FontLab Font Editor: Original Glyphs, Spacing and Export

FontLab’s current creator page describes version8 as a Mac and Windows editor with native cubic and quadratic outline editing, reusable glyph components, metrics and kerning tools, and support for variable and color-font production. These are capabilities of the external application, not an editor embedded in this website.

Start at the official FontLab resource and use its linked manual for your version. For a first original exercise, draw a straight-sided form and a round form at a shared height. Compare their apparent weight before filling the whole alphabet. Keep shape revisions separate from the spaces on either side so that a width problem is not repeatedly “fixed” by redrawing a letter. The free FontForge editor guide describes another application, not another name for FontLab.

The maker describes multiline metrics and kerning work plus automatic suggestions. Before applying broad changes, make a small control proof of repeated straight and round letters, short words and the punctuation your design needs. Preserve the unchanged proof beside each revision.

First decide whether the problem belongs to one letter’s general side spacing or to a particular adjacent pair. A pair-specific correction should not conceal an overly loose letter everywhere else. As the alphabet expands, add real words containing the revised characters rather than judging each glyph alone. See tracking and kerning context for the difference between adjustments to a whole text range and selected letter pairs.

FontLab lists editable source interchange and export formats including desktop OpenType, variable fonts and webfonts. Decide what the recipient needs before exporting: the source for future drawing work and an installable font for a layout are different deliverables.

For a small learning project, save an identifiable source version and export the intended format under a clear family and style name. Prepare a separate layout sample showing the exact words and characters completed so far. Do not imply that a short alphabet exercise already covers every accented name or writing system. Source Sans 3 and Source Code Pro are independent reference specimens here. The homepage font generator changes copyable Unicode characters; it does not create these editable font sources or replace a production editor.