User Guide

unless you have some particular need to see the font’s
native encoding, that you have Fontographer re-encode
each character to your computer’s encoding vector so the
Font Window will place each character where you are used
to seeing it.
Editing behavior
Distances
The Cursor-key distance field lets Fontographer move
points around by specified amounts when you press the
arrow keys. For instance, if you set this value to be 2.7,
every time you hit an arrow key the selected points will
move exactly 2.7 units in the direction of the arrow. In
addition, if you hold down the Shift key and an arrow key,
the amount moved is ten times the normal value. Holding
down the Option key, or toggling on Caps Lock on the PC,
moves by one-tenth the normal amount.
The Grid spacing field is for setting up an invisible grid that
the Snap To Grid function snaps to. The Align Points to
Grid command also uses this as the grid. One popular use
for gridding is to have all your coordinates be on integral-
number coordinates. Simply set a grid spacing of 1 em unit,
make sure Snap To Grid is on, and then as you drag points
around, they will always fall on em unit boundaries (i.e.,
coordinates will always be 120, 66 rather than things like
120.223, 65.97).
Snap-to distance specifies how close something has to be
before a snap will occur. For instance, if Snap To Point is
on, this preference states how close in pixels the object
you’re dragging has to be to another point before it
automatically snaps to that point. If you are having trouble
moving points around because they seem to be snapping to
everything too often, try using a lower value in this field.
Behavior of Snap to Point
Fontographer User's Manual
10: Expert Advice Page #4