Converting a bitmap color font with Glyphs

Glyphs
1

Hi,

I have sent one of my fonts (it is a demo) to my friend to test it on Glyphs. It’s a chromatic font (sbix tables). But when she tried to export font as an .otf she got this error. Why can’t she convert the font?

image.jpg1279×759 321 KB

Thanks,

2

There is an error in the OpenType features. It it was opened from a .otf, the import of the features is not 100%. She should check Font Info > Features.

1 Like
3

Thanks for the reply.

Actually it was a .ttf file exported by TransType. And because it is a demo, I removed all OT features.

I will tell her this and if I may eventually what she can do about that?

Another question. An exported font with these conditions would be a bitmap font or Glyphs also creates or converts the bitmaps to vectors (b&w)? I saw some apps create a ‘layer file’ too.

Thanks,

4

Not sure what you mean, but Glyphs does not convert bitmaps to vectors. There is a tutorial about setting up sbix fonts.

5

When a font has chromatic layers FontLab VI and TransType create a layer ttf font which includes all the layers but in b&w. They also do this when a bitmap font is exported by them. In the process they convert all the bitmaps to vectors. It’s like what AI does in a image trace process. I hope you can see the process now.

The sbix is already created, but thank you.

And I didn’t realize the first part. If a font doesn’t have OT features it can’t be exported by Glyphs?

6

That doesn’t matter. You can export a font with and without OT features.

Compiled features are difficult to reverse engineer though. So something may get lost if you open a compiled font.

7

Hi,

I asked her to see the Font info > Features This is it:

photo_2017-10-26_00-40-11.jpg1277×762 184 KB

And these are other errors shown while exporting the font in ttf or woff:

photo_2017-10-26_00-40-16.jpg1277×762 260 KB
photo_2017-10-26_00-40-21.jpg1279×762 247 KB

And the other weird thing is glyphs can be seen in the main window, but not in the glyph window. It is empty:

photo_2017-10-26_00-40-28.jpg1275×764 78.8 KB

And this zip file was exported:
SI47ASH.zip (25.2 KB)

Thanks,

8

The glyphs are on the iColor layers. Placed bitmaps. See the tutorial about sbix fonts. I suggest:

  1. Select all glyphs and Glyph > Update Glyph Info
  2. In Font Info > Features, turn on automation for all features.