Multiple users and components (Glyphs Mini)

Glyphs
1

I am a teaching a type design course and we are using Glyphs Mini for the first time (we used to use TypeTool from Font Lab).

In this class, 5 students work together to design a font (each students makes about 20 characters).

This is our first time using Glyphs and I was rather excited about the components feature.

But I was wondering how components transfer and merge in multiple file situations.

Let’s say that one person creates several components in his file, then gives it to 2 other students. Those students use his components, but also make components of their own.

If another student takes all of these files and copy-pastes the glyphs into a final file, will all the components come through properly?

Additionally, what if one component is altered by one student—will all the components update when they are all brought together?

I apologize if this has been covered already; I did search the forum but didn’t see a thread covering this.

2

You should be able to do all that.

Components just refer to another glyph a show whatever outlines are there. So the outlines are updated automatically.

3

When copying glyphs made up of components, remember to copy the glyphs they reference, e.g., when copying /Aacute consisting of components of /A and /acutecomb (which both have the actual paths in them), then you would want to copy all three glyphs. If you only copy the single /Aacute glyph, the component references in the glyph would use the outlines for /A and /acutecomb in the new file. Hope that makes sense.

In the final question, if the component a student is changing is in the final file, then those changes do happen properly, as Georg stated. If the paths are changed in the first file, the final file will not see the changes, of course; there’s no connection between the files.

4

Thank you!!