# fontforge

## Module attributes

fontforge.hooks

  A dictionary which the user may fill to associate certain FontForge events with a python function to be run when those events happen. The function will be passed the font (or possibly glyph) for which the relevant event occurred.

  Hook names

  newFontHook

    This function will be called when a new font has been created.

  loadFontHook

    This function will be called when a font is loaded from disk. (if a font has an “initScriptString” entry in its persistent dictionary, that script will be invoked before this function).

  Other hooks are defined in a font’s own temporary and persistent dictionaries.

fontforge.splineCorner

  A point type enumeration of value 0

fontforge.splineCurve

  A point type enumeration of value 1

fontforge.splineHVCurve

  A point type enumeration of value 2

fontforge.splineTangent

  A point type enumeration of value 3

fontforge.spiroG4

  A spiro point type enumeration of value 1.

  A Spiro G4 curve point

fontforge.spiroG2

  A spiro point type enumeration of value 2.

  A Spiro G2 curve point

fontforge.spiroCorner

  A spiro point type enumeration of value 3.

  A Spiro corner point

fontforge.spiroLeft

  A spiro point type enumeration of value 4.

  A Spiro left “tangent” point

fontforge.spiroRight

  A spiro point type enumeration of value 5.

  A Spiro right “tangent” point

fontforge.spiroOpen

  A spiro point type enumeration of value 6.

  This may only be used on the first point in a spiro tuple. It indicates that the tuple describes an open contour.

fontforge.unspecifiedMathValue

  A constant, used when the value is unspecified

## Module functions

fontforge.getPrefs(pref_name)

  returns the value of the named preference item

fontforge.setPrefs(pref_name, value)

  sets the value of the named preference item

fontforge.hasSpiro()

  Returns a boolean, `True` if Raph Levien’s spiro package is available for use in FontForge.

fontforge.savePrefs()

  Saves the current preference settings

fontforge.loadPrefs()

  Loads the user’s default preference settings. Not done automatically in a script.

fontforge.defaultOtherSubrs()

  Sets the type1 PostScript OtherSubrs to the default value

fontforge.readOtherSubrsFile(filename)

  Sets the type1 PostScript OtherSubrs to the stuff found in the file.

fontforge.loadEncodingFile(filename[, encname])

  Loads an encoding file, returns the name of the encoding or `None`. When loading encodings in Unicode consortium format, an encname has to be specified or the encoding will be ignored and `None` will be returned.

fontforge.loadNamelist(filename)

  Loads a namelist

fontforge.loadNamelistDir(dirname)

  Loads all namelist files in the directory

fontforge.preloadCidmap(filename, registry, order, supplement)

  Loads a FontForge cidmap file (first three args are strings, last is an integer)

fontforge.printSetup(type[, printer|cmd|file, width, height])

  Prepare to `print a font sample`. The first argument may be one of:

  lp

    Queues postscript output to the printer using lp. You may use the optional second argument to specify the printer name.

  lpr

    Queues postscript output to the printer using lpr. You may use the optional second argument to specify the printer name.

  ghostview

    Displays the output using ghostview (or gv). The second argument is ignored.

  command

    Use a custom shell command to print the output. The second argument should contain the command and its arguments.

  ps-file

    Dump the postscript output to a file. The second argument specifies the filename.

  The third and fourth arguments are optional and specify the page size (in points) for the output. The third argument is the page width and the fourth is the height. These settings remain until changed.

fontforge.nameFromUnicode(uni[, namelist])

  Finds the glyph name associated with a given unicode codepoint. If a namelist is specified the name will be taken from that.

fontforge.UnicodeAnnotationFromLib(n)

  Returns the Unicode Annotations for this value as described by www.unicode.org. If there is no unicode annotation for this value, or no library available, then return empty string “”. It can execute with no current font.

fontforge.UnicodeBlockCountFromLib(n)

  Return the number of Unicode Blocks as described by www.unicode.org. Currently, the blocks are {0..233}, spanning unicode values {uni0..uni10FFFF}. If there is no value, then return -1. This can execute with no current font.

fontforge.UnicodeBlockEndFromLib(n)

  Returns the Unicode Block end value as described by www.unicode.org. Currently, the blocks are {0..233}, spanning unicode values {uni0..uni10FFFF}. If there is no value, then return -1. This can execute with no current font.

fontforge.UnicodeBlockNameFromLib(n)

  Returns the Unicode Block Name as described by www.unicode.org. Currently, the blocks are {0..233}, spanning unicode values {uni0..uni10FFFF}. If there is no value, then return empty string “”. This can execute with no current font.

fontforge.UnicodeBlockStartFromLib(n)

  Returns the Unicode Block start value as described by www.unicode.org. Currently, the blocks are {0..233}, spanning unicode values {uni0..uni10FFFF}. If there is no value, then return -1. This can execute with no current font.

fontforge.unicodeFromName(glyphname)

  Looks up glyph name in its dictionary and if it is associated with a unicode code point returns that number. Otherwise it returns -1

fontforge.UnicodeNameFromLib(n)

  Returns the Unicode Name for this value as described by www.unicode.org. If there is no unicode name for this value, then return empty string “”. It can execute with no current font.

fontforge.UnicodeNamesListVersion()

  Return the Unicode Nameslist Version (as described by www.unicode.org).

  This can execute with no current font.

fontforge.UnicodeNames2FromLib(val)

  Errors and corrections happen, therefore names can be corrected in the next Unicode Nameslist version. This function returns the formal alias for the unicode value given, or an empty string if there is no such alias.

fontforge.scriptFromUnicode(n)

  Return the script tag for the given Unicode codepoint. So, for `ord('Q')`, it would return `latn`. This is most useful with `font.addLookup()`, like:

      # Add a `mark` lookup for an arbitrary glyph...
      script = fontforge.scriptFromUnicode(glyph.unicode)
      font.addLookup("l1", "gpos_mark2base", None, (("mark",((script,("dflt")),)),))
      font.addLookupSubtable("l1", "l1-1")
      font.addAnchorClass("l1-1", "top")

fontforge.SpiroVersion()

  Returns the version of LibSpiro available to FontForge. Versions 0.1 to 0.5 do not have a method to indicate version numbers, but there is a limited method to estimate versions {‘0.0’..’0.5’}. ‘0.0’ if FontForge has no LibSpiro available. ‘0.1’ if LibSpiro 20071029 is available. ‘0.2’ if LibSpiro 0.2 to 0.5 is available. LibSpiro 0.6 and higher reports back its version available.

fontforge.version()

  Returns FontForge’s version number. This will be a large number like 20070406.

fontforge.loadPlugins()

  Discovers and loads FontForge python plugins according to the current configuration, if not already loaded. This is primarily intended when importing FontForge into a python process but can also be when loading is delayed by the `-skippyplug` command-line flag.

fontforge.getPluginInfo()

  Returns a list of dictionary objects describing configured and/or discovered plugins. Configured plugins are listed first in loading order followed by any newly discovered plugins. Each dictionary object will have the keys:

  name

    The name of the plugin as defined by its author.

  enabled

    “On” if the plugin is enabled, “Off” if it is disabled, “New” if the user has not yet configured this plugin.

  status

    “Not Found” if the plugin is configured but was not discovered. “Couldn’t Load” if the plugin was discovered and its load status is “On” but the relevant module could not be imported. “Couldn’t Start” if the module could be imported but the initialization function was missing or returned an error. “Unloaded” if the plugin was discovered and its load status is “On” but loading has not been attempted (most likely because of a configuration change or startup flag). `None` if the plugin was discovered but has load status “Off” or New” or if it was loaded successfully.

  package_name

    The name of the Python package containing the plugin.

  module_name

    The name of the Python module carrying the initialization function.

  attrs

    Additional sub-objects or properties of the module needed to pick out the location of the initialization function (if any).

  prefs

    A boolean indicating whether the plugin has configurable preferences.

  package_url

    The “Home-page” URL listed in the package, if any.

  summary

    The “Summary” line in the package’s metadata with a brief description of the plugin.

  Some of these values will be `None` if the plugin has not been loaded and a few more will be `None` if the plugin was not discovered.

fontforge.configurePlugins([List of dictionaries])

  This method allows plugins to be reconfigured using the Python API. It accepts a list (or any other iterable object) of dictionaries similar to those provided by `getPluginInfo()` except that only the `name` and `enabled` fields are examined. The `name` value must be the name of a known (currently configured or discovered) plugin. The `enabled` value must be “On” or “Off”. The configuration will be updated to correspond to the listed plugins in the specified order.

  If a plugin that was not discovered is missing from the list it will be removed from the configuration. Any missing but discovered plugins will be added to the end of the configuration list with load status “New”.

fontforge.runInitScripts()

  Runs the system or user initialization scripts, if not already run. This is primarily intended when importing FontForge into a python process.

fontforge.scriptPath()

  Returns a tuple listing the directory paths which are searched for python scripts during FontForge initialization.

fontforge.fonts()

  Returns a tuple of all fonts currently loaded into FontForge for editing

fontforge.activeFont()

  If the script were invoked from the File->Execute Script… dialog, or invoked by a menu item in the font view, this returns the font that was active at the time. Otherwise it returns `None`.

fontforge.activeGlyph()

  If the script were invoked from the File->Execute Script… dialog or a menu item from an outline glyph window or a glyph import/export command this returns the glyph that was active at the time. Otherwise it returns `None`.

fontforge.activeLayer()

  This returns the currently active layer as an integer between 0 (inclusive) and the font/glyph’s layer count (exclusive). It may also be set to -1 if the current glyph window is displaying the font’s guideline layer.

fontforge.fontsInFile(filename)

  Returns a tuple of all font names found in the specified file. The tuple may be empty if FontForge couldn’t find any.

fontforge.open(filename[, flags])

  Opens a filename and returns the font it contains (if any). The optional `flags` argument can be string tuple or integer combination of the following flags:

  fstypepermitted (1)

    The user has the appropriate license to examine the font no matter what the fstype setting is.

  allglyphsinttc (4)

    Load all glyphs from the ‘glyf’ table of a ttc font (rather than only the glyphs used in the font picked).

  fontlint (8)

    Report more error conditions.

  hidewindow (16)

    Do not create a view window for this font even if the UI is active.

    Note

    This option supports efficient bulk processing of fonts in scripts run through the UI but using it can be tricky. Open fonts will be listed at the bottom of the “Window” menu but choosing them will have no effect.

    If some fonts are not closed you may need to “force-quit” the application using your OS.

  alltables (32)

    Retain all recognized font tables that do not have a native format.

fontforge.parseTTInstrs(string)

  Returns a binary string each byte of which corresponds to a truetype instruction. The input string should contain a set of instruction names as

      "SRP0 MIRP[min,rnd,black]"

fontforge.unParseTTInstrs(sequence)

  Reverse of the above. Converts a binary string into a human (sort of) readable string

fontforge.unitShape(n)

  Returns a closed contour which is a regular n-gon. The contour will be inscribed in the unit circle. If n is negative, then the contour will be circumscribed around the unit circle. A value of 0 will produce a unit circle. If n==1 it is treated as if n were -4 – a circumscribed square where each side is 2 units long (this is for historical reasons). Behavior is undefined for n=2,-1,-2.

fontforge.registerGlyphSeparationHook(hook)

  The GlyphSeparationHook is a python routine which FontForge will call when it wants to figure out the optical separation between two glyphs. If you never call this, or if you call it with a value of `None` FontForge will use a built-in default. This routine gets called during AutoWidth, AutoKern, and computing the optical left and right side bearings (for ‘lfbd’ and ‘rtbd’ features). For more information see its own section.

## User Interface Module Functions

Users may define scripts to be run when menu items are invoked. Some of these scripts will want to ask users questions, so this section provides routines to determine if FontForge has a user interface, a command to add menu items, and various small standard dialogs to interact with the user. I do not currently provide a mechanism for allowing people to define special purpose dialogs (for example they might want to ask more than one question in a dialog, and I don’t support that).

When FontForge starts (if it’s a FontForge with python) it will look at the directories `$(PREFIX)/share/fontforge/python` and `~/.config/fontforge/python` and attempt to run all files in those directories which end in `".py"`. Presumably these files will allow people to customize the user interface to suit their needs.

Currently it reads the files in directory order (which is generally somewhere between creation order and totally random). It will read the system directory before the user directory.

Example

    import fontforge

    def nameGlyph(junk, glyph):
       print(glyph.glyphname)

    fontforge.registerMenuItem(callback=nameGlyph, context="Glyph",
                               name=("Print Glyph Name", "MyExt_PrintGlyphName"))

    def neverEnableMe(junk, glyph):
       return False

    fontforge.registerMenuItem(callback=nameGlyph, enable=neverEnableMe, context="Glyph",
                               submenu=("SubMenu", "MyExt_SubMenu"),
                               name=("Print Glyph Name", "MyExt_PrintGlyphName"))

    def importGlyph(junk, glyph, filename, toback):
       print("Import")
       print(glyph.glyphname)
       print(filename)

    def exportGlyph(junk, glyph, filename):
       print("Import")
       print(glyph.glyphname)
       print(filename)

    fontforge.registerImportExport(importGlyph, exportGlyph, None, "foosball", "foo", "foo,foobar")

The first call will define a menu item in the Tools menu of the Glyph window. The menu will be called “Print Glyph Name”. It has no shortcut to invoke it. It needs no external data. It is always enabled. And when activated it will invoke the function “nameGlyph” which prints the name of the glyph in the window from which the command is invoked.

The second call defines a menu item in a submenu of the Tools menu. This submenu is called “SubMenu”. This item will never be enabled – but if it were enabled it would again call “nameGlyph” to print the name of the current glyph.

The last provides a way to import and export files of type “foosball” (or it would if the routines did anything).

