. I found that half the things I wrote
   never happened, and most of the time I didn't bother to update the page. I'd
   forget about it. It was dull. Far better to *do* that to simply speculate on
   what I might do were I not speculating.

   So don't ask me what will happen next, because I don't know either. It's an
   adventure. We'll just have to wait and see.

.. _faq.Pots:

**Does working on FontForge provide the same kind of pleasure as working on pots or baking bread?**

   .. image:: /images/bowlweb.gif
      :align: right

   From an interview with
   `Open Source Publishing <http://ospublish.constantvzw.org/?p=221>`__, done at
   `LGM <http://www.libregraphicsmeeting.org/>`__ 2007

   I like to make things. I like to make things that -- in some strange
   definition are beautiful. I'm not sure how that applies to making bread, but
   my pots -- I think I make beautiful pots. And I really like the glazing I put
   onto them.

   It's harder to say that a font editor is beautiful. But I think the ideas
   behind it are beautiful in my mind -- and in some sense *I* find the user
   interface beautiful. I'm not sure that anyone else in the world does, because
   it's what I want, but I think it's beautiful.

   And there's a satisfaction in making something -- in making something that's
   beautiful.

   And there's a satisfaction too (as far as the bread goes) in making something
   I need. I eat my own bread -- that's all the bread I eat.

   So it's just -- I like making beautiful things.

.. _faq.legal:

**Is it legal to modify a font? Is it ethical?**
   Many current fonts are based on the work of great designers from centuries
   past -- so reusing other people's designs has a long history. On the other
   hand, no matter what the law, it is clearly unethical to steal the work of a
   living designer.

   Legal matters vary from country to country (and perhaps within countries).
   You really should consult a lawyer for a definitive answer. Here are some
   guidelines:

   Look at the license agreement you received with the font and see what it has
   to say on this issue.

   TrueType (and OpenType and potentially CID-keyed fonts) have a field in the
   OS/2 table called FSType which allows the font designer to place restrictions
   on what other people can do with the font. If this field prohibits
   modification fontforge will ask you to make sure you have an agreement with
   the font designer which supersedes this field.

   My understanding of US law (but check with a lawyer before relying on this)
   is that:

   * There is minimal legal protection for font designs. Ages ago some legal
     figure claimed "The alphabet is public." This meant a type design could not
     be copyrighted.

     However (I'm told) a designer may register (with the government) for a design
     patent which protects the design for 14 years (if granted). I don't believe
     it can be renewed, but I may be wrong.

     Registering for a patent is an expensive and time-consuming process and is
     often outside the ability of a small design firm. As far as I know the law
     has never been tested in the US so the protection may be questionable.
   * Font *programs* (such as a postscript or truetype font file, but not a bitmap
     font file) may be copyrighted. This means the design itself is not protected,
     but the mechanism for creating it is.
   * Font names may be trademarked.

   My understanding is that in the UK:

   * There is something called a "design right" which is somewhat like a copyright
     and protects a design for 5 years. A designer may also register the design
     with the government up to 5 times to extend this protection to 25 years.

   Throughout the EU:

   * There are EU design rights. I'm not sure about the specifics of these, nor
     how they interact with country specific laws (as the British design rights
     above).

   In Canada:

   * Font designs may be registered as "industrial designs" for a limited time
     (~15 years)

   I would welcome any additions or corrections here, as well as info on the
   laws governing fonts in other countries. There is a
   `thread on typophile <http://typophile.com/node/42709>`__ which discusses
   this.

   There is a good summary at the
   `font embedding <http://www.fontembeddng.com/fonts-and-the-law>`__ website.

.. _faq.pointsize:

**What is a 12 point font?** **(What measurement of the font determines the point size?)**
   .. image:: /images/pointsize.png
      :align: right

   A font is 12 points high if the distance between the baselines of two
   adjacent lines of (unleaded) text is 12 points.

   The pointsize is not based on the sizes of any of the glyphs of the font.

   Back when fonts were made out of metal, the pointsize of the font was the
   height of the metal slugs used for that font.

   In some sense this is not a very good measure of the size of a font (some
   fonts may allow more room for accents or ascenders or descenders than others
   meaning that the height of the actual glyphs will be smaller).

   There is also a measurement scheme based on the x-height of the glyphs.

   In England and the US a point has traditionally meant the pica point
   (1/72.27:sup:`th` of an inch), while in Europe the point has been the didot
   point (1/67.54:sup:`th` of an inch). The Europeans have a slightly larger
   point, but the glyphs of English and European fonts appear the same size.
   English does not use accents (except in very rare cases) while most European
   languages do, and the slight increase in the size of the point allows more
   room for accents.

   (Of course now most Europeans are probably forced to use the pica point by
   their desktop software, while most computer fonts now contain accented
   glyphs, so the distinction and the reason for it may have vanished).

.. _faq.linespace:

**How do I set the line spacing on a font?**
   It depends on the kind of font you are generating, the operating system under
   which you are running, and luck.

   * For Type1 fonts there is no way to set the line spacing. Applications will
     often take the values specified in the font's bounding box and use those to
     set the line spacing. This is a really bad idea on their part, but it is
     common practice.
   * For True/Open Type fonts the answer is complicated.

     * On the mac

       The line spacing is set by the ascender and descender values of the 'hhea'
       table. These in turn are set to the bounding box values of the font. Not a
       good choice. You can control these values from
       :ref:`Element->Font Info->OS/2->Metrics <fontinfo.TTF-Metrics>`.
     * On windows

       Line spacing is supposed to be set to the Typo Ascent/Typo Desent values
       specified in the OS/2 table. And these in turn are supposed to sum to the
       emsize. (FontForge sets these values to the ascent/descent values you specify
       for your font). Unfortunately most windows applications don't follow this
       rule, and instead base linespacing on the Win Ascent/Descent values of the
       OS/2 table. These values are supposed to specify a clipping region for the
       font (not line spacing). The clipping region should be as big as the font's
       bounding box, but in some cases needs to be bigger. Again these may be set
       from :ref:`Element->Font Info->OS/2->Metrics <fontinfo.TTF-Metrics>`.

       (The clipping region should be bigger than the bounding box if a GPOS lookup
       could move a glyph so that it extended beyond the bounding box (mark to base
       is likely to cause problems). I'm not sure how this applies to cursive
       positioning in Urdu where GPOS lookups can make lines arbetrarily tall)

       MicroSoft has added a redundant bit to the OS/2 table, which essentially
       tells applications they should follow the standard and use the Typographic
       linespacing fields. This bit is called UseTypoMetrics in OpenType, and in
       FontForge it is available as
       :menuselection:`Element --> Font Info --> OS/2 --> Metrics --> Really Use Typo Metrics`.
     * On linux

       I don't know that there is a general consensus. An application will probably
       use one of the above methods.

   Actually this is not a very useful question any more. Modern fonts tend to
   have several different scripts in them and the different scripts may have
   different line spacing requirements. Even within one script there may be
   differences (English uses no (or extremely few) accented letters, while most
   other European languages use accents, thus English could be set more densely
   than German).

   Instead of having one global measurement which controls the line spacing for
   all uses of the font, it is better to have more specific measures which
   control the line spacing dependent on conditions. The OpenType
   :doc:`'BASE' table </ui/dialogs/baseline>` does this. It allows you to specify extent
   data depending on script, language and active feature (for example, a 'mkmk'
   feature might increase the line spacing). I don't know whether any
   applications actually make use of these data

.. _faq.em-units:

**How big will my glyphs be?**
   Unfortunately this seemingly simple question cannot be answered. Your glyphs
   may be any size. Outline glyphs may be scaled and even bitmap glyphs will be
   different sizes depending on the screen resolution.

   Suppose instead that you have an outline font that you draw at 12 points.
   Then we can answer the question.

