User Guide

where the outer figure is a square, but the inner figure is a
triangle. If you uncheck “Insert points to force a match,”
you run out of points to connect before you are done with
the square, so it is pretty hard to know what to do with the
extra point.
Similarly, if the outer figure is two squares and the inner
figure is a single rectangle, you don’t have enough figures
to connect; Fontographer would complain that the number
of paths didn’t match. A more subtle error occurs when the
two figures have the same number of points, but the points
don’t correspond well. Consider the case shown in Figure 1,
but where the outer rectangle had four points inserted into
the line from point 1 to point 2, and the inner rectangle had
four points in the line from point 3 to point 4. Even though
the point count is the same, the points don’t correspond in a
way that will give a pleasant result.
To make characters interpolate more easily, Fontographer
reorders the points (and the paths) if you check
the “Correct path directions” check-box. If you correct
path directions on all characters of each font you are trying
to interpolate, Fontographer will almost always arrange the
points so that they match up, and interpolating will give you
the right result. On rare occasions, due to the way some
characters might have been drawn, you can confuse
Fontographer’s point ordering technique. If this occurs, you
will know it from the heinous interpolate results (characters
will appear imploded, or turned inside-out, like the proverbial
font-in-a-blender). Those cases will require manual point
reordering with the Point Information dialog. Select a point
on the character, choose “Selection Info,” then move to the
next or previous point until you are at the desired starting
point. Check the “Make first” button, and Fontographer
will make that point the first point of the path.
The Point Information dialog also shows the total number of
path contours and the total points in the current contour.
See “Point” and “Path” in the illustration below.
This is useful for finding mismatches between the same
character in different fonts. You will have to figure out the
best technique for getting the points to match on a
Fontographer User's Manual
10: Expert Advice Page #11