User Guide

character. Since you changed the contents of this
particular Outline Window, it’s important that you change
the width as well.
To change the character’s width:
1. Make sure you still have the Outline Window for
the “f” open.
2. You can choose “Preview” and turn off Show Points
from the View menu to get a better look at the
character if you like.
3. Move the width line with the selection pointer.
That’s all there is to it! So, if your font doesn’t contain the
ligature you want, you now know how to create your own
with Fontographer.
In some word processing and page layout programs you can
set the preferences to automatically substitute curly quotes
for straight ones, or the fl ligature if you type “fl.” For the
substitutions to occur, you’ll need to be sure to use an
Adobe encoded font.
Creating a condensed character or font
Fontographer has the ability to modify character images to
produce interesting special effects. You can create these
effects in either the Outline Window (on one particular
character) or the Font Window (on the whole font). For
example, you can create an oblique font by selecting all the
characters in the Font Window and skewing them -12
degrees (like we did in the earlier exercise “To skew a
character”). Or you can create an extended font, by
increasing the horizontal scaling factor of the font. Your
options are limitless.
You can also create a condensed font by scaling the
character 80% horizontally. Condensed versions of a font
are the same height as their counterparts, but are narrower
Fontographer User's Manual
1: Modifying Your Fonts Page #14