Not a very useful example.

fontforge.hasUserInterface()

  Returns `True` if this session of FontForge has a user interface

fontforge.registerMenuItem(callback, enable, data, context, hotkey, {submenu_names, } name)
(Positional interface)

fontforge.registerMenuItem(callback, enable=None, data=None, context, hotkey=None, name, submenu=None, keyword_only=False)
(Keyword interface)

fontforge.registerMenuItem(context, divider, submenu=None)
(Divider interface)

  If FontForge has a user interface this will add this menu item to the FontForge menu(s) specified by the `context` parameter. This second keyword interface is explained in the `divider` section.

  We also recommend reading the Menu section of Extending FontForge with Python

  Note: The positional interface is forward-compatible with earlier versions of FontForge.

  callback

    This is the function that will be called when the menu item is activated. It will be passed two arguments, the first is the data value specified here (which defaults to `None`) and the second is a `fontforge.glyph` or `fontforge.font` object (depending on the `context`). The callback’s return value is ignored.

  enable

    When specified this function is called with the same arguments as `callback` right before the menu or submenu is displayed. When it returns `True` the menu item will be enabled and when it returns `False` it will be disabled. (When `enable` is `None` the menu item is always enabled.)

  data

    `data` can be whatever you want; it defaults to `None`. FontForge passes it to both of the above functions. It can be used to provide context or default arguments for the function (so that one function can be used for multiple menu items.)

  context

    Currently this can the string `"Font"`, the string `"Glyph"` or the tuple `("Font", "Glyph")`). `"Font"` will add the menu item to the FontView “Tools” menu or its submenu, while `"Glyph"` will add it to the CharView tools menu or its submenu.

  hotkey

    `hotkey` must be either `None` or a string in hotkey format, which is the same as the second part of a HotKey assignment. Because hotkeys are a “limited resource” this string is only a suggestion; it has no effect when the specified HotKey is already taken. Therefore, before picking a candidate HotKey you should at least verify that it is not already used by the relevant window in FontForge.

    Even when the specified HotKey is taken a user can still specify their own in the HotKeys file. You can make this easier to do, now and in the future, by providing the full triplet of names for each “level” using the current interface.

  name

    `name` can be a string but ideally it is a tuple of three strings `(localized_name, english_name, identifier_string)` or of two strings `(english_name, identifier_string)`. Use the three-tuple version when your plugin or other extension is localized and the two-tuple version when it is not localized or the user has configured the base locale.

    Note: The `english_name` and `localized_name` can and should include a mnemonic, picked out by a leading underscore. However, mnemonics at the top level (so the first `submenu` name or the `name` if `submenu` is `None`) are taken as a suggestion, similar to the `hotkey` argument. Please read the sections on Internationalization and Localization and on Mnemonics in Extending FontForge with Python.

    The `identifier_string` should be a single alphanumeric (plus underscores, but no spaces) string to identify this menu item. In the future this will serve as the representation of the menu item in menu configuration files, allowing a user or administrator to put the item where they like. It should include the name of your plugin or an abbreviation of it. For a plugin called “Feature File Helpers” and an item with (English) name “Save Fragment” a reasonable option would be “FeatFileHelp_SaveFragment”. (This is for the future, as configurable menus are not yet supported by FontForge.)

  submenu

    Note: `submenu` is a keyword-only argument.

    `submenu` can be any of: `None`, a string, a two-tuple or three-tuple as with `name`, or a Python list of any of these, with each specifying a level of sub-menu. (You cannot specify muitple levels of submenu with a tuple, as this would be ambiguous.) The tuple elements are analogous to `name`: a three-tuple of `(localized_name, english_name, identifier_string)`, a two-tuple of `(english_name, identifier_string)`, or a string which is treated as the `localized_name`. Submenus can and should also specify a mnemonic.

    In the future the `identifier_string` will allow a whole submenu to be moved to a different location in the menu hierarchy.

  submenu_names

    When using the positional interface, each of these “intermediate” entries can be a three-tuple, two-tuple, or string, corresponding to an entry in the `submenu` list.

  keyword_only

    When `keyword_only` is `False` (the default) the function will attempt to fall back to the positional interface and any reported errors will be relative to that interface. If you’re having trouble with keyword parameters set `keyword_only` to `True` to see a more specific error message.

  divider

    This special form of the function adds a horizontal line to the menu. The `context` keyword is required and `divider` must be set to `True`. If the `submenu` keyword is omitted the divider is added to the top level.

fontforge.registerImportExport(import_function, export_function, data, name, extension[, extension_list])

  This will add the capability to import or export files of a given type, presumably a way of specifying the splines in a given glyph.

  import_function

    The function to call to import a file into a glyph. It will be called with: The data argument (specified below), A pointer to the glyph into which the import is to happen, A filename, A flag indicating whether the import should go to the background layer or foreground. This function may be `None`. In which case there is no import method for this file type.

  export_function

    The function to call to export a glyph into a file. It will be called with: The data argument (see below), a pointer to the glyph, and a filename. This function may be `None`, in which case there is no export method for this file type.

  data

    Anything you like (including `None`). It will be passed to the import/export routines and can provide them with context if they need that.

  name

    The name to be displayed in the user interface for this file type. This may just be the extension, or it might be something more informative.

  extension

    This is the default extension for this file type. It is used by the export dialog to pick an extension for the generated filename.

  extension_list

    Some file types have more than one common extension (eps files are usually named “eps”, but I have also seen “ps” and “art” used). The import dialog needs to filter all possible filenames of this file type. This argument should be a comma separated list of extensions. It may be omitted, in which case it defaults to being the same as the “extension” argument above.

fontforge.logWarning(msg)

  Adds the message (a string) to FontForge’s Warnings window. (if you wish to display a % character you must represent it as two percents). If there is no user interface the output will go to stderr.

fontforge.postError(win_title, msg)

  Creates a popup dialog to display the message (a string) in that dlg. (if you wish to display a % character you must represent it as two percents). If there is no user interface the output will go to stderr.

fontforge.postNotice(win_title, msg)

  Creates a little window which will silently vanish after a minute or two and displays the message (a string) in that window. (if you wish to display a % character you must represent it as two percents). If there is no user interface the output will go to stderr.

fontforge.openFilename(question[, def_name[, filter]])

  All arguments are strings. The first is a question asked to the user (for which a filename to open is presumed to be the answer). The second is optional and provides a default filename. The third is optional and provides a filter (like “*.sfd”)

  The result is either a filename or `None` if the user canceled the dialog.

  Throws an exception if there is no user interface.

fontforge.saveFilename(question[, def_name[, filter]])

  All arguments are strings. The first is a question asked to the user (for which a filename to save something to is presumed to be the answer). The second is optional and provides a default filename. The third is optional and provides a filter (like “*.sfd”)

  The result is either a filename or `None` if the user canceled the dialog.

  Throws an exception if there is no user interface.

fontforge.ask(title, question, answers[, def, cancel])

  Allows you to ask the user a multiple choice question. It pops up a dialog posing the question with a list of buttons ranged underneath it – one for each answer.

  The first argument is the dialog’s title, the second is the question to be asked, the third is a tuple of strings – each string will become a button, the fourth and fifth arguments are optional, the fourth is the index in the answer array that will be the default answer (the one invoked if the user presses the [Return] key), and the fifth is the answer invoked if the user presses the [Escape] key. If omitted the default answer will be the first, and the cancel answer will be the last.

  The function returns the index in the answer array of the answer chosen by the user.

  Throws an exception if there is no user interface.

fontforge.askChoices(title, question, answers[, default, multiple])

  Similar to the above allows you to ask the user a multiple choice question. It pops up a dialog posing the question with a scrollable list of choices – one for each answer.

  The first argument is the dialog’s title, the second is the question to be asked, the third is a tuple of strings – each string will become a button, the fourth and fifth arguments are optional, the fourth is the index in the answer array that will be the default answer (the one invoked if the user presses the [Return] key). If omitted the default answer will be the first.

  The fifth argument means that multiple options can be selected. If true, the fourth argument should be a tuple of Boolean values or a single integer index into the answer tuple. So, if there are three options, it should look like `(True, False, True)`, which would select the first and last option.

  The function returns the index in the answer array of the answer chosen by the user. If the user cancels the dialog, a -1 is returned.

  `default` and `multiple` may be passed by position if desired.

  Throws an exception if there is no user interface.

fontforge.askString(title, question[, def_string])

  Allows you to ask the user a question for which a string is the answer.

  The first argument is the dialog’s title, the second is the question to be asked, the third is optional and specified a default answer.

  The function returns the string the user typed or `None` if they cancelled the dialog.

  Throws an exception if there is no user interface.

fontforge.askMulti(title, specification)

  This method raises a dialog with multiple questions for the user, optionally organized into separate tabs. The answers can be choices (similar to `fontforge.askChoices()`) a string (similar to `fontforge.askString()`) an existing filename (similar to `fontforge.openFilename()`) or a save filename (similar to `fontforge.saveFilename()`.

  Due to the variety of potential `specification` parameters this facility is explained in a separate document.

  The method throws an exception if there is no user interface or the specification is not valid. Otherwise it either returns a dictionary of answers or `None` if the user chose “Cancel” or closed the dialog without choosing “OK”.

## Point

class fontforge.point([x, y, on_curve, type, selected])

  Creates a new point. Optionally specifying its x,y location, on-curve status and selected status. x and y must be supplied together.

  A “point initializer tuple” is any tuple (x,y[,True|False[,0|1|2|3[,True|False]]]), where x and y are numbers, the third value corresponds to on-curve, the fourth to type, and the fifth to selected.

point.x

  The x location of the point

point.y

  The y location of the point

point.on_curve

  Whether this is an on curve point or an off curve point (a control point)

point.selected

  The value of this member also determines the selected status in the UI on setting a layer. FontForge usually retains the selection status of any point between and that of an on-curve point when saving, whether or not a UI is present.

point.type

  For an on-curve point, its FontForge point type.

  There are four types: `fontforge.splineCorner`, `fontforge.splineCurve`, `fontforge.splineHVCurve` and `fontforge.splineTangent`.

  A new point will have type `splineCorner`. When assigning a layer to `glyph.layers`, `glyph.background` or `glyph.foreground` the type value is ignored. To influence the type FontForge will associate with an on-curve point use `glyph.setLayer()`.

point.interpolated

  `True` if FontForge treats this (quadratic, on-curve) point as interpolated. All interpolated points should be mid-way between their off-curve points, but some such points are not treated as interpolated. This flag is ignored when setting a layer.

  Older versions of FontForge omitted interpolated points. This was equivalent to executing the following on a contour:

      c[:] = [ p for p in c if not p.interpolated ]

  This member will be false for a point marked “Never interpolate” in FontForge but there is currently no way of setting or preserving that mark when a layer is replaced using the Python interfaces. A “round trip” through a Python contour therefore clears that mark on any points that have it, and FontForge treats mid-placed and omitted `on_curve` points as equivalent.

point.name

  The point name (generally there is no name)

point.dup()

  Returns a copy of the current point.

point.transform(tuple)

  Transforms the point by the transformation matrix

point.__reduce__()

  This function allows the pickler to work on this type. I don’t think it is useful for anything else.

## Contour

A contour is a collection of points. A contour may be either based on cubic or quadratic splines.

If based on cubic splines there should be either 0 or 2 off-curve points between every two on-curve points. If there are no off-curve points then we have a line between those two points. If there are 2 off-curve points we have a cubic bezier curve between the two end points.

If based on quadratic splines things are more complex. Again, two adjacent on-curve points yield a line between those points. Two on-curve points with an off-curve point between them yields a quadratic bezier curve. However if there are two adjacent off-curve points then an on-curve point will be interpolated between them. (This should be familiar to anyone who has read the truetype ‘glyf’ table docs).

For examples of what these splines can look like see the section on bezier curves.

A contour may be open in which case it is just a long wiggly line, or closed when it is more like a circle with an inside and an outside. Unless you are making stroked fonts all your contours should eventually be closed.

Contours may also be expressed in terms of Raph Levien’s spiro points. This is an alternate representation for the contour, and is not always available (Only if `fontforge.hasSpiro()` is `True`. If available the spiro member will return a tuple of spiro control points, while assigning to this member will change the shape of the contour to match the new spiros.

Two contours may be compared to see if they describe similar paths.

class fontforge.contour(is_quadratic=False)

  Creates a new contour.

contour.is_quadratic

  Whether the contour should be interpreted as a set of quadratic or cubic splines. Setting this value has the side effect of converting the point list to the appropriate format.

contour.closed

  Whether the contour is open or closed.

contour.name

  The contour name (generally there is no name).

contour.spiros

  This is an alternate representation of a curve. This member is only available if `fontforge.hasSpiro()` is `True`. Returns a tuple of spiro control points. Each of these is itself a tuple of four elements; an x,y location, a type field, and a set of flags. The type field takes on values (which are predefined constants in the `fontforge` module):

  - `fontforge.spiroG4`

  - `fontforge.spiroG2`

  - `fontforge.spiroCorner`

  - `fontforge.spiroLeft`

  - `fontforge.spiroRight`

  - `fontforge.spiroOpen`

  For more information on what these point types mean see Raph Levien’s work.

  The flags argument is treated as a bitset of which currently only one bit (0x1) is defined. This indicates that this point is selected in the UI.

  When you assign a tuple of spiro control points to this member, the point list for the Bezier interpretation of the contour will change. And when you change the Bezier interpretation the set of spiro points will change.

contour.dup()

  Returns a deep copy of the contour. That is, it copies the points that make up the contour.

contour.isEmpty()

  Returns whether the contour is empty (contains no points)

contour.boundingBox()

  Returns a tuple representing a rectangle `(xmin,ymin, xmax,ymax)` into which the contour fits. It is not guaranteed to be the smallest such rectangle, but it will often be.

contour.getSplineAfterPoint(pos)

  Returns a tuple of two four-element tuples. These tuples are x and y splines for the curve after the specified point.

contour.draw(pen)

  Draw the contour to the pen argument.

contour.__reduce__()

  This function allows the pickler to work on this type. I don’t think it is useful for anything else.

contour.__iter__()

  Returns an iterator for the contour which will return the points in order.

