Modifying Fonts
Being able to customise and modify fonts for specific use-cases is incredibly powerful. While tools like FontSquirrel exist to create web-optimised fonts, doing this work manually with FontForge can give you far more control over file size and output of the font.
Removing Characters
A good idea to do before removing characters is to take a look at your use case and determine what’s needed and what isn’t.
- ∘ To make it easier to find all the characters, go to Encoding > Compact (hide unused glyphs).
- ∘ Select the characters to be removed.
- ∘ Remove them by going to Encoding > Detach & Remove Glyphs.
Adding Characters
To add a character, we’ll need a donor font which includes it. For example, if you need a unicode symbol then Symbola would be the font. However keep in mind that the base font will then need to be re-encoded to accept unicode by going to Encoding > Reencode > Unicode, Full.
- ∘ In the donor font, remove all the characters except the ones we want to add to the base font.
- ∘ Next, save this file: File > Save as... and make sure it is a .sfd file.
- ∘ Go to the base font, which we want to add the character(s) to.
- ∘ Import the file we just save: Element > Merge Fonts. You may be asked about kerning, this doesn't matter.
- ∘ Lastly, if we need to rescale the characters, select the imported glyphs by going to Edit > Select > Changed Glyphs. Then to scale the characters, go to Element > Transformations > Transform.
- ∘ Set Origin to Center of Selection, the second option to Scale Uniformly.. and then set the percentage. Make sure all the option boxes below are ticked.
- ∘ After adding characters, it's always a good idea to reencode to avoid any errors or issues - Encoding > Reencode > whatever options fits (dont use custom).
Exporting Fonts
When you’ve finished working on your font, you’ll need to export it to usable formats. This is achieved using the Generate Fonts option.
- ∘ Go to File > Generate Fonts...
- ∘ Navigate to where you want to save the font in the filesystem.
- ∘ Select the file type to export as in the option for it, make sure your file has the correct format extension as FontForge doesn't tend to change this for you.
- ∘ Before generating, make sure to tick Validate Before Saving. This will highlight any issues with the font, make sure to fix these before generating.
- ∘ Finally, the font can be generated.