Typophile

Fontforge problem: Kerning doesn't work.

Gregor Stiebert0 votes

Hello everybody!
I'm having a huge problem in Fontforge. I'm an absolute beginner at typography so please have mercy.

What I tried to do was creating a type from hand-drawn letters. I used Illustrator to create a 'svg' file and transported the letters to Fontforge. I created every capital letters, every small letter, a period, question mark and some other extrema.

I did the kerning manually without autokerning (I'm not used to this kind of thing so I won't be able to explain it in full detail).
When I was finished I generated a truetype font. Sadly there is little to no kerning visible and I'm doubting the kerning applies at all. I need this font for a project so it's really urgent.

I'm using WIndows XP nd apparently Fontforge version 1 if this is of any help.

I'm literally begging on my knees here. I don't know what to do. I probably just forgot to do a little thing, but I'm not sure.
If you have ANY Idea how to help I'll be happy.

Jan Żurawski0 votes

Hi,
did you read this chapter? http://www.booki.cc/fontforge/spacing-and-metrics/
please show us your Font Information -> Lookups -> GPOS

George Thomas0 votes

You didn't mention what app you are testing the font in, and whatever it is may not support OpenType features.

When you generate your font, in the Truetype Options make sure " Old Style 'Kern' " is checked. That may solve your problem.

George

Gregor Stiebert0 votes

Thanks to both of you.

@George: I already tried that, sadly it didn't work out.
@Janek: Thanks for the link! I'm reading it right now.

I lucked out, because a friend of mine let me use his version of FontLab and I was able to kern the font there. I can't believe how much easier it is in FontLab.

I guess my problem was, that I kerned the font with only one subtable. I am, of course, not sure, and I'm very, very thankful that you took your time to help me!
If you still know why this didn't work out I would be happy to learn! I used the Windows Font Viewer to look at the kerning and added it in InDesign where it clearly showed no signs of kerning.

Jan Żurawski0 votes

"If you still know why this didn't work out I would be happy to learn!"
Can you upload the feature file somewhere? It will tell something (or not).
"I can't believe how much easier it is in FontLab."
only kidding ;)

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