User Guide

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Basic Font Dimensions
The page has several editing fields with numbers and a sample window
where an appropriate character is displayed to help set correct values.
Other fields on this page mean:
Ascender
Position of the font’s ascender line. Usually this is the height of the
lowercase ‘b’ character.
Descender
Position of the font’s descender line. Usually this is the position of
the bottom line of the ‘p’ character.
Caps height
Height of the font’s uppercase characters. Usually the height of the
‘H’ character.
x height
Height of the lowercase characters. Usually the height of the ‘x’
character.
Italic angle
Actual italic or oblique angle for the font. The italic angle is measured
in the counterclockwise direction, so the default value is -12º
Slant angle
Type 1 fonts can be artificially slanted to get an “oblique” appearance
while keeping the actual outlines upright. Enter a slant angle value
(in degrees) here and check the result in the Preview panel.
Underline This is the position of the middle of the underline line in your font
Thickness
This is the thickness of the underline line.
If you press the Recalculate dimensions button, FontLab will
automatically recalculate all the dimension values.
Ascender, Descender and Type 1 fonts
If you are making a Type 1 font you should set the Ascender and Descender values very carefully. In
Type 1 fonts these values are used very directly to calculate interline spacing. It is usually necessary
to set the Ascender value higher than actual height of the “ascender” ‘b’ character, to have some
additional space between lines.