Sequence Protocol

Does not support the repeat concept.

len(c)

  The number of points in the contour

c[i]

  The `i` th point on the contour. You may assign a point or point initializer to this (keeping the number of points constant) or use `del c[i]` to remove the entry (reducing the number by one).

c[i:j]

  The contour containing points between i and j; j must be >= i. Alternatively, `c[j:i:-1]` returns those points in reverse order (larger strides are not supported).

c[i:j] = d

  The points between i and j are replaced by those in d; j must be >= i. d can be a contour or a sequence of point initializer tuples, as in `[(1,1,False),(2,1)]`. If `c[j:i:-1]` is used instead the points of d are assigned in reverse order.

c + d

  A contour concatenating c and d. d may be or encode either another contour or a point.

c += d

  Appends d to c. d may be or encode either another contour or a point.

p in c

  When p is a point, returns whether some point `(p.x, p.y)` is in the contour c. p can also be a tuple of two numbers.

Contour construction

contour.moveTo(x, y)

  Adds an initial, on-curve point at `(x,y)` to the contour

contour.lineTo(x, y[, pos])

  Adds a line to the contour. If the optional third argument is given, the line will be added after the pos’th point, otherwise it will be at the end of the contour.

contour.cubicTo((cp1x, cp1y)(cp2x, cp2y)(x, y)[, pos])

  Adds a cubic curve to the contour. If the optional fourth argument is given, the curve will be added after the pos’th point, otherwise it will be at the end of the contour.

contour.quadraticTo((cpx, cpy)(x, y)[, pos])

  Adds a quadratic curve to the contour. If the optional third argument is given, the curve will be added after the pos’th point, otherwise it will be at the end of the contour.

contour.insertPoint(point[, pos])

  Adds a point to the contour. If the optional second argument is given, the point will be added after the pos’th point, otherwise it will be at the end of the contour. The point may be either a point or a point initializer tuple.

contour.makeFirst(pos)

  Rotate the point list so that the pos’th point becomes the first point

contour.isClockwise()

  Returns whether the contour is drawn in a clockwise direction. A return value of -1 indicates that no consistent direction could be found (the contour self-intersects).

contour.reverseDirection()

  Reverse the order in which the contour is drawn (turns a clockwise contour into a counter-clockwise one). See also `layer.correctDirection()`.

contour.similar(other_contour[, error])

  Checks whether this contour is similar to the other one where error is the maximum distance (in em-units) allowed for the two contours to diverge.

  This is like the comparison operator, but that doesn’t allow you to specify an error bound.

contour.xBoundsAtY(ybottom[, ytop])

  Finds the minimum and maximum x positions attained by the contour when y is between ybottom and ytop (if ytop is not specified it is assumed the same as ybottom). If the contour does not have any y values in the specified range then ff will return `None`.

contour.yBoundsAtX(xleft[, xright])

  Finds the minimum and maximum y positions attained by the contour when x is between xleft and xright (if xright is not specified it is assumed the same as xleft). If the contour does not have any x values in the specified range then ff will return `None`.

Contour manipulation

contour.addExtrema([flags, emsize])

  Extrema should be marked by on-curve points. If a curve lacks a point at an extrema this command will add one. Flags may be one of the following strings:

  all

    Add all missing extrema

  only_good

    Only add extrema on longer splines (with respect to the em-size)

  only_good_rm

    As above but also merge away on-curve points which are very close to, but not on, an added extremum

contour.cluster([within, max])

  Moves clustered coordinates to a standard central value.

  See also `contour.round()`.

contour.merge(pos)

  Removes the on-curve point at the given position and rearranges the other points to make the curve as similar to the original as possible. (pos may also be a tuple of positions, all of which will be removed)

  See also `contour.simplify()`.

contour.round([factor])

  Rounds the x and y coordinates. If factor is specified then

      new_coord = round(factor*old_coord)/factor

  See also `contour.cluster()`.

contour.selfIntersects()

  Returns whether this contour intersects itself.

contour.simplify([error_bound, flags, tan_bounds, linefixup, linelenmax])

  Tries to remove excess points on the contour if doing so will not perturb the curve by more than error-bound. Flags is a tuple of the following strings:

  ignoreslopes

    Allow slopes to change

  ignoreextrema

    Allow removal of extrema

  smoothcurves

    Allow curve smoothing

  choosehv

    Snap to horizontal or vertical

  forcelines

    flatten bumps on lines

  nearlyhvlines

    Make nearly horizontal/vertical lines be so

  mergelines

    Merge adjacent lines into one

  setstarttoextremum

    Rotate the point list so that the start point is on an extremum

  removesingletonpoints

    If the contour contains just one point then remove it

  See also `contour.merge()`.

contour.transform(matrix)

  Transforms the contour by the matrix

See also

Curvatura documentation

  Documentation for adding points of inflection, balancing and harmonizing.

contour.addInflections()

  If the curvature of a spline in the contour changes sign then break the spline so that there will be a point at all points of inflection.

contour.balance()

  For all cubic bezier splines of the contour make the line between the control points parallel to the chord such that the area is preserved. This is an improved version of the algorithm known as “tunnify”.

contour.harmonize()

  For all bezier splines of the contour move the smooth on-curve points between its adjacent control points such that the adjacent curvatures become equal.

## Layer

A layer is a collection of contours. All the contours must be the same order (all quadratic or all cubic). Currently layers do not contain references.

Layers may be compared to see if their contours are similar.

class fontforge.layer(is_quadratic=False)

  Creates a new layer

layer.is_quadratic

  Whether the contours should be interpreted as a set of quadratic cubic splines. Setting this value has the side effect of converting the contour list to the appropriate format.

layer.__iter__()

  Returns an iterator for the layer which will return the contours in order.

layer.__reduce__()

  This function allows the pickler to work on this type. I don’t think it is useful for anything else.

layer.dup()

  Returns a deep copy of the layer. That is, it will copy all the contours and all the points as well as copying the layer object itself.

layer.isEmpty()

  Returns whether the layer is empty (contains no contour)

layer.addExtrema([flags, emsize])

  Extrema should be marked by on-curve points. If a curve lacks a point at an extrema this command will add one. Flags may be one of the following strings:

  all

    Add all missing extrema

  only_good

    Only add extrema on longer splines (with respect to the em-size)

  only_good_rm

    As above but also merge away on-curve points which are very close to, but not on, an added extremum

layer.cluster([within, max])

  Moves clustered coordinates to a standard central value.

  See also `layer.round()`.

layer.correctDirection()

  Orients all contours so that external ones are clockwise and internal counter-clockwise. See also `contour.isClockwise()`.

layer.export(filename[, KEYWORD])

  Exports the current layer (in outline format) to a file. The type of file is determined by the extension.

  The following optional keywords modify the export process for various formats:

  usetransform (boolean, default=False)

    Flip the Y-axis of exported SVGs with a transform element rather than modifying the individual Y values.

  usesystem (boolean, default=False)

    Ignore the above keyword settings and use the values set by the user in the Import options dialog.

  asksystem (boolean, default=False)

    If the UI is present show the Import options dialog to the user and use the chosen values (does nothing otherwise).

layer.exclude(excluded_layer)

  Removes the excluded area from the current contours. See also `layer.removeOverlap()` and `layer.intersect()`.

layer.intersect()

  Leaves only areas in the intersection of contours. See also `layer.removeOverlap()` and `layer.exclude()`.

layer.removeOverlap()

  Removes overlapping areas. See also `layer.intersect()` and `layer.exclude()`.

layer.interpolateNewLayer(other_layer, amount)

  Creates (and returns) a new layer which contains splines interpolated from the current layer and the first argument. If amount is 0 the result will look like the current layer, if 1 then like the first argument.

layer.round([factor])

  Rounds the x and y coordinates. If factor is specified then

      new_coord = round(factor*old_coord)/factor

  See also `layer.cluster()`.

layer.selfIntersects()

  Returns whether any of the contours on this layer intersects any other contour (including itself).

layer.similar(other_layer[, error])

  Checks whether this layer is similar to the other one where error is the maximum distance (in em-units) allowed for any two corresponding contours in the layers to diverge.

  This is like the comparison operator, but that doesn’t allow you to specify an error bound.

layer.simplify([error_bound, flags, tan_bounds, linefixup, linelenmax])

  Tries to remove excess points on the layer if doing so will not perturb the curve by more than error-bound. Flags is a tuple of the following strings:

  ignoreslopes

    Allow slopes to change

  ignoreextrema

    Allow removal of extrema

  smoothcurves

    Allow curve smoothing

  choosehv

    Snap to horizontal or vertical

  forcelines

    flatten bumps on lines

  nearlyhvlines

    Make nearly horizontal/vertical lines be so

  mergelines

    Merge adjacent lines into one

  setstarttoextremum

    Rotate the point list so that the start point is on an extremum

  removesingletonpoints

    If the contour contains just one point then remove it

layer.stemControl(stem_width_scale[, hscale, stem_height_scale, vscale, xheight])

  Allows you to scale counters and stems independently of each other. `stem_width_scale` specifies by how much the widths of stems should be scaled (this should be a number around 1).

  If omitted, `hscale` defaults to 1, otherwise it will indicate the horizontal scaling factor for the glyph as a whole.

  If omitted, `stem_height_scale` defaults to `stem_width_scale`, otherwise it specifies the scaling for stem heights.

  If omitted, `vscale` defaults to `hscale`, otherwise it specifies the vertical scale factor for the glyph as a whole. `xheight` is optional; if specified it will fix the points at that height so that they will be at the same level across glyphs.

layer.stroke("circular", width[, CAP, JOIN, FLAGS])
layer.stroke("elliptical", width, minor_width, ANGLE[, CAP, JOIN, FLAGS])
layer.stroke("calligraphic", width, height, angle[, FLAGS])
layer.stroke("polygon", contour[, FLAGS])
(Legacy interface)

layer.stroke("circular", width[, CAP, JOIN, ANGLE, KEYWORD])
layer.stroke("elliptical", width, minor_width[, ANGLE, CAP, JOIN, KEYWORD])
layer.stroke("calligraphic", width, height[, ANGLE, CAP, JOIN, KEYWORD])
layer.stroke("convex", contour[, ANGLE, CAP, JOIN, KEYWORD])
(Current interface)

  Strokes the lines of each contour in the layer according to the supplied parameters. See the corresponding `glyph.stroke()` for a description of the syntax and the stroke documentation for more general information.

layer.transform(matrix)

  Transforms the layer by the matrix

layer.nltransform(xexpr, yexpr)

  xexpr and yexpr are strings specifying non-linear transformations that will be applied to all points in the layer (with xexpr being applied to x values, and yexpr to y values, of course). The syntax for the expressions is explained in the non-linear transform dialog.

layer.boundingBox()

  Returns a tuple representing a rectangle `(xmin,ymin, xmax,ymax)` into which the layer fits. It is not guaranteed to be the smallest such rectangle, but it will often be.

layer.xBoundsAtY(ybottom[, ytop])

  Finds the minimum and maximum x positions attained by the contour when y is between ybottom and ytop (if ytop is not specified it is assumed the same as ybottom). If the layer does not have any y values in the specified range then FontForge will return `None`.

layer.yBoundsAtX(xleft[, xright])

  Finds the minimum and maximum y positions attained by the contour when x is between xleft and xright (if xright is not specified it is assumed the same as xleft). If the layer does not have any x values in the specified range then FontForge will return `None`.

layer.draw(pen)

  Draw the layer to the `pen` argument.

layer.addInflections()

  Please see `contour.addInflections()`.

layer.balance()

  Please see `contour.balance()`.

layer.harmonize()

  Please see `contour.harmonize()`.

Sequence Protocol

Does not support the repeat, slice and contains concepts.

len(l)

  The number of contours in the layer

l[i]

  The `i` th contour in the layer. You may assign a contour to this (keeping the number of contours constant) or use `del l[i]` to remove the entry (reducing the number by one)

l + m

  A layer concatenating l and m. m may be either another layer or a contour.

l += m

  Appends m to l. m may be either another layer or a contour.

## Glyph Pen

This implements the Pen Protocol to draw a FontForge `glyph`. You create a `glyphPen` with `glyph.glyphPen()`. You then draw into it with the operators below.

This type may not be pickled.

Example

    import fontforge
    font = fontforge.open("Ambrosia.sfd") # Open a font
    pen = font["B"].glyphPen()            # Create a pen to draw into glyph "B"
    pen.moveTo((100,100))                 # draw a square
    pen.lineTo((100,200))
    pen.lineTo((200,200))
    pen.lineTo((200,100))
    pen.closePath()                       # end the contour

    font["A"].draw(pen)                   # or you can copy from one glyph to another
                                          # by having a glyph draw itself into the pen
    pen = None                            # Finalize the pen. This tells FontForge
                                          # that the drawing is done and causes
                                          # it to refresh the display (if a UI is active).

class fontforge.glyphPen

glyphPen.moveTo((x, y))

  With one exception this call begins every contour and creates an on curve point at `(x,y)` as the start point of that contour. This should be the first call after a pen has been created and the call that follows a `glyphPen.closePath()`, `glyphPen.endPath()`.

glyphPen.lineTo((x, y))

  Draws a line from the last point to `(x,y)` and adds that to the contour.

glyphPen.curveTo((cp1.x, cp1.y), (cp2.x, cp2.y), (x, y)) ((cp.x, cp.y), (x, y))

  This routine has slightly different arguments depending on the type of the font. When drawing into a cubic font (PostScript) use the first set of arguments (with two control points – off curve points – between each on curve point). When drawing into a quadratic font (TrueType) use the second format with one control point between adjacent on-curve points.

  The standard appears to support super-bezier curves with more than two control points between on-curve points. FontForge does not. Nor does FontForge allow you to draw a quadratic spline into a cubic font, nor vice versa.

glyphPen.qCurveTo([(cp.x, cp.y)]*, (x, y)) ([(cp.x, cp.y)]*, None))

  This routine may only be used in quadratic (TrueType) fonts and has two different formats. It is used to express the TrueType idiom where an on-curve point mid-way between its control points may be omitted, leading to a run of off-curve points (with implied but unspecified on-curve points between them).

