FontForge to Glyphs transition - scripting "Insert Word Outline" function

Hi,
I’m a type design noob creating a custom font for personal use.

I’m making a CJK font in which a single glyph will contain the shape of an entire word, eg:

  • A => “aye”
  • B => “bee”
  • C => “cite”
  • D => “djinn”
  • E => “eye”
  • …etc…

I’m actually able to do this manually in FontForge, using the “Insert Word Outline…” menu item, but the scripting doesn’t support that call so it would be incredibly tedious to manually build the number of glyphs I have in mind (it’s for Korean Hangul).

Anyone know whether this is feasible to do and to script in Glyphs?

Thanks!

Insert the respective components in the right order (Cmd-shift-C, type the glyph name of the letter you want to insert, repeat), then, when the word is finished, decompose (Cmd-shift-D). Or better yet, keep the components and do not decompose.

Thank you, I’m able to perform those steps manually via UI to get the desired output.

However, the successive calls to “Cmd-Shift-C” piled the components on top of one another, resulting in my having to manually realign them, which is a bit iffy to do by hand via UI and I’m not sure at all how to do so by script.

Is there a way to insert an entire word at a time, rather than letter-by-letter?

Thanks!

Activate automatic alignment. There is a font-wide option in Font Info > Other Settings, and you can do it on a glyph level via the context menu (when components are selected).

Hmm, when I check Font > Menu > File > Font Info > Other Settings

the “Disable automatic Alignment” option is already un-checked, which is to say auto-alignment was already active.

As for Glyph-level Paths > Align Selection, seems to have no effect

I’m going doing a concurrent evaluation of Robofont, given its Python orientation that might be easier for me to work with anyway

Thanks for the help!

The python interface for these kind of things is as good in Glyphs as in RF: docu.glyphsapp.com

Align selection is not supposed to do anything. Right click the components and choose ‘Enable automatic alignment’.