If I have my vertical metrics setup for the Ascender to be 770 and Descender to -230 (for a UPM of 1000), am I able to set my descender alignment zones past the bottom Descender metrics box (e.g. starting position at -250) because I’d like to draw longer descenders in this design? It just looked odd having the zone floating below the bottom of the metrics box and wasn’t sure if it’d cause problems.
Why not also adapt the descender value accordingly?
The ascender/descender fields in the UI should reflect the metrics of your drawings. They don’t need to match the UPM. If you need to just the vertical spacing of your typeface, use custom parameters. Read the tutorial about the details: https://glyphsapp.com/tutorials/vertical-metrics
Thanks… I use the vertical metrics custom parameters, but I didn’t realize I could set my Ascender and Descender fields for my masters to be bigger than the 1000 UPM. I always thought it had to equal it.
So far so good… my hesitancy is wondering if the typoascender and typodescender custom parameters would be the same as my new ascender and descender metrics (that now equal bigger than the 1000 upm)… or do those parameters/metrics still need to somehow equal the 1000 upm (not sure how)?
I’m referring to the Microsoft strategy from the tutorial: “For the rest, as already mentioned above, the span from typoAscender to typoDescender must add up to your UPM value (usually 1000)”
Isn’t that clear in the tutorial? I usually do typoascender + typodescender + typolinegap = 1200 as that gives a good start for the line spacing for text font. But in the end you have to play around with it and see what fits your font. You need to match the size of the letters to other fonts and find a good default line spacing. That is all what counts.
Thanks for expanding on it. I’m sure it is clear, I’ve just had a mental block about the idea that the metrics can be bigger than the 1000 upm for Ascender/Descender metrics and the TypoAsc/Dec. I think in part it’s because I was using a more limited app prior to Glyphs and (if I recall correctly) I would get errors upon export if the metrics didn’t match the 1000 upm. I do try to match overall sizes up to other standard fonts as a guide.
Match to the other fonts by setting them next to each other in a html file (because browsers are using the metrics values as is, most desktop apps have there one way of calculating things), not by coping the numbers.
In the end you still need to test in as many apps (and systems) as you can get your hands on.
Thanks for the extra tips, Georg. Appreciate it. Yeah, I usually set next to others within apps for comparison, but not via an html file.