User Guide

throw away your edits to these values, or to get new values
after substantially editing the font, press the “Recalc” button.
Changing the default Hint Parameters
In the Font Window, Hint Parameters works with the
selected characters. For example, if you wanted to modify
some of the parameters for an entire font, you would simply
Select All prior to bringing up Hint Parameters.
Option or Alt-Hint Parameters, on the other hand, changes
the defaults for new characters.
What happens when Fontographer opens up
PostScript Type 1 fonts
When a PostScript Type 1 font is read, Fontographer
always keeps the hints that were defined as part of the
font. Each character is marked as having user-edited hints.
This lets you generate a Type 1 font and still leave the
original hints unchanged. Before generating a TrueType
font, however, you should select all characters and
choose “Autohint” from the Hints menu, so serif and
diagonal hints can be found. This will remove the original
stem hints and find new ones.
Autohinting is on by default, so when you edit a character,
its hints get recalculated. This is usually what you want to
happen. If you change the outline, you don’t want to still
have the hints for the old outline—you want new hints to
match the new outline, which is what autohinting gives you.
However, sometimes you may want to make extremely
minor tweaks to the outline, and keep the exact original
hints. You can accomplish this by turning Autohinting off, in
the Hints menu (the Autohinting item is essentially a toggle;
when it is on, as indicated by a check mark, you turn it off
simply by selecting it).
Important: If you turn autohinting back on, it will re-hint the
selected characters. Usually, that’s not a problem, because
you either want Autohinting or you want manual
hinting—you rarely want to switch between them. To
preserve hints for the entire font, go to the Font Window,
Select All, and then turn Autohinting off. To rehint the entire
Fontographer User's Manual
10: Expert Advice Page #28