   Suppose you have a dash glyph that is 500 internal units long, and the font
   has an em-size of 1000 units. Then your glyph will be 500/1000 * 12 = 6points
   long. On a 72 dpi screen this will mean the dash is 6 pixels long.

   **What are em-units? (internal units?)**
      When you create your font you can use
      :ref:`Element->Font Info->General <fontinfo.PS-General>` to provide an
      em-size for your font. This is the sum of the typographic ascent and descent
      (in the days of metal fonts, the height of the metal slugs, the baseline to
      baseline distance). Generally the em-size will be 1000 or 2048. This gives
      you the number of internal units (also called em-units) used to represent em.

      Within fontforge outline glyphs are displayed using the coordinate system
      established here. See also the
      :ref:`section on em-units in the overview. <overview.em-unit>`

.. _faq.license:

**What's a good license to use on an open source font?**
   Many fonts have been released under one of the licenses designed for open
   source programs --
   `see the Open Source Initiative list of approved licenses <http://www.opensource.org/licenses>`__
   -- but these generally do not meet the specific needs of font designers. I
   know of two licenses specifically produced for fonts:

   * `The Open Font License from SIL <http://scripts.sil.org/OFL>`__ (and its
     `FAQ <http://scripts.sil.org/OFL-FAQ_web>`__)

     The above is the license I would
     recommend.:doc:`A collection of unofficial translations of the OFL </appendices/OFL-Unofficial>`.
     These are not legally binding but may help non-English speakers get the
     intent of the license.
   * `The license Bitstream used to release the Vera fonts <http://www.gnome.org/fonts/#Final_Bitstream_Vera_fonts>`__

   The `GNU General Public License <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>`__ is
   also often used.

.. _faq.Minimum:

**Minimum requirements**
   This depends heavily on what you want to do. FontForge is mainly limited by
   memory (though screen real estate can be a problem too)

   * If you are interested in scripts with no more than few hundred simple glyphs
     (like the latin alphabet) then 192Mb is more than enough.
   * If you are doing serious editing of CJK fonts then 512Mb is on the low end of
     useablity.

   FontForge requires a color (or grey-scale) monitor -- black & white will not
   suffice.

   On Windows, FontForge is built with msys2/mingw-w64. As such, the minimum
   supported version of Windows depends on what FontForge's dependent libraries
   support. At the time of writing, this is Windows 7 or newer.

   On Mac, the bundle is built with Homebrew, which supports the last three
   versions. This means that the bundle is also tied with this support scheme,
   so at the time of writing, the minimum supported version is macOS 10.13
   (High Sierra).

.. _faq.excessive-memory:

**Why does FontForge use so much memory?**
   Fonts are generally stored in a very compact representation. Font formats are
   designed to be small and easily rasterized. They are not designed to be
   edited.

   When it loads a font FontForge expands it into a more intuitive (well
   intuitive to me) format which is much easier to edit. But is much bigger.

   It would probably be possible to rewrite FontForge to use a more efficient
   memory representation. But this would be an enormous amount of work and
   doesn't interest me.

   Sfd files are large because they are an ASCII representation of this same
   expanded format. They weren't designed to be compact but to be legible.

   See also:
   :ref:`My system keeps crashing because FontForge keeps running out of memory. What can I do about it? <faq.memory>`

.. _faq.font-install:

**How do I install the fonts once I've made them?**
   Well it rather depends on what system you are working on, and what type of
   font you've got:

   .. _faq.X-Install:

   **Unix & X**
      Outline fonts and fontconfig
         Many programs now use fontconfig to find fonts (including fontforge).
         To install a font for fontconfig, simply copy the file into your
         ~/.fonts directory.

      Bitmap fonts, and vanilla X11 installs
         I'd suggest that you look at the
         `linux font HOWTO file <http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Font-HOWTO.html>`__,
         and the
         `font deuglification HOWTO <http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU/>`__
         as good starting points. But I'll run over the highlights

         Essentially you designate one (or several) directories as a "font
         directory". You move your fonts to that directory. You build up certain
         data structures that X needs, and you tell X to include this directory
         in your font path. Sadly different versions of X and the X font server
         use slightly different conventions. You may need to alter these
         procedures a bit.

         For example, if you want to install a *bdf font* called frabnuts-13.bdf
         then you might:

         ::

            $ mkdir my_fonts
            $ mv frabnuts-13.bdf my_fonts
            $ cd my_fonts
            $ bdftopcf frabnuts-13.bdf >frabnuts-13.pcf
            $ mkfontdir
            $ xset fp+ `pwd`

         and your fonts should be installed. After that, whenever you start X
         you need to remind it of where your fonts live, so you should add ::

            $ xset fp+ /home/me/my_fonts

         to your .xsession (or equivalent).

         If you want to install *postscript fonts*

         You should generate them as postscript binary (.pfb) files, then move
         both the .pfb and the .afm file into (one of) your font directory(ies)
         and run
         `type1inst <http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=type1inst>`__
         in it.

         type1inst will probably complain that your font doesn't have a foundry
         and will probably get the encoding wrong. You can either:

         * Ignore it and nothing bad will happen
         * Manually edit fonts.scale after running type1inst to fix these entries
         * Make your font's Copyright be reasonable, and then edit type1inst and
           add your foundry (directions for this are in type1inst itself)

         If you want to install *truetype fonts*

         You move the .ttf file into your font directory and run mkttfdir and
         mkfontdir.

         (`mkttfdir <http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=mkttfdir>`__
         has a small problem with fonts created by FontForge, it will almost
         invariably complain that it doesn't recognize the foundry. You can
         safely ignore this, but if it bothers you then add a line to ttmkfdir.c
         at 936 ::

            { "PFED", "FontForge" },

         Some versions of X (ie, those shipped by redhat) rely on the x font
         server to do font work rather than the X server itself. You may need to
         use chkfontpath to add your new directory to the font server's font
         path (rather than xset fp).

         You may also need to insure that the font directory (and all its parent
         directories) are readable to world. (the font server runs as a
         non-privileged user)

         I haven't seen anything that says X supports *opentype* fonts yet, but
         since freetype does (and I think X's rasterizer uses freetype) then X
         might support them too. Installing them will require manual editing of
         fonts.scale though (mkttfdir uses freetype1 which doesn't support otf
         files).

         That sounds really confusing. I apologize, I'm not a good writer and
         there are too many choices in configuring X...

      **KDE**
         (I don't know KDE very well, so take my experience with a grain of
         salt) Under KDE there is a tool called
         `kfontinst <http://www.cpdrummond.uklinux.net/kfontinst/>`__ which is
         supposed to do all the configuration work for you. I was only able to
         get it to work as root and had to reconfigure my system to follow its
         conventions, but once that was done it installed X fonts quite handily.
         I never did figure out how to get it to install ghostview fonts. (I
         experimented with version 0.9.2)

   **TeX**
      TeX has its own (platform independent) system for installing fonts. I've
      described my experiences so far
      :ref:`elsewhere in this document <PfaEdit-TeX.TeX-Install>`.

   .. _faq.Windows-Install:

   **Windows**
      You install truetype fonts on windows by dropping them into the
      \\Windows\\Fonts directory on your machine. You may need to set the execute
      permission bit on the font before installing it.

      .. warning::

         Do **NOT** generate the font directly into \\Windows\\Fonts
         This doesn't seem to work (at least on under my XP machine). You must
         generate the font into another directory and drag & drop it to
         \\Windows\\Fonts .

      If you want to use type1 fonts you will need to install adobe type manager
      and follow its instructions.

      If you want to install opentype fonts then on old systems (before windows
      2000, I think) you need to install ATM, on more recent systems opentype
      should work the same way truetype does.

