Not sure if anyone’s asked this before, but I’m making beta versions of some fonts for people to test. I’m interested to know if it’s possible to add a watermark to some/all glyphs when exporting? It would make sure people know it’s a beta and not a final version, and should not be installed/distributed. Something similar to the way FontLab trials used to put a logo over the top of some glyphs, has anyone done this in Glyphs yet?
Yes. For instance you can write a filter plugin that changes/replaces the layer with your desired outline. Once it works as a standalone, you can add it as a custom parameter, where you define the glyphs to be affected on export.
If this is your concern don’t watermark. Change the font name. That will keep print shops from just dumping it into their font collections that inevitably end up as giga torrents and discourage web designers from using it. Putting beta numbers into the font name will prevent font cache problems when someone is installed the third or fourth beta of your font, and makes it more obvious that this really is a development font and not just a proprietary font.
Thanks, great suggestions.
A related question. Is there a way to make the font not installable? I’m generally sending HTML files that call the font directly from its file path, so it doesn’t need to be installed.
You will not be able to prevent users installing the font. But you can make it hard. Export as woff with the ‘Web only’ parameter set.