How to add a glyph and assign it a custom unicode hex value? (like Font Awesome)

Glyphs
1

I am trying to create a custom web icon-font, and the one part I can’t figure out is how to use the custom, private space unicode hex values.

This is how Font Awesome is created, and I’d like to do my font the same way. For instance, F000 is not a regular unicode character. So it had to be added custom. If I open the font-awesome OTF file in Glyphs, I can see all the hex values that are in the private range.

But with my own file, I can’t seem to add any of these values, I can only use the characters that are already available, or if I add a “new glyph”, it adds it to the “other” group, but there is no unicode value set to it, and I can’t seem to add one. There is also no “unicode checker” arrow button when I click on an individual glyph either.

Does anyone know what I’m talking about?

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2

Unicode values depend on the glyph name. See Window > Glyph Info for reference. If you want a specific Unicode, use uniXXXX for 4-digit codes (BMP) and uXXXXX for 5-digit codes in the higher planes.

3

I think he tries to have PUA unicodes and assign names, too. This is currently not possible in one step.

4

it is not necessarily a PUA unicode name issue.
I am currently trying to add a certain glyph but i do not know its name, I have the unicode value but i can not seem to find a way to add it by unicode. the “add glyph” in the “font” menu only allows me to add a glyph by its name.

how do I add a glyph if i have its unicode but do not know its name??

5

As @mekkablue wrote earlier, use the names:

uniXXXX for 4-digit Unicode values (BMP)
uXXXXX for 5-digit Unicode values in the higher planes

You can enter those in the pop-up for “Add Glyphs” (Shift-Command-G).

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6

you can check “Use custom naming” in Font info > other settings (temporarily). Then the unicode field in the info box in the lower left of the font view will become editable. So that you can add your own values. The you can define the glyph names and the unicodes independently.

Or use uniXXXX names as glyph names. For PUA codes, you then can change the name to something else (even without changing the setting in Font Info).

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