In the Metrics View this menu is greyed out. The commands
are only available in text fields.
- Undo
- In the outline view and the bitmap view this will undo
the last command. The number of commands that may be undone
for any glyph is controlled by the UndoDepth preference item.
In the font and metrics views, this does NOT undo the last
command. It undoes the last operation on all selected
glyphs.
- Redo
- In the outline view and the bitmap view this will redo
the last command undone. Up to twelve commands may be redone
(after that they get thrown away)
In the font and metrics views, this does NOT undo the last
command. It undoes the last operation on all selected
glyphs.
- Cut
-
In the font view this command puts the foreground of all
selected glyphs into the clipboard and then deletes them.
Depending on the setting of Copy From
it will either refer all glyphs (bitmap and outline)
corresponding to this entry, or just the glyph being
displayed.
In the Outline View this will copy any selected points,
References, or Images into the clipboard and then delete
them. If a point is removed from a path then the path will
be broken at there, see the Merge
command for information on how to leave the path whole but
without the point. (if there is no selection nothing
happens)
In the Bitmap View this will copy the selection into the
clipboard and then delete it. If there is no selection
nothing happens.
- Copy
-
In the font view this command puts the foreground and hints
of all selected glyphs into the clipboard. Depending on the
setting of Copy From it will either
copy all glyphs (bitmap and outline) corresponding to this
entry, or just the glyph being displayed. Normally it will
not copy a glyph's name, but if Copy
From->Char Name is set then it will copy the name as
well.
In the Outline View this will copy any selected points,
References, or Images into the clipboard. If there is no
selection everything in the current layer will go into the
clipboard.
In the Bitmap View this will copy the selection into the
clipboard, if there is no selection everything is
copied.
To external applications selected points (and associated
contours) will be exported to the clipboard with format
"image/eps", while a selected image will be exported with
formats "image/png" and "image/bmp". If you Copy a series
of glyphs into the clipboard, the only the first one will
be exported to external applications. If the clipboard
contains a single point, then this will also be exported in
STRING format (giving the coordinates of the point); the
intent is to make it easier to people to identify the
point. See the section on selections
- Copy Reference
-
In the font view this command puts a reference to all
selected glyphs into the clipboard.
In the Outline and Bitmap Views this will copy a
reference to the current glyph into the clipboard (only
available in foreground mode).
- Copy Lookup
Data
-
Copies lookup data (substitutions, ligatures, kerning,
anchor points, etc) from the selected glyphs. This command
does not work quite as expected:
- The data are not actually copied. Instead fontforge
makes a note of which glyphs it copied the data from.
FontForge actually copies the data when the user does a
Paste (so any changes in the lookup data will be
pasted).
- When the user does a Paste s/he will be prompted with
a dialog asking what lookups should be copied.
- Copy Width
-
In the Font View this command copies the widths of all
selected glyphs and stores them in the clipboard.
In the Outline View this command copies the width of the
current glyph and stores it in the clipboard.
This command is not available in the Bitmap View.
- Copy VWidth
-
In the Font View this command copies the vertical widths of
all selected glyphs and stores them in the clipboard.
In the Outline View this command copies the vertical
width of the current glyph and stores it in the
clipboard.
This command is not available in the Bitmap View.
- Copy LBearing
-
In the Font View this command copies the left side bearings
of all selected glyphs and stores them in the clipboard.
In the Outline View this command copies the left side
bearing of the current glyph and stores it in the
clipboard.
This command is not available in the Bitmap View.
- Copy RBearing
-
In the Font View this command copies the right side
bearings of all selected glyphs and stores them in the
clipboard.
In the Outline View this command copies the right side
bearing of the current glyph and stores it in the
clipboard.
This command is not available in the Bitmap View.
- Copy Grid
Fit
- Only available in the outline glyph view and only if
View->Show Grid
Fit is selected. This will place a copy of the grid fit
version of the glyph into the clipboard.
- Paste
-
In the Font View this command will paste whatever is in the
clipboard into the foregrounds of all selected glyphs
(exception: if the clipboard contains an image it will
usually not go into the foreground), clearing out whatever
was there. If there are more selected glyphs than there is
information in the clipboard then the clipboard will be
repeated until all selected glyphs have had something
pasted in them (that is if glyphs A and B were selected
when the copy happened and now glyphs C, D and E are
selected, the C will get A, D will get B and E will also
get A). If exactly one glyph is selected but the clipboard
contains more that one glyph, the selection will be
extended so that enough glyphs are selected that something
may be pasted in each.
