User Guide

Glyph Window
303
Me t r i c s
The Metric data of a glyph includes information about the horizontal and
vertical width. Glyphs have an origin point, a baseline, sidebearings, and
left and right margins:
Left sidebearing
Baseline
Charac ter wid th
Righ t sidebearing
Righ t margin
Zero or origin poin t
The baseline is used to align characters in a series. The left and right
margins are used to define the positions of sequential characters in a series
when the horizontal writing mode is selected. In the vertical writing mode
the left and right margins are used to horizontally align characters and the
top margin is used to vertically align characters.
In FontLab, the position of the origin point is the position of the left
margin in the horizontal direction and the position of the baseline in the
vertical direction. However, you can modify the position of any of the four
margins. If you move the baseline or left margin line you will shift the
entire glyph, but as a result the left margin is moved.