   .. _faq.OS9-Install:

   **Macintosh OS 9**
      Oh dear. The mac sticks fonts into resource forks and wraps them up in its
      own headers. Mac fonts aren't compatible with anybody else's. FontForge
      can create a resource fork if it wraps the font up in a macbinary
      encoding. See the :ref:`following question <faq.How-mac>` for more
      information.

      I've also written `some utilities <http://fondu.sourceforge.net/>`__
      designed to convert from one format to another and they may prove useful.

      `University of Oregon has some links that might be helpful <http://babel.uoregon.edu/yamada/fontconversionfaq.html>`__.

      Once you've converted your fonts you just drop them into the System Folder
      and they should be available after that.

   .. _faq.OSX-Install:

   **Macintosh OS X**
      On OS/X fonts should be placed either in the top-level Library/Fonts
      directory (By default ``/Mac OS X/Library/Fonts/``), in the
      System/Library/Fonts directory, or in the user's appropriate fonts
      sub-directory (``~/Library/Fonts``).

      Either a resource font (unwrapped from its macbinary wrapper) or a dfont
      may be used. You can also use straight ttf and otf files (ie. the same
      file you might use on Unix or MS).

      As far as I can tell the old NFNT bitmap resources do not work on my OS
      10.2. If you want to use bitmap fonts wrap them up in a ttf file or an
      sfnt. However if you want to use a Type1 resource font, you must generate
      a (useless) bitmap font and install them both.

.. _faq.Bad-Windows-Install:

**Why won't FontForge's fonts install on some MS Windows machines?**
   Do **NOT** generate a font directly into the \\windows\\fonts directory.
   Generate the font into a different directory and then use windows drag and
   drop to install the font. (Windows appears to do magic when it moves the font
   into that directory).

   Recently (2009) a windows security patch decided that fonts with a 'name'
   table bigger than 5K were insecure and refused to install them. Frequently
   this is caused by having the full text of a license included in the font.

   I am told that fonts produced by old versions of FontForge will not install
   on Windows 2000 (and XP) systems.

   I believe this problem is fixed now (as of 20-Oct-2003). If you have an older
   version please upgrade.

   If you are copying a font from another machine make sure the execute bit is
   set in the permissions of the font file (I don't know how to do this with the
   Windows UI, under cygwin you say ``$ chmod +x foo.ttf``

.. _faq.How-mac:

**How do I edit fonts from my macintoy?**
   Mac OS/9 (or less)
      Traditionally the macintosh has stored fonts in the resource fork of files
      (after about OS/8.5 I believe the mac also supported bare .ttf files).
      This causes problems for any machine other than a mac, because the very
      concept of a resource fork is lacking.

      There are several programs whose job it is to store all of a macintosh
      file in one package that can be manipulated on other systems (mac binary
      and binhex are the most common). FontForge knows how to read both of these
      formats and can extract a postscript or truetype font from either.
      FontForge can also create fonts in macbinary format (I see no reason to
      support both output formats, and macbinary is slightly simpler).

      So to edit a font on your mac:

      #. Find the file in the ``System Folder:Fonts`` folder
      #. Copy the file over to your unix machine

         * Use Fetch and specify macbinary format
         * Or use some tool like binhex which can create the file directly
      #. Open it in FontForge
      #. Edit it
      #. Save it back in macbinary format
      #. Copy it back to your mac

         * Fetch will automatically undo the macbinary wrappers and make it be
           correct
         * Or various other tools can unwrap it.
      #. Drop it back into your system folder (where it is automagically moved to
         Fonts)

      **Note:** make sure you either replace the original font files, or that
      you rename the font within fontforge and (for postscript fonts) that you
      give it a new unique id. See the :doc:`Font Info </ui/dialogs/fontinfo>` dlg.

      **Caveat:** A postscript font is useless on a macintosh unless it is
      accompanied by at least one bitmap font. If you generate a postscript font
      make sure you also generate an NFNT as well (this has the FOND).

      **Caveat:** The mac is picky about the filename used to contain a
      postscript file. It is based on the postscript font name but suffers a
      transformation. Don't try to rename this file. Basically the rules are
      (see
      `Adobe Technical Note 0091 <http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/pdfs/tn/0091.Mac_Fond.pdf>`__):

      * The fontname is broken into chunks where each chunk starts with a capital
        letter.
      * The first chunk may have four lower case letters following the initial
        capital
      * Subsequent chunks may only have two lower case letters following the
        capital.
      * Non-letter glyphs (or at least hyphens) vanish.

        So TimesBold => TimesBol, Helvetica-BoldItalic => HelveBolIta,
        NCenturySchoolbook => NCenSch

   Mac OS/X
      On Mac OS/X you can run FontForge directly. OS/X has several font
      formats, some fonts are stored in the old format (see above), while others
      are stored as data fork resources. The data fork font files generally have
      the extension ".dfont". On a Mac FontForge is able to edit both formats
      directly. OS/X also supports normal .otf and .ttf font files.

      Mac OS/X does not seem to support the old NFNT bitmap format, but it still
      requires that a bitmap font in NFNT format be present before it will use a
      resource-based postscript font. (It is probably not the NFNT resource
      which is required, but the FOND which goes along with it. But I'm not
      going to write something to produce a bare FOND resource -- nothing else
      does either).

.. _faq.How-family:

**How do I create a mac font family? (How do I get the mac to group my fonts so that the italic and bold styles work)?**
   I am told that in 10.6 the prefered method of grouping fonts is to use ttc
   files, prior to 10.6 ttc files didn't work (well) and the prefered method was
   to produce mac font families.

   Snow Leopard (10.6) and after
      First open all the fonts that make up your family in fontforge.

      Then choose :menuselection:`File --> Generate TTC`

      This should be simpler than the old method.

   Leopard (10.5) and before
      For the Style menu in most mac applications to work on your fonts, you
      must create a font family. You do this with the
      :ref:`File->Generate Mac Family <filemenu.GenerateMac>` command.

      All the fonts in a family must have the same Family name (See the
      :doc:`font info </ui/dialogs/fontinfo>` dialog). Font Families are handled rather
      differently under Carbon (the old font handling mechanism used in OS 9)
      and under ATSUI (on OS/X).

      Under Carbon, the font family is limited by the design of the Mac 'FOND'
      resource, which reflects the computer font technology of the early 1980s.
      Modern computer fonts often have variants that can't be expressed in it.
      FONDs support any combination (except one containing both Extend and
      Condense) of the following styles:

      * Bold
      * Italic
      * Condense
      * Extend
      * Underline
      * Shadow
      * Outline

      Mac FONDS do not support "Black", "DemiBold", "Light", "Thin" or
      "Extra-Condensed" variants.

      Under ATSUI, on the other hand, a family seems to consist of all fonts in
      a given resources file which have the same FamilyName.

      In order that a family be useful under both systems, Apple appears to
      place several FONDs inside such a font file. Each FOND contains a
      sub-family of related fonts. The 'FOND's appear to be distributed as
      follows:

      Suppose you have a family of fonts with the following styles:

      Regular, Bold, Italic, Bold-Italic, Condense, Condense-Italic, Oblique,
      Light, Light-Italic, Black

      Then you should create a font family with the styles that the FOND does
      support, which in this case would be

      Regular, Bold, Italic, Bold-Italic, Condense, Condense-Italic

      For each of these use :ref:`Element->Font Info->Mac <fontinfo.FONDName>`
      to set the FondName field to the font's family name.

      Change the fondname of the other styles, so that the Oblique style has
      Oblique in the fond name, the two Light styles have Light in the fond
      name, and so on. Set the :ref:`Mac Style <fontinfo.Mac-Style>` on the
      "Light" variant of the font to be Regular (everything unselected) and set
      the style of the "Light-Italic" variant to be "Italic" -- that is, forget
      about the "Light", the FOND can't handle it, that's why we moved it into
      its own FOND.