If the clipboard contains outline information then that
information will go into the glyph outline regardless of
the setting of Copy From. If the clipboard contains a
bitmap and the display is set to outline then the bitmap is
pasted into the bitmap font it was copied from (ie. the one
with the same pixel size), if the clipboard contains a
bitmap and the display is set to a bitmap then the bitmap
will be pasted into the currently displayed font. If the
clipboard contains a bitmap of a size which does not exist
in our database, then you will be asked if you want to
create a bitmap font to put the bitmap into.
In the Outline View this command will paste whatever is
in the clipboard to the current editing layer.
In the Bitmap View this command will flatten any
floating selection and paste the contents of the clipboard
into a new floating selection.
If the clipboard is owned by an external application
FontForge will attempt to Paste the following selection
types (the bitmap view does not currently respond to
external clipboards):
"image/png", "image/bmp" |
background images |
"image/eps", "image/ps", "image/svg" |
as spline data |
See the section on selections
- Paste Into
- Only available in the fontview. Just like Paste, except
it does not clear the contents of the glyph before adding to
it.
- Paste After
- Only available in the fontview. Pastes the contents of
the clipboard into the selected glyph, shifts it over by the
advance width, and then adds the advance width of the glyph
in the clip to this glyph. Essentially this makes it easy to
build up words. (If the font has vertical metrics, then
glyphs will be stacked vertically. If the glyph is right to
left then the clipboard will be added on the left).
- Same Glyph
As
-
Only available in the fontview. If the clipboard contains a
single reference to a glyph then applying this command
makes all selected encoding points refer to that same
glyph. (For example the non-breaking-space glyph (U+00A0)
frequently uses the same glyph as the space glyph. To
accomplish this, select the space glyph, Copy Ref, select
the non-breaking-space glyph and Same Glyph As).
Adobe suggests that you avoid this. Use a reference
instead. In some situations (I think pdf files is one)
having one glyph with several encodings causes problems
(Acrobat uses the glyph to back-map through the encoding to
work out the unicode code point. But that will fail if a
glyph has two unicode code points associated with it).
- Clear
- Similar to Cut except it does not copy
anything to the clipboard.
- Clear Background
- Only in the font view. This command clears the
backgrounds of all selected glyphs.
- Merge
-
This command is only available in the Outline View. If a
point on a path is selected, the merge command will remove
that point from the path and join the two points around the
removed one with a new spline which approximates the curve
between the two before. The two surrounding points will
retain their slopes (unless both are corner points).
How is this
done?
- Join
- This command is not available in the bitmap view. It
looks for any paths with endpoints as the endpoints of other
paths and then join those two paths. Also if the endpoint of
a path is the same as the start point it will make that path
into a loop. (The commands that move points around will
normally do this automatically, but Paste will not).
In the Outline view things are slightly more complicated: If
any paths have selected points on them it will only attempt
to join those paths.
- Copy Fg To Bg
- This command is only available in the Outline and Font
Views. It cleans out all the splines in the background layer
and replaces them with a copy of all the splines in the
foreground layer. Note: Any background images remain.
- Copy Layer To
Layer
- This command is only available in the Outline and Font
Views. It brings up a dialog which lets you select a base
layer to copy from and another layer to copy to. You may also
choose to clear the destination layer, or to append to it.
Then it copies the contents of the source layer (contours and
references, but not images) to the destination layer.
- Select
-
In the outline view there is a select menu, other views
just have Select All.
- Select All
- In the outline view it selects all points, all
references (all images if the background is active) and
the width line (and the vertical width line if that is
enabled). In the fontview it selects all glyphs. In the
bitmap view it selects the current bitmap region.
- Invert
Selection
- Selects anything not selected, and deselects
everything selected.
- Deselect
All
- Deselects anything selected
- First Point
- Deselects everything and then selects the first point
on the first path of the glyph.
- First Point, Next Contour
- Deselects everything and then selects the first point
on the next contour. (If the last contour is selected
then deselects everything).
- Next Point
- Deselects the current point and selects the next
point.
- Prev Point
- Deselects the current point and selects the previous
point
- Next Control
Point
- Selects the "Next Control Point" of the current
point.
- Prev Control
Point
- Selects the "Prev Control Point" of the current
point.
- Point At
- Allows the user to enter an X,Y coordinate and
selects the point at that location.
- Points on Selected Contours
- If a contour contains any selected points, then
select all points on the contour.
- Select
All Points & Refs
- Just like select all, but it doesn't select anchor
points or the width lines.
- Select
Anchors
- Select all the Anchor points in the glyph.
- (De)Select
Width
- Toggles whether the width line is selected.
- (De)Select
VWidth
- (if vertical metrics are enabled) Toggles whether the
vertical width line is selected.
