Hey everyone,
I’m working on an Arabic font in Glyphs and I’m trying to reuse certain shapes (like tails, loops, or strokes) across multiple letters instead of redrawing them every time.
I tried using components, but I ran into a problem:
Whenever I make a component out of an Arabic glyph, it pulls the entire glyph, not the specific stroke or part I want.
At first I thought I was doing something wrong, but after reading a Glyphs blog post, I think I finally get why:
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Arabic letters are usually connected shapes, so Glyphs treats them as one contour.
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Even if the letter has disconnected shapes inside the same glyph, components still reference all of them.
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Basically: you can’t reuse “part of a glyph” unless that part is in its own separate glyph.
So now I’m realizing I need to build reusable shapes as their own little component glyphs (like a separate glyph for the bowl, or the tail, or repeated strokes) and then use those to construct the full letters.
I just want to make sure I’m understanding this correctly.
Is this the standard workflow for Arabic in Glyphs?
Do most people create a bunch of “invisible” helper glyphs for repeated shapes?
Any tips or examples would really help!
