User Guide

as it crosses clockwise paths. In the case of the “O,” the
outer path should be drawn clockwise and the inner path
counterclockwise.
Technically, it doesn’t make any difference whether the
outside path is clockwise or counterclockwise, but for the
sake of consistency between Fontographer’s fonts and the
proper operation of automatic hints, the outer paths should
be clockwise and the inner paths counterclockwise.
Even-odd fill (Macintosh)
The other filling technique is called an even-odd fill. A point
is outside, and thus not filled, if a line away from that point
in any direction crosses an even number of paths,
regardless of the path direction. In the case of the “O,”
even-odd filling would have the desired result even if both
paths were clockwise. Fontographer will fill the paths
properly as long as the paths do not self-intersect.
Metrics
PostScript stores auxiliary information in the character
metrics table. This contains information such as the width
of the character, its origin, and its bounding box. This table
is generated automatically by Fontographer as you edit the
character. The only direct user interaction with the
character metrics is specification of the character width.
The width is the distance by which the drawing pen is
advanced before starting the next character. The origin
point of the current character is aligned with the width
point of the previous character before drawing the current
character.
TrueType fonts
This is an outline font format developed by Apple
Computer (for use with System 7) and supported by
Microsoft Corporation. TrueType is the primary font
format for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.
Type 1 fonts
Type 1 fonts are the standard type of PostScript fonts.
These may be sent to PostScript printers or viewed on-
screen with Adobe System’s program, Adobe Type
Manager (ATM).
Fontographer User's Manual
C: General information Page #8