New user: is there an illustrator template available?

Glyphs
1

is there an illustrator template available that will size the glyphs properly so I can just copy/paste into the Glyphs app and it will be sized and positioned properly?

2

Consider drawing in Glyphs instead of drawing in Illustrator and then copying to Glyphs.

Glyphs is purpose-built for glyph drawing, with many specialized features that you will not find in Illustrator, much greater control over curves, and the option to reuse components, corners, segments, and many other aspects of a font.

If you need help with anything, feel free to ask. If you think Illustrator is a better fit for drawing the glyphs of your font, could you share some sketches? Perhaps that can help us figure out how to do the same in Glyphs or how to make an Illustrator template that fits your needs.

3

Drawing in Glyphs has many advantages, so I can highly recommend working only in-app. But if you want to work in illustrator for a reason, there are some things which can help when you want to copy-paste straight from the program.

  • Keep in mind your canvas size, this will have to be similar to unit count of your font (which you can find under command+i). Usually this is 1000, so you will need an artboard of 1000px high to cover your descenders and ascenders.
  • Make sure to place your baseline correctly in the Illustrator artboard (for your own convenience). The default settings in Glyphs are 200px from the bottom.
  • As you mention, positioning isn’t always going as you would want. To make it fit correctly, you want to set the bottom-left origin point of your Illustrator artboard to the x/y location of 0/0. Do mind that pasted vectors will still move around. A workaround is to paste your letter-vectors together with a bounding box of your canvas height (so for this example 1000px high). Afterwards you can delete the bounding box.
  • Of course you can only have one canvas which will properly import, so it’s best to put all your letters in different layers, so they share the same origin point.
  • Be aware that some paths will break when pasted, or give unintended results which requires cleaning up.
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4

Illustrator is not a good itself but when install https://astutegraphics.com/ then it is a pretty good. Check that plugin it’s very important plugin for illustrator.
For example, it moves anchor on path, and anchor snap to extremes.
add tangent anchor to path.

5

thanks, I’ll give it a try for the next project. This initial one is a dingbat with images that already exist in AI.

6

Draw a box in Glyphs that includes the ascender and descender. Then copy it to Illustrator. That will be your template.

Or, if all your drawings are smaller by a specific multiple, there is a custom parameter in Font info > Font called “unit to point ratio” (or something similar, not on my Mac right now). That will prescale the copy pasted outlines.

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7

Thanks everyone. What a helpful and friendly lot you are here! Glad to have discovered this app.

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