User Guide

mode, with the points turned off. This is a very exciting path
editing feature, but it makes it easier to accidentally modify
paths.
Point display
The picture area at the top of this dialog box is the most
important part of this screen. It lets you see the effect of
each of the items in the dialog: simply change the state of
one of the checkboxes, and look at the picture to see how
that will affect the outline editing environment.
Rather than document all of the 128 different combinations
of checkbox items and their effects, we’ll just comment on
a few of the items.
Hilite the first point in each path, when checked, draws a
square around the first point in each path. This information
is useful for doing Font Blending, or for multiple master font
creation (on the Macintosh). Some people objected to the
visual clutter of showing that, and so we made it a
preference so it can be turned off.
Hilite the ends of unclosed paths is a way to tell at a
glance whether a path is opened or closed. Sometimes it is
not clear in the Outline Window whether a path is opened
or closed. (It is easy to lay down the last point of a path a
little too far away from the first point, and so the path
doesn’t close like you think it did.) When this preference is
on, big gray circles will appear around the two endpoints.
The purpose of this preference is not to have it on all the
time. What you should do is turn this preference on, flip
rapidly through all the characters in the font, see if any have
this problem of paths being left open, and then turn off the
preference when you have finished.
Hilite adjacent points that overlap when checked, causes
Fontographer User's Manual
10: Expert Advice Page #6