User Guide

and Fontographer has no way of knowing where that file
might be.
Kerning tables are stored in various places: on the
Macintosh, the kerning information is stored in the bitmap
suitcase; on the PC, it is stored in the PFM file. Kerning
and spacing information can be found in other places as
well: AFM files, other Fontographer databases (.fog), or in
the Fontographer Metrics files (.met) described later in this
chapter. When you have opened the outline font, you can
choose “Import,” then “Metrics” from the File menu. That
command brings up a standard file dialog. Simply select the
file which contains the kerning tables, and Fontographer will
open that file and apply those kerning pairs to your font.
You should be sure to do this when modifying existing
typefaces; otherwise, unless you create them yourself, your
font will not have any kerning pairs in it. TrueType fonts
often have embedded kerning information. Fontographer will
read in any existing kerning data as it opens a TrueType font.
Clearing kerning pairs
If you import the kerning from the wrong font, either by
accident or because you were curious about how Helvetica
might look with Times-Roman spacing, you can easily undo
this “experiment” by choosing “Clear Kerning” from the
Metrics menu. This command will remove all kerning pairs
from the font you are editing. Then use the Import Metrics
command again!
Exporting Metrics
Sometimes you want to export a font’s metrics to a file.
There are a couple of reasons for doing this. For example,
you might want to experiment with a number of different
sets of metrics to see which fits the best. With the ability to
export the current metrics information, you can save off
what you have, choose “Clear Kerning Pairs” from the
Metrics menu, and then try importing a bunch of stuff; if
that doesn’t work out, you can import the metrics you
exported, and be right back where you started.
Another reason to export metrics is just to see them all.
Some people like to see all the width values in a big list, as
Fontographer User's Manual
5: Metrics: Spacing and Kerning Page #16