      Having done this setup, the
      :ref:`Generate Mac Family <filemenu.GenerateMac>` command should be able
      to put all the fonts into appropriate FONDs, and then place all the FONDs
      into one file, which the Mac should interpret correctly.

.. _faq.Mac-ATM:

**Why doesn't ATM work on my (mac) fonts?**
   Insure that the font has an encoding of Macintosh Latin when you generate it.

   This is really a limitation on ATM's part and there's nothing FontForge can
   do about it.

   If you generate a font with an encoding other than Macintosh Latin, then the
   Mac's default behavior is to force the postscript font to have a Macintosh
   Latin encoding. There is a mechanism to turn this behavior off, but if it is
   turned off then ATM won't work at all.

.. _faq.windows:

**How do I edit fonts on MS windows?**
   See the `MS Windows install instructions <https://fontforge.org/en-US/downloads/windows-dl/>`__.

.. _faq.Bad-Windows-Fonts:

**Why don't my fonts work on windows?**
   Here's one possibility: Windows sometimes (and I don't know when) insists on
   having a name for the font in the appropriate language (ie. a Japanese entry
   for a SJIS font). Try going to
   :ref:`Element->Font Info->TTF Names <fontinfo.TTF-Names>` and adding a set of
   strings for your language.

   Another possibility is discussed :ref:`here <faq.Bad-Windows-Install>`.

.. _faq.Missing-Refs:

**When I load an otf or a type1 font most of my references have been replaced by inline copies. How do I get my references back?**
   It is very difficult to figure out old references when loading postscript
   fonts. Instead FontForge has a special command,
   :ref:`Edit->Replace With Reference <editmenu.ReplaceRef>`, that will search
   for potential reference candidates in the font and replace them with
   references.

.. _faq.kern-info:

**Does FontForge read in the old kerning information from fonts?**
   This question needs to be broken down into cases:

   **TrueType and OpenType fonts**
      Yes. The kerning information is stored in either the 'kern' or 'GPOS'
      tables of these fonts and FontForge can read them (Apple has made a number
      of extensions beyond the original truetype spec, FontForge can read these
      too).

   **PostScript Type1 fonts anywhere other than the Mac.**
      The kerning information is not stored in a Type 1 font file. Instead it is
      stored in a file with the same filename as the font file but with the
      extension ".afm". When FontForge reads a PostScript font it will check for
      an associated afm file, and if found will read the kerning information
      from it.

   **PostScript Type1 fonts on the Mac.**
      No. Again the kerning information is not stored in the font file (it is
      stored in a bitmap font file), but on the mac it is impossible to guess
      what name to use for the associated bitmap file, and FontForge does not
      even try.

      See the info below on how to load kerning from a
      :ref:`FOND <faq.FOND-kern>`.

   **AFM and TFM files.**
      FontForge can read kerning information directly from these files and apply
      those data to a font. See the
      :ref:`File->Merge Feature Info <filemenu.Merge-feature>` menu command.

   .. _faq.FOND-kern:

   **Mac resource files containing FOND resources.**
      The mac stored kerning information in the FOND resource associated with a
      bitmap font (it is not stored in the file with the postscript font). If
      you wish kerning data for a mac postscript font, you must find a font file
      containing a bitmap font with the same family and style as the postscript.
      FontForge can read kerning information directly from these files and apply
      those data to a font. See the
      :ref:`File->Merge Feature Info <filemenu.Merge-feature>` menu command.

   **Adobe Feature files**
      Adobe has a textual representation for OpenType features and lookups, and
      fontforge can read these files with the
      :ref:`File->Merge Feature Info <filemenu.Merge-feature>` menu command.

.. _faq.outline-conversion:

**How do I convert from one outline format to another?**
   The simple answer that will work if you want something quick is:

   #. File->Open

      * an existing font
   #. :doc:`Element->Generate Fonts </ui/dialogs/generate>`

      * to generate the desired output.

   If you are converting from one PostScript format to another (pfb to otf, for
   example) that's all you need to do. If you are converting between PostScript
   and TrueType, you can improve matters if you do a little more work.

   Converting from TrueType (quadratic splines, ttf files) to PostScript (cubic
   splines, otf and pfb files):

   #. File->Open

      * (the truetype font)
   #. :ref:`Element->Font Info->Layers <fontinfo.Layers>`

      * Check <*> All layers cubic
      * [OK]
   #. :menuselection:`Edit --> Select --> Select All`
   #. :ref:`Element->Simplify->Simplify <elementmenu.Simplify>`
   #. :ref:`Hints->Auto Hint <hintsmenu.AutoHint>`
   #. :doc:`Element->Generate Fonts </ui/dialogs/generate>`

   Converting from PostScript (cubic splines, otf and pfb files) to TrueType
   (quadratic splines, ttf files):

   #. :menuselection:`File --> Open`
   #. :ref:`Element->Font Info->Layers <fontinfo.Layers>`

      * Check <*> All layers quadratic
      * [OK]
   #. :menuselection:`Edit --> Select --> Select All`
   #. :ref:`Hints->AutoInstr <hintsmenu.AutoInstr>`
   #. :doc:`Element->Generate Fonts </ui/dialogs/generate>`

.. _faq.bitmap-conversion:

**How do I convert from one bitmap format to another?**
   This is also easy, open a bitmap font, and then use
   :doc:`Element->Generate Fonts </ui/dialogs/generate>` to generate the desired output.

.. _faq.outline-bitmap:

**How do I convert from an outline format to a bitmap format?**
   Load the outline font. Then use
   :ref:`Element->Bitmaps Available <elementmenu.Bitmaps>` to generate bitmap
   strike(s) of the appropriate size(s). This process is called rasterization,
   at small pixel sizes it is difficult for a computer to do well. You might be
   advised to examine the results of the rasterization in the
   :doc:`bitmap window </ui/mainviews/bitmapview>` (with
   :ref:`Window->Open Bitmap Window <windowmenu.Bitmap>`), and possibly fixup
   the bitmap as you go. Then when done select
   :doc:`Element->Generate Fonts </ui/dialogs/generate>`, turn off outline font generation
   (unless you also want an outline font, of course), and select the desired
   bitmap format.

.. _faq.bitmap-outline:

**How do I convert from a bitmap format to an outline format?**
   Unless you have a very large bitmap font (such as a TeX font) the following
   procedure will not produce good results.

   * Before you do anything else make sure you have either the
     :doc:`potrace or autotrace programs </techref/autotrace>` installed on your system

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   * Create a new font
   * Use the :ref:`File->Import <filemenu.Import>` command to import your bitmap
     font into this new font

     * Be sure to check the ``[] Into Background`` checkbox
   * :menuselection:`Edit --> Select --> Select All`
   * :menuselection:`Element --> Autotrace`
   * :menuselection:`Element --> Add Extrema`
   * :menuselection:`Element --> Simplify`

     At this point you will probably want to look at your outline glyphs and clean
     them up.
   * :menuselection:`File --> Generate Fonts`

.. _faq.AAT2OT:

**Converting from Apple's Advanced Typography to OpenType**
   There are a number of similarities between the results achieved by these
   formats, but the overlap is not total. Most conversions will lose some
   information.

   The simple answer is that this is pretty much automatic. You load an apple
   font, and then Generate an equivalent font with the [*] OpenType checkbox
   checked in the Options dialog.

   FontForge will convert any non-contextual features where Apple's
   feature/setting matches an OpenType feature. (This includes non-contextual
   ligatures even though they live in a contextual format). For more information
   see the section on this :ref:`interconversion <gposgsub.Conversion>`.

.. _faq.OT2AAT:

**Converting from OpenType to AAT**
   Again this is mostly automatic. Load an OpenType font, and Generate an
   equivalent font with the [*] Apple checkbox checked in the Options dialog.

