User Guide
FontLab 4
344
Aliases Table
FontLab comes with an alias.dat file (located in the FontLab/Mapping
folder), which is the text file that defines the decomposition of common
composite glyphs. Here is a part of the alias.dat file:
%%FONTLAB ALIASES
nbspace space
hyphen minus
periodcentered middot
onesuperior one
ordmasculine o
onequarter one_slash_four
onehalf one_slash_two
As you can see, every line of the file contains the real name of the
component glyph followed (with a single space as the separator) by the
decomposition name:
onequarter one_slash_four
Means that when you request the glyph named “onequarter” in the
Generate Glyphs dialog box, FontLab will create a new glyph named
“onequarter” but built as a ligature using the “one”, “slash” and “four”
components as if you had entered the name “one_slash_four”.
You can modify this table to include glyph names you often need to create.