  The first format allows an arbitrary number of off-curve points followed by one on-curve point.

  It is possible to have a contour which consists solely of off-curve points. When this happens the contour is NOT started with a `glyphPen.moveTo()`, instead the entire contour, all the off curve points, are listed in one call, and the argument list is terminated by a `None` to indicate there are no on-curve points.

glyphPen.closePath()

  Closes the contour (connects the last point to the first point to make a loop) and ends it.

glyphPen.endPath()

  Ends the contour without closing it. This is only relevant if you are stroking contours.

glyphPen.addComponent(glyph_name[, transform, selected])

  Adds a reference (a component) to the glyph. The PostScript transformation matrix is a 6 element tuple (with a default of the identity transformation). When `selected` is true the reference will be marked as selected in the UI and related API calls.

## Glyph

The glyph type refers to a `glyph` object. It has no independent life of its own, it always lives within a font. It has all the things you expect to be associated with a glyph: a glyph name, a unicode encoding, a drawing layer, GPOS/GSUB features…

This type may not be pickled.

This type may not be created directly – all glyphs are bound to a font and must be created through the font.

class fontforge.glyph

  Note: Glyphs do not have an independent existence. They live in fonts. You may not create them stand-alone, only in the context of a font. See `font.createChar()`.

glyph.activeLayer

  Returns currently active layer in the glyph (as an integer). May be set to an integer or a layer name to change the active layer.

glyph.altuni

  Returns additional unicode code points for this glyph. For a primary code point, see `glyph.unicode`.

  Returns either None or a tuple of alternate encodings. Each alternate encoding is a tuple of

      (unicode-value, variation-selector, reserved-field)

  The first is a unicode value of this alternate code point. The second is an integer for variation selector and can be set to -1 if not used. The third is an empty field reserved for future use and currently must be set to zero.

  `glyph.altuni` can be set to None to clear all alternates, or to a tuple. The elements of the tuple may be either integers (an alternate unicode value with no variation selector) or a tuple with up to 3 values in it as explained above.

glyph.anchorPoints

  Returns the list of anchor points in the glyph. Each anchor point is a tuple of

      (anchor-class-name, type, x,y [,ligature-index])

  The first two are strings, the next two doubles, and the last (which is only present if `type=="ligature"`) is an integer. Type may be

  - `mark`

  - `base`

  - `ligature`

  - `basemark`

  - `entry`

  - `exit`

glyph.anchorPointsWithSel

  Same as the above, except also includes whether the anchor point is selected in the UI. Returns a tuple of all anchor points in the glyph. Each anchor point is a tuple of

      (anchor-class-name, type, x,y, selected [,ligature-index])

  The first two are strings, the next two doubles, then a boolean, and the last (which is only present if `type=="ligature"`) is an integer. Type may be

  - `mark`

  - `base`

  - `ligature`

  - `basemark`

  - `entry`

  - `exit`

glyph.background

  The glyph’s background layer. This is a copy of the glyph’s data. See also `glyph.foreground` and `glyph.layers`.

glyph.changed

  Whether this glyph has been modified. This is (should be) maintained automatically, but you may set it if you wish.

glyph.color

  The color of the glyph in the fontview. A 6 hex-digit RGB number or -1 for default. 0xffffff is white, 0x0000ff is blue, etc.

glyph.comment

  Any comment you wish to associate with the glyph. UTF-8

glyph.dhints

  A tuple with one entry for each diagonal stem hint. Each stem hint is itself represented by a tuple of three coordinate pairs (themselves tuples of two numbers), these three are: a point on one side of the stem, a point on the other side, and a unit vector pointing in the stem’s direction.

glyph.encoding

  Returns the glyph’s encoding in the font’s encoding. (readonly)

  If the glyph has multiple encodings, one will be picked at random.

  If the glyph is not in the font’s encoding then a number will be returned beyond the encoding size (or in some cases -1 will be returned).

glyph.font

  The font containing this glyph. (readonly)

glyph.foreground

  The glyph’s foreground layer. This is a copy of the glyph’s data. See also `glyph.background`, `glyph.layers` and `glyph.references`.

glyph.glyphclass

  An opentype glyphclass, one of automatic, noclass, baseglyph, baseligature, mark, component

glyph.glyphname

  The name of the glyph

glyph.hhints

  A tuple of all horizontal postscript hints. Each hint is itself a tuple of starting locations and widths.

glyph.horizontalComponents

  A tuple of tuples.

  This allows constructing very large versions of the glyph by stacking the components together. Some components may be repeated so there is no bound on the size.

  This is different from horizontalVariants which expects prebuilt glyphs of various fixed sizes.

  The components are stacked in the order they appear in the (top-level) tuple. Each sub-tuple represents information on one component. The subtuple should contain: (String glyph-name, Boolean is-extender, Int startConnectorLength, Int endConnectorLength, Int fullAdvance). Any of these may be omitted (except the glyph name) and will be assumed to be 0 if so.

glyph.horizontalComponentItalicCorrection

  The italic correction for any composite glyph made with the horizontalComponents.

glyph.horizontalVariants

  A string containing a list of glyph names. These are alternate forms of the current glyph for use in typesetting math. Presumably the variants are of different sizes.

  Although ff will always return a string of glyph names, you may assign to it with a tuple of glyphs and ff will convert that to corresponding names.

glyph.isExtendedShape

  A boolean containing the MATH “is extended shape” field.

glyph.italicCorrection

  The glyph’s italic correction field. Used by both TeX and MATH. The special value `fontforge.unspecifiedMathValue` means the value is unspecified (An unspecified value will not go into the output tables, a value of 0 will)

glyph.layer_cnt

  The number of layers in this glyph. (Cannot be set)

glyph.layers

  A dictionary like object containing the layers of the glyph. It may be indexed by either a layer name or an integer between 0 and `glyph.layer_cnt-1` to produce a `layer` object. Layer 0 is the background layer. Layer 1 is the foreground layer.

glyph.layerrefs

  A dictionary like object containing the references in the layers of the glyph. It may be indexed by either a layer name, or an integer between 0 and `glyph.layer_cnt-1` to produce a `reference tuple` object. Layer 0 is the background layer. Layer 1 is the foreground layer.

glyph.lcarets

  A tuple containing the glyph’s ligature caret locations. Setting this will also either enable or disable the “Default Ligature Caret Count” flag depending from the number of elements in the tuple.

glyph.left_side_bearing

  The left side bearing of the glyph. Setting this value will adjust all layers so that guides in the background etc will be adjusted with the rest of the glyph

glyph.manualHints

  The glyph’s hints have been set by hand, and the glyph should not be autohinted without a specific request from the user. The “Don’t AutoHint” flag.

glyph.mathKern.bottomLeft

  The glyph’s math kerning data associated with the bottom left vertex. This returns a tuple of two element tuples, each of which contains a kerning offset and an associated height (in the last entry the height term is meaningless, but present).

glyph.mathKern.bottomRight

  The glyph’s math kerning data associated with the bottom right vertex. This returns a tuple of two element tuples, each of which contains a kerning offset and an associated height (in the last entry the height term is meaningless, but present).

glyph.mathKern.topLeft

  The glyph’s math kerning data associated with the top left vertex. This returns a tuple of two element tuples, each of which contains a kerning offset and an associated height (in the last entry the height term is meaningless, but present).

glyph.mathKern.topRight

  The glyph’s math kerning data associated with the top right vertex. This returns a tuple of two element tuples, each of which contains a kerning offset and an associated height (in the last entry the height term is meaningless, but present).

glyph.originalgid

  The GID of this glyph in the font it was read from. (readonly)

glyph.persistent

  Whatever you want (these data will be saved as a pickled object in the sfd file. It is your job to ensure that whatever you put here can be pickled). See also the `glyph.temporary` field.

glyph.references

  A tuple of tuples containing, for each reference in the foreground, a glyph-name, a transformation matrix, and whether the reference is currently selected. When assigning to the object the matrix and `selected` values are optional. See also `glyph.foreground` and `glyph.layerrefs`.

glyph.right_side_bearing

  The right side bearing of the glyph

glyph.script

  A string containing the OpenType 4 letter tag for the script associated with this glyph (readonly)

glyph.temporary

  Whatever you want (these data will be lost once the font is closed)

  See also `glyph.persistent`.

glyph.texheight

  The Tex height. The special value `fontforge.unspecifiedMathValue` means the field is unspecified (An unspecified value will not go into the output tables, a value of 0 will)

glyph.texdepth

  The Tex depth. The special value `fontforge.unspecifiedMathValue` means the field is unspecified (An unspecified value will not go into the output tables, a value of 0 will)

glyph.topaccent

  The glyph’s top accent position field. Used by MATH. The special value `fontforge.unspecifiedMathValue` means the field is unspecified (An unspecified value will not go into the output tables, a value of 0 will)

glyph.ttinstrs

  Any truetype instructions, returned as a binary string

glyph.unicode

  The glyph’s unicode code point, or -1. In addition to this primary mapping, a glyph can have multiple secondary mappings - see `glyph.altuni`.

glyph.unlinkRmOvrlpSave

  A flag that indicates the glyph’s references should be unlinked and remove overlap run on it before the font is saved (and then the original references replaced after the save finishes)

glyph.user_decomp

  Your preferred decomposition for this glyph; used by `glyph.build()`.

glyph.userdata

  Warning

  Deprecated name for `glyph.temporary`

glyph.vhints

  A tuple of all vertical postscript hints. Each hint is itself a tuple of starting locations and widths.

glyph.validation_state

  A bit mask indicating some problems this glyph might have. (readonly)

  0x1

    If set then this glyph has been validated.

    If unset then other bits are meaningless.

  0x2

    Glyph has an open contour.

  0x4

    Glyph intersects itself somewhere.

  0x8

    At least one contour is drawn in the wrong direction

  0x10

    At least one reference in the glyph has been flipped

    (and so is drawn in the wrong direction)

  0x20

    Missing extrema

  0x40

    A glyph name referred to from this glyph, in an opentype table, is not present in the font.

  0x40000

    Points (or control points) are too far apart. (Coordinates must be within 32767)

  Postscript only

  0x80

    PostScript has a limit of 1500 points in a glyph.

  0x100

    PostScript has a limit of 96 hints in a glyph.

  0x200

    Invalid glyph name.

  TrueType only, errors in original file

  0x400

    More points in a glyph than allowed in ‘maxp’

  0x800

    More paths in a glyph than allowed in ‘maxp’

  0x1000

    More points in a composite glyph than allowed in ‘maxp’

  0x2000

    More paths in a composite glyph than allowed in ‘maxp’

  0x4000

    Instructions longer than allowed in ‘maxp’

  0x8000

    More references in a glyph than allowed in ‘maxp’

  0x10000

    References nested more deeply than allowed in ‘maxp’

  0x40000

    Points too far apart. TrueType and Type2 fonts are limited to 16 bit numbers, and so adjacent points must be within 32767 em-units of each other.

  0x80000

    Points non-integral. TrueType points and control points must be integer aligned. (FontForge will round them if they aren’t)

  0x100000

    Missing anchor. According to the opentype spec, if a glyph contains an anchor point for one anchor class in a subtable, it must contain anchor points for all anchor classes in the subtable. Even it, logically, they do not apply and are unnecessary.

  0x200000

    Duplicate glyph name. Two (or more) glyphs in this font have the same name. When outputting a PostScript font only one of them will ever be seen.

    It’s a little hard to detect this in normal use, but if you change the encoding to “Glyph Order”, and then use Edit->Select->Wildcard and enter the glyph name, both of them should be selected.

  0x400000

    Duplicate unicode code point. Two (or more) glyphs in this font have the code point. When outputting an sfnt (TrueType/OpenType) font only one of them will ever be seen.

    It’s a little hard to detect this in normal use, but if you change the encoding to “Glyph Order”, and then use Edit->Select->Wildcard and enter the code point, both of them should be selected.

  0x800000

    Overlapped hints. Either the glyph has no hint masks and there are overlapped hints, or a hint mask specifies two overlapping hints.

glyph.verticalComponents

  A tuple of tuples.

  This allows constructing very large versions of the glyph by stacking the components together. Some components may be repeated so there is no bound on the size.

  This is different from verticalVariants which expects prebuilt glyphs of various fixed sizes.

  The components are stacked in the order they appear in the (top-level) tuple. Each sub-tuple represents information on one component. The subtuple should contain: (String glyph-name, Boolean is-extender, Int startConnectorLength, Int endConnectorLength, Int fullAdvance). Any of these may be omitted (except the glyph name) and will be assumed to be 0 if so.

glyph.verticalComponentItalicCorrection

  The italic correction for any composite glyph made with the verticalComponents.

glyph.verticalVariants

  A string containing a list of glyph names. These are alternate forms of the current glyph for use in typesetting math. Presumably the variants are of different sizes.

glyph.width

  The advance width of the glyph. See also `glyph.vwidth`.

glyph.vwidth

  The vertical advance width of the glyph. See also `glyph.width`.

glyph.addAnchorPoint(anchor_class_name, anchor_type, x, y[, ligature_index])

  Adds an anchor point. anchor-type may be one of the strings

  - `"mark"`

  - `"base"`

  - `"ligature"`

  - `"basemark"`

  - `"entry"`

  - `"exit"`

  If there is an anchor point with the same `anchor_class_name` and:

  - lookup type is `"gpos_mark2base"` or

  - lookup type is `"gpos_mark2ligature"` and `ligature_index` is the same or

  - `anchor_type` is the same

  then the existing anchor will be overwritten.

glyph.addExtrema([flags, emsize])

  Extrema should be marked by on-curve points. If a curve lacks a point at an extrema this command will add one. Flags may be one of the following strings

  all

    Add all missing extrema

  only_good

    Only add extrema on longer splines (with respect to the em-size)

  only_good_rm

    As above but also merge away on-curve points which are very close to, but not on, an added extremum

glyph.addReference(glyph_name[, transform, selected])

  Adds a reference to the specified glyph into the current glyph. Optionally specifying a transformation matrix and whether the reference is to be marked selected in the UI and related API calls.

glyph.addHint(is_vertical, start, width)

  Adds a postscript hint. Takes a boolean flag indicating whether the hint is horizontal or vertical, a start location and the hint’s width.

glyph.addPosSub(subtable_name, variant)
glyph.addPosSub(subtable_name, variants)
glyph.addPosSub(subtable_name, ligature_components)
glyph.addPosSub(subtable_name, xoff, yoff, xadv, yadv)
glyph.addPosSub(subtable_name, other_glyph_name, kerning)
glyph.addPosSub(subtable_name, other_glyph_name, xoff1, yoff1, xadv1, yadv1, xoff2, yoff2, xadv2, yadv2)

  Adds position/substitution data to the glyph. The number and type of the arguments vary according to the type of the lookup containing the subtable.