   FontForge is capable of converting some contextual OpenType tables to AAT.
   Non-contextual features which match an Apple feature/setting will be
   converted too. For more information see the section on this
   :ref:`interconversion <gposgsub.Conversion>`.

.. _faq.hint-subs:

**How do I make FontForge use hint substitution?**
   It happens automagically.

   Or you can control the place where hint sets change by selecting a point and
   choosing :ref:`Element->Get Info <getinfo.HintMask>`\ ->Hint Mask.

.. _faq.flex-hints:

**How do I make FontForge use flex hints?**
   It happens automagically. FontForge will generate flex hints in situations
   where it is appropriate to do so. You don't need to do anything. If flex
   hints are used then the necessary subroutines will be added to the font. If
   they are not needed then the subroutines will not be added.

.. _faq.flex2:

**How can I tell if it is going to use flex hints?**
   If you want to see whether FontForge is going to use flex hints, turn on the
   :ref:`UpdateFlex <prefs.UpdateFlex>` preference item and open a view on the
   glyph. FontForge displays a green halo around the center point of a flex
   hint.

.. _faq.fuzzy:

**My glyphs are all perfectly hinted, why do some stems have different widths (or appear fuzzy, or fade away completely)?**
   Both PostScript and TrueType require that glyphs be drawn in a clockwise
   fashion. Some rasterizers don't care. But other rasterizers will have
   difficulties with counter-clockwise paths and produced stems of different
   widths when they should be the same, or fuzzy stems, or even nothing at all.
   The solution to this is to run :menuselection:`Element --> Correct Direction`
   on all your glyphs before generating a font.

   But sometimes the poor rasterizer just can't do the right thing...

.. _faq.mensis:

**How do I set a particular bit in the OS/2 table (or any other)?**
   FontForge does not do this, but I have written a companion program,
   `mensis <http://mensis.sf.net/>`__ (Latin for: "to or for, by, with or from
   tables") which gives you bit access to tables. It provides both UI and
   scripting access.

.. _faq.sfd:

**What's an sfd file?**
   This is FontForge's own format. It a text file, which means it is large but
   readable to a human (OK, by a determined human). It only uses ASCII
   characters which means it should not be distorted by old mail programs if
   sent around the internet (it's a registered MIME type
   ``application/vnd.font-fontforge-sfd``).

   :doc:`An overview of the format. </techref/sfdformat>`

.. _faq.background:

**FontForge's grey background distresses me. How do I change it?**
   The general mechanism is discussed on the :doc:`X Resources page </ui/misc/xres>`.

   :doc:`Here are some combinations you might try </ui/misc/fontforge-themes>`.

.. _faq.fontsize:

**The fonts FontForge uses in its GUI are too small (too big) how do I change them?**
   The X server does not have a good idea about screen resolution, and when
   fontforge asks it, the answer is often wrong. The result is that ff may use
   fonts that are too small (potentially too big too, but no one has complained
   about that one yet). You can tell fontforge the true screen size by adding a
   line like

   ::

      Gdraw.ScreenWidthInches: 14.7
      Gdraw.ScreenWidthCentimeters: 37.3

   to your ``~/.Xdefaults`` file (The general mechanism is discussed on the
   :doc:`X Resources page </ui/misc/xres>`). If the GUI fonts are still too small you can
   lie about the screen size. If you claim the screen is smaller (in inches or
   centimeters) than it actually is, ff will use a bigger font.

.. _faq.monospace:

**How do I mark a font as monospaced?**
   You don't. Just insure that all the glyphs in the font have the same width
   and then FontForge will automatically mark it as monospaced for you. (If you
   mark it as monospaced incorrectly some rasterizers will give strange
   results).

   If you want to set a font's panose values yourself
   (:ref:`Element->Font Info->OS/2->Panose <fontinfo.Panose>`) then set the
   Proportion field to Monospaced. This is necessary but not sufficient to mark
   the font as a whole as monospaced.

   If you are unsure whether all the glyphs in your font have the same advance
   width use
   :ref:`Element->Find Problems->Random->Check Advance. <problems.Advance>`

   When I say "all glyphs" I really mean *all* glyphs. Even glyphs which unicode
   says should be 0 width must have the same width as everything else. MicroSoft
   suggests that GPOS be used to do accent combination (etc.) and then change
   the advance width on any marks (accents) to be 0.

.. _faq.new-encoding:

**How I do tell fontforge about a new encoding**
   First ask yourself if you really need a new encoding? If you are using
   OpenType or TrueType fonts you can usually get by with the standard unicode
   encoding. But if you really need a new one here is a rough idea of what to
   do:

   Figure out what your encoding looks like. Often this will involve searching
   around the web to find an example of that encoding. For instance if you want
   a devanagari encoding you might look at
   `a site which shows the ISCII encodings <http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/english/codes/indic.html>`__

   These encodings only show the top 96 characters, presumably the others are
   the same as US ASCII. Look at the images and figure out how they map to
   unicode (or more precisely what the appropriate postscript names are for
   those characters).

   Create a file (call it "Devanagari.ps" in this case). It should start with a
   line:

   ::

      /Devanagari {

   This tells FontForge that the encoding is called "Devanagari", then follow
   this with a list of all the character names (preceded by a slash). We start
   with ASCII which starts with 32 .notdef characters, then space, etc.

   ::

      /Devanagari {
       /.notdef
       /.notdef
       ...
       /.notdef
       /space
       /exclam
       /quotedbl
       ...
       /braceright
       /asciitilde
       /.notdef
       ...
       /.notdef
       /uni0901
       /uni0902
       ...
       /uni096F
      }

   Now load this file into FontForge's list of encodings with Encoding->Load
   Encoding, and then apply it to whatever fonts you want.

.. _faq.new-name:

**How do I add a glyph with a new name?**
   Let's say you wanted to add a "dotlessi" glyph to an ISO-8859-1 font (this
   encoding does not include dotlessi). There are two ways to approach the
   problem:

   #. Bring up :menuselection:`Encoding --> Add Encoding Slots...`

      Type in the number of extra glyphs you want (probably 1)

      Press ``OK``

      Scroll down to the end of the font and find the new slot

      Select it

      Bring up :menuselection:`Element --> Glyph Info`

      Type your new name into the ``Unicode Name`` field (in this example you'd
      type in ``dotlessi``)

      Press the ``Set From Name`` button

      Press ``OK``

      Now draw a dotlessi in the glyph.
   #. Bring up :menuselection:`Encoding --> Reencode --> ISO-10646-1`

      Bring up :menuselection:`View --> Goto`

      Type in ``dotlessi``

      Press ``OK``

      Now draw the dotlessi glyph in the selected glyph slot

      Bring up :menuselection:`Encoding --> Reencode` again

      Change the encoding back to whatever it was

.. _faq.glyphnames:

**Why does FontForge give some of my glyphs the wrong name?**
   FontForge's naming conventions are those specified in
   `Adobe's glyph naming conventions <http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/opentype/index_glyph.html>`__,
   and, unfortunately, there are some problems here (generally for compatibility
   with old encodings). I am aware of the following issues:

   Delta
      is assigned to U+2206, "INCREMENT" rather than U+0394, "GREEK CAPITAL
      LETTER DELTA", probably because Increment was part of the old MacRoman
      encoding.

   Omega
      is assigned to U+2126, "OHM SIGN", rather than U+03A9, "GREEK CAPITAL
      LETTER OMEGA".

   mu
      is assigned to U+00B5, "MICRO SIGN", rather than U+03BC, "GREEK SMALL
      LETTER MU", probably because Micro Sign was part of ISO-Latin1 and
      MacRoman

   omega1
      Unicode calls this glyph "GREEK PI SYMBOL". It looks like an omega though.