- Select Points Affected by
Current HintMask
- if a single point with a hintmask is selected, then
this command selects all points affected by that
hintmask.
- Select by Color>
- Only in the font view. Displays a submenu containing
a list of colors and allows you to select all glyphs
which you have set to that color with the Char Info dlg.
Normally the selection is cleared before setting the
colored glyphs, but if you hold down the shift key the
selection will be extended to the colored glyphs.
- Select by
Wildcard...
- Select all glyphs that match the wildcard pattern
specified. A glyph may also be mapped to more than one
encoding slot. Select all encoding slots that refer to
the named glyph. I think this is primarily useful for
detaching .notdef.
- Select by
Script...
- Allows you to specify an OpenType script tag and then
ff will select all glyphs which have that script.
In the fontview, the following menu items will have
slightly different meanings depending on whether you are
holding down the Shift of Control keys.
If you hold down neither, then the current selection is
cleared, and the selection is set to whatever the command
specifies.
If you hold down just the Shift key, then the current
selection is retained and any glyphs specified by the
command will be merged into that selection. (a logical or
operation)
If you hold down just the Control key, then any glyphs
specified by the command will be removed from the
selection.
If you hold down both keys, then only glyphs specified
in both the command and the old selection will be selected.
(a logical and operation)
- Glyphs worth
outputting
- Generally this means that either the glyph's width
has been set, or that in one of its foreground layers
there is some data -- a contour or a reference.
- with only
references
- Select all glyphs which contain at least one
reference (in the active layer) and no contours.
- Glyphs with only
Splines
- Select all glyphs which contain at least one contour
(in the active layer) and no references.
- Glyphs with
both
- Select all glyphs in the active layer with both
contours and references. This is something which cannot
be expressed in a TrueType font, and fontforge has
various tricks for dealing with it, but it might be
something you'd like to fix up.
- Whitespace
Glyphs
- Select all glyphs which contain neither references
nor contours (but which have had their widths set).
- Changed
- Selects all changed glyphs
- Hinting
Needed
- Selects all glyphs which FontForge thinks need to be
hinted.
- Autohintable
- Selects all glyphs which FontForge thinks can be
autohinted -- ie. all glyphs not marked Hints->Don't
Autohint (this does not check whether ff thinks the
glyphs in question NEED to be autohinted)
- Select By
Lookup Subtable...
- Only in the font view. Brings up a dlg which allows you to select
various glyphs depending on various advanced typographic
features.
- Find / Replace
- Only in the font view, this brings up a dialog that allows you to find patterns
within glyphs and replace them with other patterns.
- Replace With
Reference
-
Only in the font view, this command will search the font
finding any glyph which contains an inline copy of one of
the selected glyphs, and converts that copy into a
reference to the appropriate glyph. In other words it finds
things which should be references and makes them be.
This is primarily for use after reading a postscript
(type1, otf or cff) font. The reference information will
usually be lost in these formats, and this command can find
it again.
Suppose the font contains a glyph "Acircumflex" which
contains an embedded copy of "A" (a copy of the contours,
not a references), then if you select "A" and apply this
command it will search all glyphs in the font for something
that looks like "A", remove it from any glyphs in which it
is found and replace it with a reference. It applies this
same algorithm for all selected glyphs. If you want to
check for every possibility, just select all glyphs
first.
After completion, the selection will be set to those
glyphs which have been changed by the command.
- Unlink Reference
- This will remove a referenced glyph and replace it with
the splines and points (or bitmap raster) that make it
up.
- Copy From
-
Only available in the Font View.
- All Fonts
- If this is set then Copy (and Cut and Clear) will
copy from the outline font and from all the bitmap
fonts
- Displayed
Font
- If this is set then Copy will only copy from the font
currently being displayed.
- Char
Metadata
- Normally Copy does not copy the metadata (name,
unicode encoding, comment, ligature info) associated with
a glyph, but if this is checked then it will.
- TrueType
Instructions
- Controls whether truetype instructions should be
copied with a glyph. If copying glyphs from one font to
another it may not be appropriate to copy the truetype
instructions (which may depend on subroutines or values
in the 'fpgm', 'prep' and 'cvt ' tables).
This also controls the behavior of the Transform and Build Accented glyph
commands.
- Remove
Undoes
-
Not available in the Metrics View. This allows you to free
up some of the memory FontForge is currently squandering on
keeping track of Undoes (and Redoes). Obviously this
command cannot be undone.
- In the Outline Glyph view this will free up all
undoes/redoes in the current edit mode
- In the Bitmap Glyph view this will free up all bitmap
undoes/redoes
- In the Font View this will free up all undoes/redoes
in all selected glyphs, outline and bitmap, background
and foreground.