  The first argument should always be a lookup subtable name.

  If the lookup is for single substitutions then the second argument should be a string containing a single glyph name.

  For multiple and alternated substitutions a tuple of glyph names. For ligatures, a tuple of the ligature components (glyph names).

  For single positionings the second through fifth arguments should be small integers representing the adjustment along the appropriate axis.

  For pairwise positionings (kerning) the second argument should be the name of the other glyph being kerned with, and the third through tenth should be small integers – or, if there are exactly three arguments then the third specifies traditional, one-axis, kerning.

  If there is a previously existing entry, this will replace it (except for ligatures).

glyph.appendAccent(name='glyph_name')
glyph.appendAccent(unicode=<codepoint>)

  Makes a reference to the specified glyph, adds that reference to the current layer of this glyph, and positions it to make a reasonable accent.

glyph.autoHint()

  Generates PostScript hints for this glyph.

glyph.autoInstr()

  Generates TrueType instructions for this glyph.

glyph.autoTrace()

  Auto traces any background images

glyph.boundingBox()

  Returns a tuple representing a rectangle (xmin,ymin, xmax,ymax) which is the minimum bounding box of the glyph.

glyph.build()

  If the character is a composite character, then clears it and inserts references to its components.

glyph.canonicalContours()

  Orders the contours in the current glyph by the x coordinate of their leftmost point. (This can reduce the size of the charstring needed to describe the glyph(s).

glyph.canonicalStart()

  Sets the start point of all the contours of the current glyph to be the leftmost point on the contour. (If there are several points with that value then use the one which is closest to the baseline). This can reduce the size of the charstring needed to describe the glyph(s). By regularizing things it can also make more things available to be put in subroutines.

glyph.changeWeight(stroke_width[, type, serif_height, serif_fuzz, counter_type, removeoverlap, custom_zones])

  See the Element->Style->Change Width command for a more complete description of these arguments.

  `stroke_width` is the amount by which all stems are expanded.

  `type` is one of `"LCG"`, `"CJK"`, `"auto"`, `"custom"`.

  `serif_height` tells ff not to expand serifs which are that much off the baseline, while serif_fuzz specifies the amount of fuzziness allowed in the match. If you don’t want special serif behavior set this to 0.

  `counter_type` is one of `"squish"`, `"retain"`, `"auto"`.

  `removeoverlap` (Cleanup Self Intersect) is a boolean int (0=false, 1=true). When activated, and FontForge detects that an expanded stroke will self-intersect, then setting this option will cause it to try to make things nice by removing the intersections.

  `custom_zones` is only meaningful if the type argument were `"custom"`. It may be either a number, which specifies the “top hint” value (bottom hint is assumed to be 0, others are between), or a tuple of 4 numbers (top hint, top zone, bottom zone, bottom hint).

glyph.condenseExtend(c_factor, c_add[, sb_factor, sb_add, correct])

  Condenses or extends the size of the counters and side-bearings of the glyph. The first two arguments provide information on shrinking/growing the counters, the second two the sidebearings. If the last two are omitted they default to the same values as the first two.

  A counter’s width will become:

      new_width = c_factor * old_width + c_add

  If present the `correct` argument allows you to specify whether you want to correct for the italic angle before condensing the glyph. (it defaults to``True``)

glyph.clear([layer])

  With no arguments, clears the contents of the glyph (and marks it as not `glyph.isWorthOutputting()`). It is not possible to clear the guide layer with this function. `layer` may be either an integer index or a string.

glyph.cluster([within, max])

  Moves clustered coordinates to a standard central value. See also `glyph.round()`.

glyph.correctDirection()

  Orients all contours so that external ones are clockwise and internal counter-clockwise.

glyph.doUndoLayer([layer, redo])

  When `redo` is False this method is equivalent to the “Undo” UI menu item. It restores the last preserved layer state discarding the current state. When `redo` is True it is equivalent to “Redo”. You may omit the `layer` parameter, in which case the currently active layer will be used. Otherwise it must either be a layer name or an integer between 0 and `glyph.layer_cnt-1`.

  `doUndoLayer` is normally used in conjunction with `glyph.preserveLayerAsUndo()`

glyph.exclude(excluded_layer)

  Removes the excluded area from the current glyph. Takes an argument which is a layer. See also `glyph.removeOverlap()` and `glyph.intersect()`.

glyph.export(filename[, KEYWORD])

  Creates a file with the specified name containing a representation of the glyph. Uses the file’s extension to determine output file type.

  The following optional keywords modify the export process for various formats:

  layer (string or integer, default=glyph.activeLayer)

    For vector formats, the layer to export.

  pixelsize (integer, default=100)

    For raster formats, the size of the image to output.

  bitdepth (integer, default=8)

    For raster formats, the depth of the image to output. Must be 1 or 8.

  usetransform (boolean, default=False)

    Flip the Y-axis of exported SVGs with a transform element rather than modifying the individual Y values.

  usesystem (boolean, default=False)

    Ignore the above keyword settings and use the values set by the user in the Import options dialog.

  asksystem (boolean, default=False)

    If the UI is present show the Import options dialog to the user and use the chosen values (does nothing otherwise).

  Note: The old positional layer/pixelsize,bitdepth calling conventions are still supported but are not compatible with the other keyword parameters.

glyph.genericGlyphChange(stemType=<str>, thickThreshold=<double>, stemScale=<double>, stemAdd=<double>, stemHeightScale=<double>, stemHeightAdd=<double>, stemWidthScale=<double>, stemWidthAdd=<double>, thinStemScale=<double>, thinStemAdd=<double>, thickStemScale=<double>, thickStemAdd=<double>, processDiagonalStems=<boolean>, hCounterType=<str>, hCounterScale=<double>, hCounterAdd=<double>, lsbScale=<double>, lsbAdd=<double>, rsbScale=<double>, rsbAdd=<double>, vCounterType=<str>, vCounterScale=<double>, vCounterAdd=<double>, vScale=<double>, vMap=<tuple of tuples>)

  Similar to `font.genericGlyphChange()`, but acting on this glyph only.

glyph.getPosSub(lookup_subtable_name)

  Returns any positioning/substitution data attached to the glyph controlled by the lookup-subtable. If the name is `"*"` then returns data from all subtables.

  The data are returned as a tuple of tuples. The first element of the subtuples is the name of the lookup-subtable. The second element will be one of the strings: `"Position"`, `"Pair"`, `"Substitution"`, `"AltSubs"`, `"MultSubs"`, `"Ligature"`.

  Positioning data will be followed by four small integers representing adjustments to the: x position of the glyph, the y position, the horizontal advance, and the vertical advance.

  Pair data will be followed by the name of the other glyph in the pair and then eight small integers representing adjustments to the: x position of the first glyph, the y position, the horizontal advance, and the vertical advance, and then a similar foursome for the second glyph.

  Substitution data will be followed by a string containing the name of the glyph to replace the current one.

  Multiple and Alternate data will be followed by several strings each containing the name of a replacement glyph.

  Ligature data will be followed by several strings each containing the name of a ligature component glyph.

glyph.importOutlines(filename[, KEYWORD])

  Uses the file’s extension to determine behavior. Imports outline descriptions (eps, svg, glif files) into the foreground layer. Imports image descriptions (bmp, png, xbm, etc.) into the background layer. The following optional keywords modify the import process for various formats:

  scale (boolean, default=True)

    Scale imported images and SVGs to ascender height

  simplify (boolean, default=True)

    Run simplify on the output of stroked paths

  accuracy (float, default=0.25)

    The minimum accuracy (in em-units) of stroked paths.

  default_joinlimit (float, default=-1)

    Override the format’s default miterlimit for stroked paths, which is 10.0 for PostScript and 4.0 for SVG. (Value -1 means “inherit” those defaults.)

  handle_eraser (boolean, default=False)

    Certain programs use pens with white ink as erasers. When this flag is set FontForge will attempt to simulate that.

  correctdir (boolean, default=False)

    Run “Correct direction” on (some) PostScript paths

  usesystem (boolean, default=False)

    Ignore the above keyword settings and use the values set by the user in the Import options dialog.

  asksystem (boolean, default=False)

    If the UI is present show the Import options dialog to the user and use the chosen values (does nothing otherwise).

  Note: The old PostScript correctdir/handle_eraser flag tuple is still supported but is not compatible with the other keywords.

glyph.intersect()

  Leaves only areas in the intersection of contours. See also `glyph.removeOverlap()` and `glyph.exclude()`.

glyph.isWorthOutputting()

  Returns whether the glyph is worth outputting into a font file. Basically a glyph is worth outputting if it contains any contours, or references or has had its width set.

glyph.preserveLayerAsUndo([layer, dohints])

  Normally undo handling is turned off during python scripting. This method preserves the current state of a layer so that whatever you do after can be undone by the user. You may omit the `layer` parameter, in which case the currently active layer will be used. Otherwise it must either be a layer name or an integer between 0 and `glyph.layer_cnt-1`. When `dohints` is True then hints will also be preserved (they are not by default).

glyph.removeOverlap()

  Removes overlapping areas. See also `glyph.intersect()` and `glyph.exclude()`.

glyph.removePosSub(lookup_subtable_name)

  Removes all data from the glyph corresponding to the given lookup-subtable. If the name is “*” then all data will be removed.

glyph.round([factor])

  Rounds the x and y coordinates of each point in the glyph. If factor is specified then

      new-coord = round(factor*old-coord)/factor

  See also `glyph.cluster()`.

glyph.selfIntersects()

  Returns whether any of the contours in this glyph intersects any other contour in the glyph (including itself).

glyph.setLayer(layer, layer_index[, flags])

  An alternative to assigning to `glyph.layers`, `glyph.background`, or `glyph.foreground`, and equivalent to those when not using the optional `flags` argument. When present, `flags` can be used to influence the types FontForge will assign to on-curve points. It should be a tuple of up to three of the following strings.

  (In the following descriptions selected refers to points picked out by the chosen `select_` flag, which is unrelated to `point.selected`. At most one `"select_"` flag and one mode flag should be included.)

  select_none

    Each (on-curve) point will be assigned a type corresponding to its `point.type` value.

  select_all

    (default) Each point will have a type assigned according to the chosen mode.

  select_smooth

    Each point with the type `splineCorner` will retain that type, others will be assigned a type according to the chosen mode. This makes `point.type` function like the `smooth` tag in the UFO glif format and some other spline storage formats.

  select_incompat

    Each point with a type compatible with its current geometry will retain that type, others will be assigned a type according to the chosen mode.

  by_geom

    (default) In this mode, each selected point will be assigned a type based on only its geometry. (However, see `"hvcurve"`` below.)

  downgrade

    In this mode, each selected point will be assigned the most specific type compatible with its geometry and its `point.type`. A point marked `splineHVCurve` can keep that type or be downgraded to `splineCurve` or `splineCorner`, while a `splineCurve` or `splineTangent` can keep that (respective) type or be downgraded to `splineCorner`. (`splineCorner` is compatible with any geometry.)

  check

    In this mode, the type of each selected point is verified to be compatible with its geometry. If it is not compatible the function raises an exception. (At present this exception is not very informative. However, to identify the specific problem one can duplicate the layer, use `glyph.setLayer()` with `downgrade`, and then retrieve the layer and compare it with the original.)

  force

    In this mode, the geometry of each selected point is altered to match its `point.type`, similar to changing a point’s type using the UI. Note that FontForge’s point conversion algorithm is not sophisticated and may not have the desired result.

  hvcurve

    This extra flag can be used to include `splineHVCurve` among the types that can be assigned “by geometry”. Normally FontForge assigns `splineCurve` to on-curve points with strictly horizontal or vertical off-curve points.

glyph.simplify([error_bound, flags, tan_bounds, linefixup, linelenmax])

  Tries to remove excess points in the glyph if doing so will not perturb the curve by more than `error-bound`. Flags is a tuple of the following strings

  ignoreslopes

    Allow slopes to change

  ignoreextrema

    Allow removal of extrema

  smoothcurves

    Allow curve smoothing

  choosehv

    Snap to horizontal or vertical

  forcelines

    flatten bumps on lines

  nearlyhvlines

    Make nearly horizontal/vertical lines be so

  mergelines

    Merge adjacent lines into one

  setstarttoextremum

    Rotate the point list so that the start point is on an extremum

  removesingletonpoints

    If the contour contains just one point then remove it

glyph.stroke("circular", width[, CAP, JOIN, FLAGS])
glyph.stroke("elliptical", width, minor_width, ANGLE[, CAP, JOIN, FLAGS])
glyph.stroke("calligraphic", width, height, angle[, FLAGS])
glyph.stroke("polygon", contour[, FLAGS])
(Legacy interface)

glyph.stroke("circular", width[, CAP, JOIN, ANGLE, KEYWORD])
glyph.stroke("elliptical", width, minor_width[, ANGLE, CAP, JOIN, KEYWORD])
glyph.stroke("calligraphic", width, height[, ANGLE, CAP, JOIN, KEYWORD])
glyph.stroke("convex", contour[, ANGLE, CAP, JOIN, KEYWORD])
(Current interface)

  Strokes the contours of the glyph according to the supplied parameters. See the stroke documentation for a more complete description of the facility and its parameters.