   Tcommaaccent, tcommaaccent
      are assigned to U+0162,U+0163 "LATIN CAPITAL/SMALL LETTER T WITH CEDILLA",
      rather than U+021A,U+021B "LATIN CAPITAL/SMALL LETTER T WITH COMMA BELOW",
      probably because of a confusion in the early Unicode spec.

   dotlessj
      is assigned to U+F6BE (in the private use area) rather than U+0237 "LATIN
      SMALL LETTER DOTLESS J", because Adobe saw the need for a dotlessj glyph
      before Unicode did and assigned a slot in the private use area. Then in
      4.1 Unicode added the glyph to the standard.

.. _faq.non-integral:

**Is it safe to use non-integral coordinates?**
   FontForge allows you to edit with non-integral coordinates. Many font editors
   don't and some have wondered if the use of non-integral coordinates will it
   distort their fonts when they are rasterized?

   The answer depends on the font format and how you save the font.

   TrueType fonts can only express integral coordinates. When FontForge creates
   a TrueType font it will round all coordinates to integers. This rounding will
   introduce a slight distortion in the curve.

   PostScript (type1, PostScript OpenType, type2, etc.) fonts can express
   non-integral coordinates in the font format -- but it takes a lot more space
   in the font file. Type1 fonts tend to take more space to express this than
   type2 (opentype) fonts. By default FontForge will round to int on these as
   well, BUT you can change that in the Generate Options dialog.

   If your font is rounded then there will be some distortion. If it is not
   rounded there should be no distortion. In PostScript fonts it should be safe
   to use non-integral coordinates provided you turn off rounding when you
   generate the font. The font file will be bigger, but more accurate.

   If you feel you need more accuracy in TrueType you can change the em-size to
   8096.

   You can do this on PostScript Type1 fonts too, however, there are some
   applications which assume that all OpenType postscript fonts have an em-size
   of 1000, so it is best not to do this for OpenType output.

.. _faq.Open-size:

**Why isn't my Open Type font much smaller than the .pfb file?**
   This is probably because you didn't round to int before saving the font.
   FontForge will save the font using fixed point numbers which take up a lot
   more space than normal integers.

.. _faq.Open-difference:

**What's the difference between OpenType and PostScript (or TrueType) fonts?**
   Both PostScript and TrueType define a file format and a glyph format.
   OpenType uses the TrueType file format with a PostScript glyph format
   (actually OpenType includes the TrueType glyph format as well, but the
   OpenType definition says such fonts should still be called TrueType fonts so
   I ignore that aspect).

   The PostScript used in OpenType is slightly different from that used in .pfa
   and .pfb files. pfa/b files are Type1 fonts while OpenType uses Type2 fonts.
   Type2 is almost a superset of Type1 with a few minor changes and many
   extensions. Adobe's subroutine based extensions to Type1 (flex hints, hint
   substitution, counter hints) have been added to Type2 as direct instructions.

   OpenType can also include additional information (see
   :ref:`below <faq.AAT-Open>`) that allows for the layout of complex scripts
   (Arabic, Indic, etc.) as when as support for glyph variants and other aspects
   of fine typography.

.. _faq.AAT-Open:

**What is the difference between AAT (Apple Advanced Typography) and OpenType?**
   Both of these are extensions to the basic TrueType font which can contain
   information for laying out complex scripts (like Arabic or Indic scripts) as
   well as support for glyph variants and other aspects of fine typography. They
   use totally different internal formats for the more complex aspects of this
   task, formats which have different expressive powers so that neither format
   can be converted to the other without the possibility for some loss of
   information. I discuss this in greater detail

   * :doc:`In the tutorial </tutorial/editexample6-5>`
   * :doc:`In the section on advanced typography </techref/gposgsub>`

.. _faq.Tiger-Open:

**Why does a font, which worked fine under 10.3 fail on Mac 10.4 (Tiger)?**
   With Tiger (Mac OS/X.4) Apple added some support for OpenType. Some OpenType
   features are converted (at runtime) into AAT features. This is good, but not
   all features have corresponding Apple feature/settings, and not all lookups
   can be converted (conditional lookups cannot be). Unfortunately if a font
   contains both OpenType and AAT features Apple now ignores the AAT features
   (or so I have been told). The result is that AAT features, which presumably
   work, will not be used, while OpenType features, which are not completely
   supported and so won't work, are used instead.

.. _faq.save-no-change:

**After I generate a font and quit, why does FontForge ask if I want to save the font? I didn't change anything.**
   There are two reasons why this might be happening.

   #. Even though you haven't changed anything in this session, FontForge may need
      to (re)generate hinting information on one or several glyphs (if, for example
      those glyphs have been changed (in an earlier session) but no hints have been
      generated for them since). These new hints will mark the font as changed.
   #. If your font has an XUID field in the Font Info, then FontForge will
      increment the final number in the XUID each time a postscript font is
      generated -- and this also counts as a change. (Why does FontForge do this?
      Because Adobe says it should. A minor annoyance, but it avoids some problems
      with font caching when you change an old version of the font for a new one).

.. _faq.TeX:

**Why doesn't TeX work with my fonts?**
   I'm a total novice with TeX. I am told that TeX (or some part of the TeX
   chain, dvips perhaps) expects fonts to be encoded in TeX base Encoding --
   sometimes called "Adobe Standard" by the TeX docs, but it isn't it's TeX
   base. So if you are having printing problems, missing glyphs, etc. try
   changing the encoding of your font to TeX Base (Go to
   :menuselection:`Element --> Font Info`, select the Encoding tab, select TeX
   Base from the pulldown list).

.. _faq.mf-files:

**Why doesn't FontForge let me edit an '.mf' file?**
   As Knuth said "(the problem with WSYWYG is that...) What you see is *all* you
   get." FontForge suffers from this.

   Let us take a simple example. Suppose we have a point defined by

   .. parsed-literal::

      top\ :sub:`1`\ y\ :sub:`2` = CapHeight

   And the user tries to drag point 2 to a new y location. How should FontForge
   interpret this? It could:

   * Change ``CapHeight``
   * Change the width of pen 1
   * Change the equation to something like:

     .. parsed-literal::

        top\ :sub:`1`\ y\ :sub:`2` = CapHeight - 30

   * Or to something like:

     .. parsed-literal::

        top\ :sub:`1`\ y\ :sub:`2` = (CapHeight + XHeight)/2

   * Or to half a dozen other things.

   So FontForge's method for moving a point around is ambiguous. And I haven't
   been able to come up with any reasonable way for disambiguating it.
   Suggestions are welcome (but there's no guarantee they'll be implemented).

.. _faq.minify-iconify:

**Why does my window get iconified when I want to minify the view?**
   Some window managers (gnome-sawtooth for one) steal meta (alt) clicks from
   FontForge. So you can't use meta-middle-click to minify a glyph, you have to
   use the :menuselection:`View menu --> Zoom Out` instead.

.. _faq.no-mu:

**Why isn't there a character named "mu" in my greek font?**
   Adobe was thinking more of backwards compatibility than sense when they
   assigned the names of the greek letters in their unicode encoding. Thus the
   name "mu" refers to the Micro Sign (U+00B5) and not to the letter mu. They
   also assigned Delta to Increment, and Omega to Ohm Sign.

   Adobe has also decided that the character at U+03D6 (said by the Unicode
   consortium to refer to "GREEK PI SYMBOL") should be named "omega1", when
   "pi1" seems more appropriate.

.. _faq.no-copy-names:

**Why doesn't** :menuselection:`Edit --> Copy` **copy glyph names as well as glyph info?**
   Firstly because I believe that any attempt to copy a glyph's name will almost
   certainly be better done by defining a custom :doc:`encoding </ui/menus/encodingmenu>`.

   Secondly because most of the time you don't want the name copied.

   Thirdly because it is esthetically better that copy should only work with
   data and not meta-data.

