Limit on number of points

1

Is there a limit on the number of points per glyph or per font?

2

There are several different limits. In CFF it is the length of the charstring (the glyph in postscript code). In TrueType it is probably 32000. But you probably run into problems with certain apps before that.

3

@Arthus He knows a thing or two about these things.

4

The technical limit is pretty high, but you’ll run into issues beforehand. For instance working speed (which runs into a hefty slowdown at around the 2k/3k mark). My way to circumvent this is to work in different placed composites, or spread your glyph across multiple glyphs and merge them at the end.

For exporting, glyphs till 9k have caused no problems for me, but the file will load extremely slow to activate (making your fontbook or font manager soft lock sometimes).

And then your software will crash once in a while as well. Adobe apps work, (be sure to use CPU rendering, not the GPU) but anything by Microsoft will usually warp your font beyond recognition.

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5

Thanks for the explanation @Arthus

My way to circumvent this is to work in different placed composites, or spread your glyph across multiple glyphs and merge them at the end.

Does this practically mean e.g. splitting up a letter into several chunks and placing them flush against each other or is there more clever way?

6

@oneweioranother Usually (depending on how expanded and intricate the typeface is) I use this method: Working in 2/3 additional no-name glyphs next to the character (with the same metrics) and merge all nodes for export. Usually this works best when placing them together as components.

But If you are working in the 2-3k range, these methods usually are not necessarily.

Hope this helps!