  A `"circular"` nib just has a `width` (the diameter), while an `"elliptical"` nib has a `width` (major axis) and a `minor_width` (minor axis). A `"calligraphic"` or `"rectangular"` nib is similar in that it has a `width` and a `height`. Finally a `"convex"` nib is one supplied by the user as a `fontforge.contour` or `fontforge.layer`. It must be convex as defined in the main stroke facility documentation.

  `ANGLE` is optional. It can be specified either positionally or with `angle=float`. It must be a floating point number in units of radians and defaults to zero. The nib is rotated by this angle before stroking the path.

  `CAP` is optional. It can be specified either positionally or with `cap=string`. It must be one of the strings “nib” (the default), “butt”, “round”, and “bevel”.

  `JOIN` is optional. It can be specified either positionally or with `join=string`. It must be one of the strings “nib” (the default), “bevel”, “miter”, and “miterclip”, “round”, and “arcs”.

  `KEYWORD` Parameters:

  removeinternal (boolean, default=False)

    When a contour is closed and clockwise, only the smaller “inside” contour is retained. When a contour is closed and counter-clockwise only the larger “outside” contour is retained.

  removeexternal (boolean, default=False)

    When a contour is closed and clockwise, only the larger “outside” contour is retained. When a contour is closed and counter-clockwise only the smaller “inside” contour is retained.

  extrema (boolean, default=True)

    When true, any missing extrema on the stroked paths are added.

  simplify (boolean, default=True)

    When true, simplify is called on the path before it is returned. The `error-bound` is set to the `accuracy` value.

  removeoverlap (string, default="layer")

    Specifies whether, and on what basis, remove-overlap should be run. “layer” corresponds to running remove-overlap on the `layer` as a whole. “contour” corresponds to running remove-overlap on individual contours. “none” corresponds to not running remove-overlap. Note that because the stroke facility relies on remove-overlap to eliminate cusps and other artifacts, “none” is an unusual choice and available primarily for debugging purposes.

  accuracy (float, default=0.25)

    This is a target (but not a guarantee) for the allowed error, in em-units, of the output relative to the input path and nib geometries. Higher values allow more error will typically yield contours with fewer points.

  jlrelative (boolean, default=True)

    See below.

  joinlimit (float, default=20)

    Specifies the maximum length of a “miter”, “miterclip”, or “arcs” join. For “miter” joins that would be longer will fall back to “bevel”. With “miterclip” and “arcs” a longer join will be trimmed to the specified length. Note, however, that no join is trimmed past the “bevel line” and therefore lower values do not guarantee a given length.

    When `jlrelative` is false the value is interpreted as a length in em-units. Otherwise the value is interpreted as a multiple of “stroke-widths”: the average of the spans of the nib at the incoming and outgoing join angles.

  ecrelative (boolean, default=True)

    See below.

  extendcap (float, default=0)

    When the contour being stroked is open and the `cap` style is “butt” or “round”, this parameter adds area between the end of that contour and the cap. The length of that area will never be less than the specified value but may be more, depending on the geometry of the nib and the join. (However, it will always be exact for circular nibs.)

    When `ecrelative` is false the value is interpreted as a length in em-units. Otherwise the value is interpreted as a multiple of “stroke-widths”: the span of the stroked path at the angle at the cap.

  arcsclip (string, default="auto")

    When using the “arcs” join style this parameter influences the algorithm used to clip joins that exceed the `joinlimit`. The value “svg2” specifies the standard SVG algorithm while the value “ratio” specifies an alternative algorithm that works better for longer and thinner nibs at shorter limits. The default value “auto” chooses the “ratio” algorithm for oblong elliptical and calligraphic nibs and `jlrelative joinlimit` < 4 and the “svg2” algorithm otherwise.

  In the legacy interface, `FLAGS` is an optional tuple containing zero or more of the strings “removeinternal”, “removeexternal”, and “cleanup”. The last is interpreted as `simplify=True`, with a default of `False` when a FLAGS tuple is present.

glyph.transform(matrix[, flags])

  Transforms the glyph by the matrix. The optional flags argument should be a tuple containing any of the following strings:

  partialRefs

    Don’t transform any references in the glyph, but do transform their offsets. This is useful if the referred glyph will be (or has been) transformed.

  round

    Round to int after the transformation is done.

glyph.nltransform(xexpr, yexpr)

  xexpr and yexpr are strings specifying non-linear transformations that will be applied to all points in the current layer (with xexpr being applied to x values, and yexpr to y values, of course). The syntax for the expressions is explained in the non-linear transform dialog.

glyph.unlinkRef([ref_name])

  Unlinks the reference to the glyph named `ref-name`. If `ref-name` is omitted, unlinks all references.

glyph.unlinkThisGlyph()

  Unlinks all the references to the current glyph within any other glyph in the font.

glyph.useRefsMetrics(ref_name[, flag])

  Finds a reference with the given name and sets the “use_my_metrics” flag on it (so this glyph will have the same advance width as the glyph the reference points to).

  If the optional flag argument is False, then the glyph will no longer have its metrics bound to the reference.

glyph.validate([force])

  Validates the glyph and returns the `validation_state` of the glyph (except bit 0x1 will always be clear). If the glyph passed the validation then the return value will be 0 (not 0x1). Otherwise the return value will be the set of errors found. If force is specified true this will always be validated, if force is unspecified (or specified as false) then it will return the cached value if it is known, otherwise will validate it.

glyph.draw(pen)

  Draw the glyph’s outline to the pen argument.

glyph.glyphPen([replace=False])

  Creates a new glyphPen which will draw into the current glyph. By default the pen will replace any existing contours and references, but setting the optional keyword argument, `replace` to false will retain the old contents.

glyph.addInflections()

  Please see `contour.addInflections()`.

glyph.balance()

  Please see `contour.balance()`.

glyph.harmonize()

  Please see `contour.harmonize()`.

## Selection

This represents a font’s selection. You may index it with an encoding value (in the encoding ISO-646-US (ASCII) the character “A” has encoding index 65), or with a glyph’s name, or with a string like `"uXXXXX"` where `XXXXX` represent the glyph’s unicode codepoint in hex, or with a `fontforge.glyph` object. The value of indexing into a selection will be either `True` or `False`.

    >>> print(fontforge.activeFont().selection[65])
    True

This type may not be pickled.

class fontforge.selection

selection.byGlyphs

  Returns another selection, just the same as this one except that its iterator function will return glyphs (rather than encoding slots) and will only return those entries for which glyphs exist.

  This is read-only.

selection.__iter__()

  Returns an iterator for the selection which will return all selected encoding slots in encoding order.

selection.all()

  Select everything.

selection.none()

  Deselect everything.

selection.changed()

  Select all glyphs which have changed.

selection.invert()

  Invert the selection.

selection.select(args)

  There may be an arbitrary number of arguments. Each argument may be either:

  - A glyph name

    Note: There need not be a glyph with this name in the font yet, but if you use a standard name (like “A”) fontforge will still know where that glyph should be.

  - An integer (this will be interpreted as either an encoding index or (default) a unicode code point depending on the flags).

  - A fontforge glyph.

  - A tuple of flags.

    (If you wish to specify a single flag it must still be in a tuple, and you must append a trailing comma to the flag (so `("more",)` rather than just `("more")` ). FF needs the flags to be in a tuple otherwise it can’t distinguish them from glyph names)

    unicode

      Interpret integer arguments as unicode code points

    encoding

      Interpret integer arguments as encoding indices.

    more

      Specified items should be selected

    less

      Specified items should be deselected.

    singletons

      Specified items should be interpreted individually and mean the obvious.

    ranges

      Specified items should be interpreted in pairs and represent all encoding slots between the start and end points specified by the pair. So `.select(("ranges",None),"A","Z")` would select all the upper case (latin) letters.

  If the first argument is not a flag argument (or if it doesn’t specify either “more” or “less”) then the selection will be cleared. So `.select("A")` would produce a selection with only “A” selected, `.select(("more",None),"A")` would add “A” to the current selection, while `.select(("less",None),"A")` would remove “A” from the current selection.

## Private

This represents a font’s postscript private dictionary. You may index it with one of the standard names of things that live in the private dictionary.

This type may not be pickled.

class fontforge.private

private.__iter__()

  Returns an iterator for the dictionary which will return all entries.

private.guess(name)

  Guess a value for this entry in the private dictionary. If FontForge can’t make a guess it will simply ignore the request.

## Math

This represents a font’s math constant table. Not all fonts have math tables, and checking this field will not create the underlying object, but examining or assigning to its members will create it.

This type may not be pickled.

Members

Any of the math constant names may be used as member names.

(These names begin with capital letters, not Python’s conventions but Microsoft’s)

These all take (16 bit) integer values.

Each `DeviceTable` property takes a dictionary with keys representing a font size in pixels and values representing the corresponding adjustment, e.g. `{9: -1, 10: -1, 12: -1}`. Setting `DeviceTable` property to `None` will delete it.

Device table entries can also be queried and assigned by font size

    font.math.MathLeadingDeviceTable[12] = 2
    adj = font.math.MathLeadingDeviceTable[12]

math.ScriptPercentScaleDown

  Percentage scale down for script level 1

math.ScriptScriptPercentScaleDown

  Percentage scale down for script level 2

math.DelimitedSubFormulaMinHeight

  Minimum height at which to treat a delimited expression as a subformula

math.DisplayOperatorMinHeight

  Minimum height of n-ary operators (integration, summation, etc.)

math.MathLeading

math.MathLeadingDeviceTable

  White space to be left between math formulae to ensure proper line spacing.

math.AxisHeight

math.AxisHeightDeviceTable

  Axis height of the font

math.AccentBaseHeight

math.AccentBaseHeightDeviceTable

  Maximum (ink) height of accent base that does not require raising the accents.

math.FlattenedAccentBaseHeight

math.FlattenedAccentBaseHeightDeviceTable

  Maximum (ink) height of accent base that does not require flattening the accents.

math.SubscriptShiftDown

math.SubscriptShiftDownDeviceTable

  The standard shift down applied to subscript elements. Positive for moving downward.

math.SubscriptTopMax

math.SubscriptTopMaxDeviceTable

  Maximum height of the (ink) top of subscripts that does not require moving subscripts further down.

math.SubscriptBaselineDropMin

math.SubscriptBaselineDropMinDeviceTable

  Maximum allowed drop of the baseline of subscripts relative to the bottom of the base. Used for bases that are treated as a box or extended shape. Positive for subscript baseline dropped below base bottom.

math.SuperscriptShiftUp

math.SuperscriptShiftUpDeviceTable

  Standard shift up applied to superscript elements.

math.SuperscriptShiftUpCramped

math.SuperscriptShiftUpCrampedDeviceTable

  Standard shift of superscript relative to base in cramped mode.

math.SuperscriptBottomMin

math.SuperscriptBottomMinDeviceTable

  Minimum allowed height of the bottom of superscripts that does not require moving them further up.

math.SuperscriptBaselineDropMax

math.SuperscriptBaselineDropMaxDeviceTable

  Maximum allowed drop of the baseline of superscripts relative to the top of the base. Used for bases that are treated as a box or extended shape. Positive for superscript baseline below base top.

math.SubSuperscriptGapMin

math.SubSuperscriptGapMinDeviceTable

  Minimum gap between the superscript and subscript ink.

math.SuperscriptBottomMaxWithSubscript

math.SuperscriptBottomMaxWithSubscriptDeviceTable

  The maximum level to which the (ink) bottom of superscript can be pushed to increase the gap between superscript and subscript, before subscript starts being moved down.

math.SpaceAfterScript

math.SpaceAfterScriptDeviceTable

  Extra white space to be added after each sub/superscript.

math.UpperLimitGapMin

math.UpperLimitGapMinDeviceTable

  Minimum gap between the bottom of the upper limit, and the top of the base operator.

math.UpperLimitBaselineRiseMin

math.UpperLimitBaselineRiseMinDeviceTable

  Minimum distance between the baseline of an upper limit and the bottom of the base operator.

math.LowerLimitGapMin

math.LowerLimitGapMinDeviceTable

  Minimum gap between (ink) top of the lower limit, and (ink) bottom of the base operator.

math.LowerLimitBaselineDropMin

math.LowerLimitBaselineDropMinDeviceTable

  Minimum distance between the baseline of the lower limit and bottom of the base operator.

math.StackTopShiftUp

math.StackTopShiftUpDeviceTable

  Standard shift up applied to the top element of a stack.

math.StackTopDisplayStyleShiftUp

math.StackTopDisplayStyleShiftUpDeviceTable

  Standard shift up applied to the top element of a stack in display style.

math.StackBottomShiftDown

math.StackBottomShiftDownDeviceTable

  Standard shift down applied to the bottom element of a stack. Positive values indicate downward motion.

math.StackBottomDisplayStyleShiftDown

math.StackBottomDisplayStyleShiftDownDeviceTable

  Standard shift down applied to the bottom element of a stack in display style. Positive values indicate downward motion.

math.StackGapMin

math.StackGapMinDeviceTable

  Minimum gap between bottom of the top element of a stack, and the top of the bottom element.

math.StackDisplayStyleGapMin

math.StackDisplayStyleGapMinDeviceTable

  Minimum gap between bottom of the top element of a stack and the top of the bottom element in display style.

math.StretchStackTopShiftUp

math.StretchStackTopShiftUpDeviceTable

  Standard shift up applied to the top element of the stretch stack.

math.StretchStackBottomShiftDown

math.StretchStackBottomShiftDownDeviceTable

  Standard shift down applied to the bottom element of the stretch stack. Positive values indicate downward motion.

math.StretchStackGapAboveMin

math.StretchStackGapAboveMinDeviceTable

  Minimum gap between the ink of the stretched element and the ink bottom of the element above.

math.StretchStackGapBelowMin

math.StretchStackGapBelowMinDeviceTable

  Minimum gap between the ink of the stretched element and the ink top of the element below.