   HOWEVER... enough people have asked this question that I've enabled a mode in
   :ref:`Edit->Copy From->Char Name <editmenu.CharName>` which allows you to
   change the default behavior.

.. _faq.copy-names:

**Why does** :menuselection:`Edit --> Paste` **complain about name duplication?**
   Because you have :menuselection:`Edit --> Copy From --> Copy Metadata`
   checked. Uncheck it.

.. _faq.cidmaps:

**What on earth are cidmap files and should I care about them?**
   Some background:

   When postscript was invented every glyph in a font was given a name, and an
   encoding which was specified by a 256 element array mapping character codes
   to names.

   Then they started thinking about CJK fonts (and perhaps Unicode), which have
   huge glyph sets, and coming up with reasonable ASCII names for 10,000 glyphs
   was :small:`a)` a waste of space, :small:`b)` fairly meaningless. So then
   adobe created CID-keyed fonts which have no glyph names and no encodings.
   Every glyph has an index (a CID), which is just a number, and this is sort of
   treated as a name. Then external to the font is an additional resource (a
   cmap) which provides the encoding for the font (and can support really grungy
   encoding schemes like SJIS), by mapping a sequence of input bytes to a CID.

   Adobe provides certain standard cmap resources (ie. one for SJIS, one for
   JIS, one for Extended Unix whatever). Because these files are fairly painful
   to write Adobe has assigned standard meanings to CIDs so that everyone can
   use the same cmap file. -- Well actually there are 5 or 6 different
   standards, Japanese (JIS208), Japanese (JIS212), Korean, Chinese (Hong Kong,
   Taiwan), Chinese (Mainland, Singapore), Identity (Unicode) -- So CID 1 might
   be space, CID 2 might be "!", CID 935 might be "Katakana ka", etc.

   My cidmap files just give me a mapping between Adobe's CIDs and Unicode. This
   allows FontForge to know what glyph it is working on. If they aren't present
   things should work ok, but FontForge would fill the font view with "?" rather
   than the appropriate glyph. And FontForge wouldn't be able to reencode the
   font into Unicode or anything else.

   So the cidmap files are only useful for people working on CID keyed CJK
   fonts. So many europeans/americans won't need them.

.. _faq.simplify:

**Does the simplify command lose accuracy?**
   Yes it does.

   But not much.

   It is designed to replace a set of splines with another spline that nowhere
   differs from the original by more than one unit in the local coordinate
   system.

   If this level of accuracy is not good enough then (In the outline view):

   * :menuselection:`Edit --> Select --> Select All`
   * :menuselection:`Element --> Transform --> Transform`
   * Scale Uniformly: 1000%
   * OK
   * Simplify
   * :menuselection:`Element --> Transform --> Transform`
   * Scale Uniformly: 10%
   * OK

   This will replace a set of splines with a spline that differs from the
   original by no more than .1 unit.

.. _faq.cubic-quadratic:

**How does FontForge convert a cubic spline into a quadratic spline for truetype?**
   Again this can involve a loss of accuracy.

   First FontForge checks to see if the spline happens to be a quadratic already
   (this would happen if you'd just read in a truetype font, or if a miracle
   occurred when you generated the spline).

   Otherwise FontForge will divide the original spline into smaller chunks and
   try to find a set of quadratic splines that differ from the cubic by no more
   than one unit anywhere. (Once you have picked two end-points and know the
   slope at those end-points there is only one quadratic spline possible between
   the two).

.. _faq.quadratic-cubic:

**How does FontForge convert a quadratic spline into a cubic (when reading truetype)?**
   This is easy since any quadratic spline can already be represented as a
   cubic, it will just happen that the cubic term is always 0.

   Probably the control points will no longer be at integral coordinates and
   there will be some loss of precision when they are saved in a cubic format.

.. _faq.complex-eps:

**Why does fontforge say "EPS file is too complex to be understood"?**
   (Well because it is a misquotation of Shakespeare, and how could I pass that
   up? *Much Ado About Nothing, V . i. 217*)

   Most programs which load eps files treat them as black boxes. They will read
   the file into memory and output it, unchanged, to a postscript printer.
   Unfortunately FontForge cannot do this. FontForge needs to understand and
   then convert the eps file into a simpler format (fonts can use far fewer
   operations than an eps file). So unlike most programs FontForge must
   interpret each eps file -- but interpretting all of PostScript is a huge job
   and ff is limited in what it understands. Sometimes it will find a file it
   can't handle.

.. _faq.Inkscape:

**Importing glyphs from Inkscape**
   (Taken from the `OSPublish blog <http://ospublish.constantvzw.org/?p=340>`__
   and rewritten by Dave Crossland)

   How to design a glyph in Inkscape so it can readily be imported into
   fontforge.

   * Open Inkscape
   * From the File menu, select Document Properties.
   * Set units to pixels (px) and document dimensions to 1000 x 1000, click OK

     :small:`Or if your font has a different number of units per em use that, but 1000 is fontforge's default)`
   * Set a horizontal guide at 200px
   * Draw a glyph - the hardest part! :-)
   * Save the drawing as an SVG file
   * Open FontForge
   * From the File menu, select Import, chose SVG, find your drawing, click OK
   * From the Element menu select Transform, set the Y value to -200, click OK

.. _faq.default-char:

**How do I set the default glyph of a font?**
   If the glyph named ".notdef" contains some splines (but no references) then
   it will be used as the default glyph (that is the glyph used when an
   unencoded glyph is called for).

   Except that in a OpenType font (that is, a PostScript OpenType font), the
   .notdef glyph is not used for the default glyph, instead the "space" glyph
   is. (Don't look at me, I didn't write the spec.)

.. _faq.ttf-degrade:

**I loaded a ttf font, made a few changes and generated a new font. The changed glyphs don't look anywhere near as nice as the originals. Why?**
   When FontForge reads in a truetype font it saves all the hinting
   (instructions) that were present in the original. But if you change a glyph
   in any significant way those instructions are no longer valid (they depend
   intimately on the details of the outlines), so FontForge removes them when
   you make a change. The result is that changing a glyph with FontForge will
   degrade its appearance in most truetype fonts (not all, some have no hints).

   FontForge can generate truetype instructions for you itself, but you must ask
   it to do so -- use the :menuselection:`Hints --> AutoInstr` command.

.. _faq.otf-diffs:

**I generated an opentype font and windows wouldn't install it. Why not?**
   Unfortunately Apple and MicroSoft (and Adobe) do not agree on the proper
   format for open and truetype fonts. FontForge has a check box on the Generate
   Font Options dialog labelled [] Apple. Make sure this is checked when you are
   generating a font for the mac. Make sure this is not checked when generating
   a font for Windows (and probably for unix too, though unix tends to be less
   picky).

   The major differences I've stumbled onto so far are:

   * The postscript name entry in the NAME table.

     (I am told that this is actually an error in Apple's version of the spec, and
     the behavior of the Mac matches that of Windows).
   * The names of the tables containing bitmap fonts
   * The way scaled references are stored
   * And the tables containing advanced typographical features are completely
     different

.. _faq.DSIG:

**I have a truetype font with opentype tables, but windows displays the "TT" (truetype) icon and not the "O" icon. Why?**
   As far as I can tell Windows will mark a truetype font with the "O" icon if
   that font contains a 'DSIG' (Digital Signature) table. FontForge does not
   produce digital signatures (I think they are of negative utility, and anyway
   I don't know how to create them).

   However, it is possible to
   :ref:`ask FontForge to create a 'DSIG' table <generate.Options>` which
   contains no signatures. That seems enough to make windows happy.

.. _faq.names:

**What do all the different font names mean?**
   When :menuselection:`Element --> Font Info` opens it shows a Names pane with
   several different fields. Why are there so many and what do they all mean?

