Superpolator tips - tricks - tutorial

Rene Verkaart22 Mar 2011

Hi guys,

I recently bought Letterror's Superpolator. I've seen all the video's about it from the Robothon 2009 event, but still the program stays a bit of a mystery to me. Since there is no (known) manual for Superpolator, other than the Robothon 2009 video's, I hope there are some people out there willing to share tips and tricks. Perhaps we could even build a wiki page for it.

These are the issues I'd like to be enlightened on:

1) Importing/updating individual UFO glyphs
If you edit your masters in Fontlab and and want to update them in Superpolator, do you replace the existing master or can you update just the glyphs you editted in Fontlab?

2) Automatic update master in Superpolator
Is the master automatically updated when you export the UFO file again from Fontlab? Since the files should be in the same folder with the .spe file, does Superpolator check them and automatically update the master?

Feel free to dump your Q&A here.

Thnx,
Rene

blank22 Mar 2011#

Perhaps we could even build a wiki page for it.

Superpolator has a help file that covers everything you need to know. Load masters, assign an axis, create instances, done!

As for automatic updates, yes, Superpolator tracks changes to an open UFO file and automatically updates. I find the best tool for managing this is Tal Leming’s UFOCentral script.

As for where to put the UFO/SPE files, it doesn't really matter. But to keep myself from getting confused I usually just stick the SPE file in the parent folder for the family and leave the UFO files in child directories created for each master font.

Rene Verkaart22 Mar 2011#

You're right! I've found the manual.
Superpolator stays buggy on my iMac. I keeps crashing when I want to delete a master or change the font size. The macro's don't all work and it gives me an error DialogKit is not installed. I installed it 5 times but still no luck.
I'm a bit frustrated now... I'll try it again tomorrow. This makes no sence now.

Thnx anyway :D

blank22 Mar 2011#

Superpolator is pretty solid on my machine. Send Erik an email about your problems.

vanblokland23 Mar 2011#

All sorted now, right René?

Rene Verkaart23 Mar 2011#

Works like a charm. Thanks for the great support, Erik.

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