math.FractionNumeratorShiftUp

math.FractionNumeratorShiftUpDeviceTable

  Standard shift up applied to the numerator.

math.FractionNumeratorDisplayStyleShiftUp

math.FractionNumeratorDisplayStyleShiftUpDeviceTable

  Standard shift up applied to the numerator in display style.

math.FractionDenominatorShiftDown

math.FractionDenominatorShiftDownDeviceTable

  Standard shift down applied to the denominator. Positive values indicate downward motion.

math.FractionDenominatorDisplayStyleShiftDown

math.FractionDenominatorDisplayStyleShiftDownDeviceTable

  Standard shift down applied to the denominator in display style. Positive values indicate downward motion.

math.FractionNumeratorGapMin

math.FractionNumeratorGapMinDeviceTable

  Minimum tolerated gap between the ink bottom of the numerator and the ink of the fraction bar.

math.FractionNumeratorDisplayStyleGapMin

math.FractionNumeratorDisplayStyleGapMinDeviceTable

  Minimum tolerated gap between the ink bottom of the numerator and the ink of the fraction bar in display style.

math.FractionRuleThickness

math.FractionRuleThicknessDeviceTable

  Thickness of the fraction bar.

math.FractionDenominatorGapMin

math.FractionDenominatorGapMinDeviceTable

  Minimum tolerated gap between the ink top of the denominator and the ink of the fraction bar.

math.FractionDenominatorDisplayStyleGapMin

math.FractionDenominatorDisplayStyleGapMinDeviceTable

  Minimum tolerated gap between the ink top of the denominator and the ink of the fraction bar in display style.

math.SkewedFractionHorizontalGap

math.SkewedFractionHorizontalGapDeviceTable

  Horizontal distance between the top and bottom elements of a skewed fraction.

math.SkewedFractionVerticalGap

math.SkewedFractionVerticalGapDeviceTable

  Vertical distance between the ink of the top and bottom elements of a skewed fraction.

math.OverbarVerticalGap

math.OverbarVerticalGapDeviceTable

  Distance between the overbar and the ink top of the base.

math.OverbarRuleThickness

math.OverbarRuleThicknessDeviceTable

  Thickness of the overbar.

math.OverbarExtraAscender

math.OverbarExtraAscenderDeviceTable

  Extra white space reserved above the overbar.

math.UnderbarVerticalGap

math.UnderbarVerticalGapDeviceTable

  Distance between underbar and the (ink) bottom of the base.

math.UnderbarRuleThickness

math.UnderbarRuleThicknessDeviceTable

  Thickness of the underbar.

math.UnderbarExtraDescender

math.UnderbarExtraDescenderDeviceTable

  Extra white space reserved below the underbar.

math.RadicalVerticalGap

math.RadicalVerticalGapDeviceTable

  Space between the ink to of the expression and the bar over it.

math.RadicalDisplayStyleVerticalGap

math.RadicalDisplayStyleVerticalGapDeviceTable

  Space between the ink top of the expression and the bar over it in display style.

math.RadicalRuleThickness

math.RadicalRuleThicknessDeviceTable

  Thickness of the radical rule in designed or constructed radical signs.

math.RadicalExtraAscender

math.RadicalExtraAscenderDeviceTable

  Extra white space reserved above the radical.

math.RadicalKernBeforeDegree

math.RadicalKernBeforeDegreeDeviceTable

  Extra horizontal kern before the degree of a radical if such be present.

math.RadicalKernAfterDegree

math.RadicalKernAfterDegreeDeviceTable

  Negative horizontal kern after the degree of a radical if such be present.

math.RadicalDegreeBottomRaisePercent

  Height of the bottom of the radical degree, if such be present, in proportion to the ascender of the radical sign.

math.MinConnectorOverlap

  Minimum overlap of connecting glyphs during glyph construction.

math.exists()

  Returns whether the font currently has an underlying math table associated with it. Note that examining or assigning to one of the members will create such a table.

math.clear()

  Removes any underlying math table from the font.

## Font

The font type refers to a fontforge `font` object. It generally contains a list of `glyphs`, an encoding to order those glyphs, a fontname, a list of GPOS/GSUB lookups and many other things.

This type may not be pickled.

class fontforge.font

  Creates a new font.

font.activeLayer

  Returns currently active layer in the font (as an integer). May be set to an integer or a layer name to change the active layer.

font.ascent

  The font’s ascent

font.bitmapSizes

  A tuple with an entry for each bitmap strike attached to the font. Each strike is identified by pixelsize (if the strike is a grey scale font it will be indicated by `(bitmap-depth<<16)|pixelsize`.

  When setting this value pass in a tuple of the same format. Any existing strike not specified in the tuple will be removed. Any new sizes will be created (but not rasterized – use `font.regenBitmaps()` for that).

font.capHeight

  (readonly) Computes the Cap Height (the height of capital letters such as “E”). A negative number indicates the value could not be computed (the font might have no capital letters because it was lower case only, or didn’t include glyphs for a script with capital letters).

font.changed

  Bit indicating whether the font has been modified. This is (should be) maintained automatically, but you may set it if you wish.

font.cidcopyright

  Copyright message of the cid-keyed font as a whole (ie. not the current subfont).

font.cidfamilyname

  Family name of the cid-keyed font as a whole (ie. not the current subfont).

font.cidfontname

  Font name of the cid-keyed font as a whole (ie. not the current subfont).

font.cidfullname

  Full name of the cid-keyed font as a whole (ie. not the current subfont).

font.cidordering

font.cidregistry

font.cidsubfont

  Returns the number index of the current subfont in the cid-keyed font (or -1 if this is not a cid-keyed font).

  May be set to an index (an integer) or a subfont fontname (a string) to change the current subfont. (To find the name of the current subfont, simply use .fontname).

font.cidsubfontcnt

  Returns the number of subfonts in this cid-keyed font (or 0 if it is not a cid-keyed font)

font.cidsubfontnames

  Returns a tuple of the subfont names in this cid-keyed font (or None if it is not a cid-keyed font)

font.cidsupplement

font.cidversion

font.cidweight

  Weight of the cid-keyed font as a whole

font.comment

  A comment associated with the font. Can be anything.

font.copyright

  PostScript copyright notice

font.cvt

  Returns a sequence object containing the font’s cvt table. Changes made to this object will be made to the font (this is a reference not a copy).

  The object has one additional method `cvt.find(value[,low,high])` which finds the index of value in the cvt table (or -1 if not found). If low and high are specified then the index will be between `[low,high)`.

font.default_base_filename

  The default base for the filename when generating a font

font.descent

  The font’s descent

font.design_size

  Size (in pica points) for which this font was designed.

font.em

  The em size of the font. Setting this will scale the entire font to the new size.

font.encoding

  The name of the current encoding. Setting it will change the encoding used for indexing. To compact the encoding, first set it to your desired encoding (e.g. `UnicodeBMP`), then set it to `compacted`.

font.familyname

  PostScript font family name

font.fondname

  Mac fond name

font.fontlog

  A comment associated with the font. Can be anything.

font.fontname

  PostScript font name

  Note that in a CID keyed font this will be the name of the current subfont. Use cidfontname for the name of the font as a whole.

font.fullname

  PostScript font name

font.gasp

  Returns a tuple of all gasp table entries. Each item in the tuple is itself a tuple composed of a ppem (an integer) and a tuple of flags. The flags are chosen from:

  - `gridfit`

  - `antialias`

  - `symmetric-smoothing`

  - `gridfit+smoothing`

font.gasp_version

  The version of the ‘gasp’ table. Currently this may be 0 or 1.

font.gpos_lookups

  Returns a tuple of all positioning lookup names in the font. This member cannot be set.

font.gsub_lookups

  Returns a tuple of all substitution lookup names in the font. This member cannot be set.

font.guide

  A copy of the font’s guide layer

font.hasvmetrics

font.head_optimized_for_cleartype

font.hhea_ascent

font.hhea_ascent_add

font.hhea_descent

font.hhea_descent_add

font.hhea_linegap

font.horizontalBaseline

  Returns a tuple of tuples containing the horizontal baseline information in the font (the ‘BASE’ table). If there is no information `None` will be returned, otherwise the format of the tuple is:

      ((tuple of baseline tags used), (tuple of script information))

  The `(tuple of baseline tags used)` is simply a tuple of 4 letter strings as `("hang", "ideo", "romn")` these are standard baseline tag names as defined in the opentype spec. The number of entries here, and their order is important as there will be subsequent tuples (in the script tuple) which use the same ordering.

  The `(tuple of script information)` is again a tuple of `script information` tuples.

  A `script information` tuple looks like

      (script-tag,default-baseline-tag, (tuple of baseline positions), (tuple of language extents))

  If there are no baseline tags defined (an empty tuple), then the `default-baseline-tag` and the `(tuple of baseline positions)` will be `None`. Otherwise both tags will be 4 character strings, and the `(tuple of baseline positions)` will be a tuple of numbers (in the same order as the `(tuple of baseline tags used)` above) specifying the relative positions of each baseline for this script.

  A `(tuple of language extents)` is a tuple of `language extent` tuples.

  A `language extent` tuple is

      (language-tag,min-extent,max-extent, (tuple of feature extents))

  `language-tag` is a 4 letter string specifying an opentype language, `min`/`max-extent` are numbers specifying how far above and below the baseline characters go in this script/language.

  A `(tuple of feature extents>` is a tuple of `feature extent` tuples.

  A `feature extent` tuple is

      (feature-tag,min-extent,max-extent)

  `feature-tag` is a 4 letter string specifying an opentype (GPOS or GSUB) feature tag, `min`/`max-extent` are numbers specifying how far above and below the baseline characters go in this script/language with the feature applied.

  Example:

      (("hang","ideo","romn"),
        (("cyrl","romn",(1405,-288,0),()),
         ("grek","romn",(1405,-288,0),()),
         ("latn","romn",(1405,-288,0),
           (("dflt",-576,1913,
             (("NoAc",-576,1482),
              ("ENG ",-576,1482))
           ),
         )
        )
       )
      )

  (Note: The comma after the `dflt` tuple puts it into a one-element tuple.)

font.is_cid

  Indicates whether the font is a cid-keyed font or not. (Read-only)

font.is_quadratic

  Deprecated. Whether the contours should be interpreted as a set of quadratic or cubic splines. Setting this value has the side effect of converting the entire font into the other format

  Now each layer may have its own setting for this value, which should be set on the font’s `font.layers`.

font.isnew

  A flag indicating that this is a new font

font.italicangle

font.macstyle
  Bit 0

    Bold (if set to 1)

  Bit 1

    Italic (if set to 1)

  Bit 2

    Underline (if set to 1)

  Bit 3

    Outline (if set to 1)

  Bit 4

    Shadow (if set to 1)

  Bit 5

    Condensed (if set to 1)

  Bit 6

    Extended (if set to 1)

  Bits 7-15

    Reserved (set to 0).

  (source)

font.layer_cnt

  The number of layers in the font. (Read only. Can change using `add` and `del` operations on the `font.layers` array)

font.layers

  Returns a dictionary like object with information on the layers of the font – a name and a boolean indicating whether the layer is quadratic or not.

  You may remove a layer with

      del font.layers["unneeded layer"]

  You may add a new layer with

      font.layers.add("layer-name",is_quadratic[, is_background])

  You may change a layer’s name with

      font.layers["layer"].name = "new-name"

  You may change the type of splines in a layer with

      font.layers["layer"].is_quadratic = True

  You may change whether it is a background layer by

      font.layers["layer"].is_background = True

  Note: The layers that live in the font are different from layers that live in a glyph. These objects do not have the Layer type documented earlier.

font.loadState

  A bitmask indicating non-fatal errors found when loading the font. (readonly)

  0x01

    Bad PostScript entry in ‘name’ table

  0x02

    Bad ‘glyf’ or ‘loca’ table

  0x04

    Bad ‘CFF ‘ table

  0x08

    Bad ‘hhea’, ‘hmtx’, ‘vhea’ or ‘vmtx’ table

  0x10

    Bad ‘cmap’ table

  0x20

    Bad ‘EBLC’, ‘bloc’, ‘EBDT’ or ‘bdat’ (embedded bitmap) table

  0x40

    Bad Apple GX advanced typography table

  0x80

    Bad OpenType advanced typography table (GPOS, GSUB, GDEF, BASE)

  0x100

    Bad OS/2 version number

    Windows will reject all fonts with a OS/2 version number of 0 and will reject OT-CFF fonts with a version number of 1

font.maxp_FDEFs

  The number of function definitions used by the tt program

font.maxp_IDEFs

  The number of instruction definitions used by the tt program

font.maxp_maxStackDepth

  The maximum stack depth used by the tt program

font.maxp_storageCnt

  The number of storage locations used by the tt program

font.maxp_twilightPtCnt

  The number of points in the twilight zone of the tt program

font.maxp_zones

  The number of zones used in the tt program

font.multilayer

font.onlybitmaps

  A flag indicating that this font only contains bitmaps. No outlines.

font.os2_capheight

font.os2_codepages

  A 2 element tuple containing the OS/2 Codepages field

font.os2_family_class

font.os2_fstype

font.os2_panose

font.os2_strikeypos

font.os2_strikeysize

font.os2_stylemap

  Write access to fsSelection, keep in sync with `font.macstyle`

font.os2_subxoff

font.os2_subxsize

font.os2_subyoff

font.os2_subysize

font.os2_supxoff

font.os2_supxsize

font.os2_supyoff

font.os2_supysize

font.os2_typoascent

font.os2_typoascent_add

font.os2_typodescent

font.os2_typodescent_add

font.os2_typolinegap

font.os2_unicoderanges

  A 4 element tuple containing the OS/2 Unicode Ranges field

font.os2_use_typo_metrics

font.os2_vendor

font.os2_version

font.os2_weight

font.os2_weight_width_slope_only

font.os2_width

font.os2_winascent

font.os2_winascent_add

font.os2_windescent

font.os2_windescent_add

font.os2_xheight

font.path

  (readonly) Returns a string containing the name of the file from which the font was originally read (in this session), or if this is a new font, returns a made up filename in the current directory named something like “Untitled1.sfd”. See also `font.sfd_path`.

font.persistent

  Whatever you want – though I recommend you store a dict here (these data will be saved as a pickled object in the sfd file. It is your job to ensure that whatever you put here can be pickled)

  If you do store a dict then the following entries will be treated specially:

  initScriptString

    If present, and if this is a string, then each time the font is loaded from an sfd file, this string will be passed to the python interpreter.