   The Names pane contains names used in PostScript fonts. There is also a
   ``TTF Names`` pane which contains a similar set of names used in sfnts (an
   sfnt is a font file format which includes truetype, opentype, and a number of
   more obscure font formats).

   A font may be PostScript wrapped in an sfnt. In this case it can have both a
   set of PostScript names, and a set of sfnt (ttf) names. Those names could be
   different (that's usually not a good idea, but they *could* be).

   The "name for humans" is the name traditionally associated with a font. It
   might be something like "ITC New Century Schoolbook Italic #4". It's a string
   which applications can use to display when they want humans to know what the
   font is.

   The fontname exists because PostScript is a programming language and this is
   the name used to identify the font *within PostScript*. It has restrictions
   on the characters which may be in the name (no spaces is the biggest. but it
   also can't look like a number, no parentheses, etc.) and on the length of the
   name. It might look like "ITCNewCenturySchoolbook-Italic".

   The family name is the name of a family of related fonts. In the above
   example "ITC New Century Schoolbook" would probably be the family name.

   "Base Filename" isn't really a name associated with the font itself. It's
   just there to make your life easier when using fontforge. When you generate a
   font, ff will pick a default filename for you (you can always change it, of
   course, but it is handy if the default name is the one you want to use).

   Normally the default name will be just the fontname with an extension added
   (ITCNewCenturySchoolbook-Italic.ttf). But sometimes people want a different
   name for the default, perhaps just NewCentSchlBk-Ital.ttf. This lets you do
   than.

   So it controls the default FILENAME for the file containing the font, and
   does not directly relate to anything in the font itself.

   The weight string is something like "Bold", "Black", "Thin", etc. It does not
   include other stylistic variations (you would not put Italic or Condensed
   here).

   The copyright string should be self-explanatory.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   In addition to the "Names" pane of Font Info, there is also a TTF Names pane.

   In many ways this is a duplicate of the Names pane but with some differences.
   It is used to specify names for sfnts.

   Here you have

   * Family

     This corresponds to the PostScript Family
   * SubFamily

     Vaguely like the weight field, but takes all stylistic varients not just
     weight.

     This might be "Bold", "Italic", "Bold Italic", "SemiBold", "Condensed", ...

     Whatever is appropriate for your font.
   * Fullname

     This corresponds to the "Name for humans"
   * Copyright

   Generally FontForge will set all these fields appropriately (ie. same as in
   the Names pane). If you don't like the name ff chooses you can disassociate
   it from the PS name by right clicking on the entry and choosing from the
   popup menu.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Further complicating things, there are fields

   * WWS Family
   * WWS SubFamily

   I don't really understand why these are needed, but MicroSoft thinks they
   are. As far as I can tell they should (in most cases) be the same as Family
   and SubFamily above, and should therefore be omitted.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   CID fontname should be ignored unless you are building a CID keyed font
   (which usually means you are working on a CJK font).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Compatible Fullname

   Is another name I don't see the need for. I think it should be the same as
   Fullname, and should be omitted.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   TTF Names may be specified in more than one language and writing system. The
   entry which is translated most frequently is SubFamily. So for an Italic
   font, you would have an English entry "Italic", and perhaps

   * French, Italique
   * German, Kursiv
   * Dutch, Cursief

   etc.

.. _faq.mingliu:

**I looked at kaiu.ttf or mingliu.ttf and the outlines looked nothing like the correct glyphs. What's wrong?**
   Some truetype fonts (kaiu and mingliu are examples) do not store the correct
   outline. Instead they rely on using the instructions to move points around to
   generate the outline. The outline does not appear to be grid-fit at all, just
   positioned. FontForge will not process the instructions as it reads the font.
   In most fonts this would be the wrong thing to do, and I don't know how I
   could tell when it needs to be done...

.. _faq.greek-accents:

**When I use** :menuselection:`Element --> Build --> Build Accented Glyph` **to build one of the Extended Greek glyphs (U+1F00-U+1FFF) FontForge picks the wrong accents. Why?**
   For some reason Unicode has unified greek and latin accents even though they
   don't look at all alike. When FontForge follows the simplistic unicode
   definitions it will probably pick a latin accent for greek glyphs.
   Fortunately Unicode also contains code points for the greek accents starting
   around U+1FBD, if you fill these code points with the appropriate accents
   then FontForge will use these rather than the latin accents.

.. _faq.u-accents:

**When I use** :menuselection:`Element --> Build --> Build Accented Glyph` **to build accents over "u" or "y" I get the accent over one of the stems not centered on the glyph. Why?**
   One of your stems is a little taller than the other. FontForge centers
   accents over the tallest point on the glyph. If there are several points with
   the same height, then an average is used.

   If you make all your stems be the same height then the accent should be
   properly centered.

.. _faq.ttf2afm:

**Why does ttf2afm crash on FontForge ttf files?**
   I don't know. The ttf2afm that was distributed with my redhat 7.3 linux
   certainly did crash. When I downloaded the source from
   `pdftex <http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/obsolete/systems/pdftex/>`__ area of
   ctan and built it (with debug) the resultant program did not crash. Therefore
   I believe this is a bug in ttf2afm and that bug has been fixed.

   The afm files produced by ttf2afm don't conform to
   `Adobe's specifications <http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/PDFS/TN/5004.AFM_Spec.pdf>`__.

.. _faq.memory:

**My system keeps crashing because FontForge keeps running out of memory. What can I do about it?**
   Buy more memory?

   If you are editing large fonts, FontForge may run out of memory. All too
   often when FF runs out of memory, the kernel will crash rather than report an
   error condition. FontForge does check for failure to allocate and attempts to
   free up some chunks of memory when the system returns an error -- I've never
   seen this code activated though.

   FontForge does provide a mechanism which might help you avoid this. FontForge
   generally wastes a lot of memory keeping undoes around. You can clear undoes
   associated with a glyph with the :menuselection:`Edit --> Remove Undoes`
   command. You can also limit the number of undoes that will be stored with
   each glyph with the
   :menuselection:`File --> Preferences --> Editing --> UndoDepth`.

.. _faq.Unstable:

**Why is FontForge so unstable?**
   I don't bother much with doing QA. This is a problem. I don't enjoy doing it,
   and no one is paying me to do it, so little gets done.

   If you would like to volunteer to do
   `QA let me know <mailto:fontforge-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>`__ (this is a
   public mailing list). It's a thankless job, but important!

.. _faq.Compiz:

**Why does FontForge look ugly under Xgl/Compiz?**
   I haven't the foggiest idea, but I'm told you can fix it by setting: ::

      XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1

   for FontForge.

.. _faq.talk:

**Why don't I talk at conferences?**

   .. epigraph::

      | **TYSON:**
      | I'm not
      | To be found. I'm fully occupied elsewhere.
      | If you wish to find me I shall be in my study.
      | You can knock, but I shall give you no reply.
      | I wish to be alone with my convictions.
      | Good night. *[Exit]*

      -- *The Lady's not for Burning* -- Christopher Fry

   Because I have nothing to say.

.. container:: clearer

   ..

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

.. epigraph::

   | The answer to the Great Question...?
   | Yes...!
   | Is...
   | Yes...!
   | Is...
   | Yes...!!!...?
   | "Forty-two," said Deep Thought with infinite majesty and calm.
   | "Forty-two!" yelled Loonquawl, "Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years of work?"

   "I checked it very thoroughly," said the computer, "and that quite
   definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with
   you, is that you've never actually known what the question is."

   -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

.. epigraph::

   It's all in Plato, all in Plato: bless me, what do they teach them in these schools? 

   -- *The Last Battle* -- C.S. Lewis

.. epigraph::

   | "I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
   | Said his father, "Don't give yourself airs!
   | Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
   | Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs."

   -- *You are old, Father William* -- Lewis Carroll