    Note

    This is a string, not a function. Function code cannot be pickled. Since it is a string it will receive no arguments, but the current font will be available in the activeFont method of the fontforge module.

    This string will be interpreted before the loadFontHook of the `fontforge.hooks` dictionary.

    One possible behavior for this string is to define function hooks to be stored in the temporary dict described below.

font.math

  Returns a `math` object which provides information on the font’s underlying math constant table. There is only one of these per font.

font.private

  Returns a `private` dictionary-like object representing the PostScript private dictionary for the font. Changing entries in this object will change them in the font. (It’s a reference, not a copy).

  There is an iterator associated with this entry.

font.privateState

  Checks the (PostScript) Private dictionary and returns a bitmask of some common errors.

  0x000001

    Odd number of elements in either the BlueValues or OtherBlues array.

  0x000002

    Elements in either the BlueValues or OtherBlues are disordered.

  0x000004

    Too many elements in either the BlueValues or OtherBlues array.

  0x000008

    Elements in either the BlueValues or OtherBlues array are too close (must be at least `2*BlueFuzz +1` apart).

  0x000010

    Elements in either the BlueValues or OtherBlues array are not integers.

  0x000020

    Alignment zone height in either the BlueValues or OtherBlues array is too big for the value of BlueScale.

  0x000100

    Odd number of elements in either the FamilyBlues or FamilyOtherBlues array.

  0x000200

    Elements in either the FamilyBlues or FamilyOtherBlues are disordered.

  0x000400

    Too many elements in either the FamilyBlues or FamilyOtherBlues array.

  0x000800

    Elements in either the FamilyBlues or FamilyOtherBlues array are too close (must be at least `2*BlueFuzz +1` apart).

  0x001000

    Elements in either the FamilyBlues or FamilyOtherBlues array are not integers.

  0x002000

    Alignment zone height in either the FamilyBlues or FamilyOtherBlues array is too big for the value of BlueScale.

  0x010000

    Missing BlueValues entry.

  0x020000

    Bad BlueFuzz entry.

  0x040000

    Bad BlueScale entry.

  0x080000

    Bad StdHW entry.

  0x100000

    Bad StdVW entry.

  0x200000

    Bad StemSnapH entry.

  0x400000

    Bad StemSnapV entry.

  0x800000

    StemSnapH does not include StdHW.

  0x1000000

    StemSnapV does not include StdVW.

  0x2000000

    Bad BlueShift entry.

font.selection

  Returns a reference to a `array-like object representing the font's selection`. There is one entry for each encoding slot (there may not be a glyph attached to every encoding slot). You may set this with a tuple of integers (or boolean values). There should not be more entries in the tuple than there are encoding slots in the current encoding. A `True` or non-0 value means the slot is selected.

font.sfd_path

  (readonly) Returns a string (or None) containing the name of the sfd file associated with this font. Sometimes this will be the same as `font.path`.

font.sfnt_names

  The strings in the sfnt ‘name’ table. A tuple of all MS names. Each name is itself a tuple of strings `(language,strid,string)`. Language may be either the (english) name of the language/locale, or the number representing that language in Microsoft’s specification. Strid may be one of the (English) string names `(Copyright, Family, SubFamily, etc.)` or the numeric value of that item. The string itself is in UTF-8.

  Mac names will be automagically created from MS names

font.sfntRevision

  The font revision field stored in the `'head'` table of an sfnt. This is documented to be a fixed 16.16 number (that is a 32 bit number with the binary point between bits 15 and 16).

  The field may be unset (in which case when the font is generated, FontForge will guess a default value from one of the version strings).

  The value returned will be `None` if the field is unset or a double.

  You may set it to `None` which “unsets” it, or to a double value, or to an integer. The integer will be treated as a 32 bit integer and right shifted by 16 to get a 16.16 value).

font.size_feature

  The OpenType ‘size’ feature has two formats. It may either represent the design size of the font (and nothing else) or the design size, and range (top and bottom point sizes for which this design works), a style id (used to represent this design size throughout the font family) and a set of language/string pairs used to represent this design size in the menu.

  If no size information is specified in the font FontForge will return None.

  If only the design size is specified, FontForge will return a tuple containing a single element: the point size for which the font was designed. (This is returned as a real number – the field can represent tenths of a point).

  Otherwise FontForge returns a tuple containing five elements, the design size, the bottom of the design range, the top, the style id and a tuple of tuples. Each sub-tuple is a language/string pair. Language may be either the (english) name of the language/locale, or the string itself in UTF-8.

font.strokedfont

  is this a stroked font?

font.strokewidth

  the stroke width of a stroked font

font.style_set_names

  A tuple, each entry of which is a 3-element tuple containing the language name (e.g. `"English (US)"`), the style set tag (e.g. `"ss01"`) and the style set name.

font.temporary

  Whatever you want – though I recommend you store a dict here (these data will be lost once the font is closed)

  If you do store a dict then the following entries will be treated specially:

  generateFontPreHook

    If present, and if this is a function it will be called just before a font is generated. It will be called with the font and the filename to which the font will be written.

  generateFontPostHook

    If present, and if this is a function it will be called just after a font is generated. It will be called with the font and the filename to which the font will be written.

font.texparameters

  Returns a tuple of TeX font parameters. TeX font type followed by 22 parameters. Font type is one of:

  > - `text`

  > - `mathsym`

  > - `mathext`

  > - `unset`

  In case of `unset` default values for font parameters will be returned.

font.uniqueid

font.upos

  underline position

font.userdata

  Warning

  Deprecated name for `font.temporary`

font.uwidth

  underline width

font.version

  PostScript font version string

font.verticalBaseline

  Same format as `font.horizontalBaseline`.

font.vertical_origin

  Warning

  Deprecated

font.vhea_linegap

font.weight

  PostScript font weight string

font.woffMajor

  The major version number of a woff file, an integer.

  The field may be unset (in which case when the font is generated, FontForge will guess a default value from one of the version strings).

  The value returned will be `None` if the field is unset or an integer.

  You may set it to `None` which “unsets” it, or to an integer.

font.woffMinor

  The minor version number of a woff file, an integer.

  The field may be unset (in which case when the font is generated, FontForge will guess a default value from one of the version strings).

  The value returned will be `None` if the field is unset or an integer.

  You may set it to `None` which “unsets” it, or to an integer.

font.woffMetadata

  Any metadata associated with a woff file. This is a utf8 string containing unparsed xml.

font.xHeight

  (readonly) Computes the X Height (the height of lower case letters such as “x”). A negative number indicates the value could not be computed (the font might have no lower case letters because it was upper case only, or didn’t include glyphs for a script with lower case letters).

font.__iter__()

  Returns an iterator for the font which will run through the font, in gid order, returning glyph names

font.__contains__()

  Returns whether the font contains a glyph with the given name.

font.__len__()

  The number of glyph slots in the current encoding

font.__getitem__(key)

  If `key` is an integer, then returns the glyph at that encoding. If a string then returns the glyph with that name. May not be assigned to.

font.addAnchorClass(lookup_subtable_name, new_anchor_class_name)

  Adds an anchor class to the specified (anchor) subtable.

font.addKerningClass(lookup_name, new_subtable_name, first_classes, second_classes, offsets[, after])
font.addKerningClass(lookup_name, new_subtable_name, separation, first_classes, second_classes[, onlyCloser, autokern, after])
font.addKerningClass(lookup_name, new_subtable_name, separation, class_distance, first_glyph_list, second_glyph_list[, onlyCloser, autokern, after])
font.addKerningClass(lookup_name, new_subtable_name, separation, class_distance[, onlyCloser, autokern, after])

  Creates a new subtable and a new kerning class in the named lookup. The classes arguments are tuples of tuples of glyph names (each sub-tuple of glyph names is a kerning class). The offsets argument is a tuple of kerning offsets. There must be as many entries as

      len(first-class)*len(second-class)

  The optional after argument is used to specify the order of the subtable within the lookup.

  The second format will cause FontForge to auto kern the subtable. The separation argument specifies the desired optical distance between any two glyphs (if this is specified as 0 then the kerning class will be designed so glyphs just touch each other). Again the user specifies two sets of predefined classes. If the (optional) `onlyCloser` flag is set true then only negative kerning values will be inserted into the table.

  In the third format the user merely specifies two lists of glyphs to be used, fontforge will look for similarities among among the glyphs and guess at classes. The class-distance argument to determine how precise the classes should match (1 is very tight matching, 20 is rather loose).

  In the last format the font’s selection will be used to specify the list of glyphs to be examined (and the same list will be used for both the left and right glyphs – but fontforge will probably find different classes).

font.addLookup(new_lookup_name, type, flags, feature_script_lang_tuple[, after_lookup_name)

  Creates a new lookup with the given name, type and flags. It will tag it with any indicated features. The type is one of

  - `gsub_single`

  - `gsub_multiple`

  - `gsub_alternate`

  - `gsub_ligature`

  - `gsub_context`

  - `gsub_contextchain`

  - `gsub_revesechain`

  - `morx_indic`

  - `morx_context`

  - `morx_insert`

  - `gpos_single`

  - `gpos_pair`

  - `gpos_cursive`

  - `gpos_mark2base`

  - `gpos_mark2ligature`

  - `gpos_mark2mark`

  - `gpos_context`

  - `gpos_contextchain`

  - `kern_statemachine`

  The flags argument is a tuple of strings, or `None`. At most one of these strings may be the name of a mark class. The others are:

  - `right_to_left`

  - `ignore_bases`

  - `ignore_ligatures`

  - `ignore_marks`

  A feature-script-lang tuple is a tuple with one entry for each feature (there may be no entries if there are no features). Each entry is itself a two element tuple, the first entry is a string containing a 4 letter feature tag, and the second entry is another tuple (potentially empty) with an entry for each script for which the feature is active. Each entry here is itself a two element tuple. The first element is a 4 letter script tag and the second is a tuple of languages. Each entry in the language tuple is a four letter language. Example: `(("liga",(("latn",("dflt")),)),)`

  The optional final argument allows you to specify the ordering of the lookup. If not specified the lookup will become the first lookup in its table.

font.addLookupSubtable(lookup_name, new_subtable_name[, after_subtable_name])

  Creates a new subtable within the specified lookup. The lookup name should be a string specifying an existing lookup. The subtable name should also be a string and should not match any currently existing subtable in the lookup. The optional final argument allows you to specify the ordering within the lookup. If not specified this subtable will be first in the lookup.

  If you want to create a subtable in a contextual lookup, then use `font.addContextualSubtable()`. If you want to create a kerning class subtable, then use `font.addKerningClass()`.

font.addContextualSubtable(lookup_name, new_subtable_name, type, rule[, afterSubtable=] [, bclasses=] [, mclasses=] [, fclasses=] [, bclassnames=] [, mclassnames=] [, fclassnames=])

  Creates a new subtable within the specified contextual lookup (contextual, contextual chaining, or reverse contextual chaining). The lookup name should be a string specifying an existing lookup. The subtable name should also be a string and should not match any currently existing subtable in the lookup.

  The `type` should be one of the strings “glyph”, “class”, “coverage” or “reversecoverage”. The `rule` should be a string specifying a string to match and a set of lookups to apply once the match has been made. (See below for more details).

  The remaining arguments are optional, keyword arguments.

  - `afterSubtable=`, if present this should be followed by a string, the name of a subtable after which this one is to be placed in the lookup. If not specified this subtable will be first in the lookup.

  - `bclasses=, fclasses=, mclasses=` these three arguments specify sets of glyph classes for when `type="class"`. They should be a tuple of thingies where each thingy is either a string containing a list of space separated glyph names, or another tuple containing a set of strings, each a glyph name. Note that the first class is magic and should usually be left as a null string.

  - `bclassnames=, fclassnames=, mclassnames=` These provide names for the glyph classes described above. These names are optional, but can be convenient. These are tuples of strings. There should be the same number of entries in `bclassnames` as there are in `bclasses`.

  When type="glyph"

    The rule should look something like:

        glyph-name1 glyph-name2 | glyph-name3 @<lookup-name> | glyph-name4

    The `|` s divide between backtrack, match and lookahead sections. So this example would match if the current glyph were named `glyph-name3` and it were preceded by `glyph-name2` and that by `glyph-name1` and followed by `glyph-name4`. If the match were successful then the lookup named `lookup-name` would be applied. The `@<>` are literal characters and should be present in the rule.

    If the invoked lookup is a ligature lookup then it should be invoked after the first glyph that forms the lookup (rather than the last) and all glyphs that might make up the lookup should be in the match section. So…

        e | f @<ff-lig> f l | o

    would only apply the `ff-lig` lookup if the `ffl` were preceded by `e` and followed by `o`.

  When type="class"

    The rule should look something like:

        class-name1 class-name2 | class-name3 @<lookup-name> | class-name4

    Very similar to the case of glyphs, except that instead of glyph names we have class names here. It is possible to have different sets of class names in the three different sections (backtrack, match and lookahead). If you don’t specify any class names then you must use numbers instead, each number referring to the class at that position in the tuple (the first class will be class 0, the second class 1, and so on).

  When type="coverage"

    The rule should look something like:

        [g1 g2] [g3 g4] | [g5 g6 g7] @<lookup-name> | [g8 g9]

    Each entry within brackets, `[]`, represents a coverage table and should be a list of glyph names. The brackets are specified literally.

  When type="reversecoverage"

    The rule should look something like:

        [g1 g2] [g3 g4] | [g5 g6 g7] => [rg1 rg2 rg3] | [g8 g9]

    Very similar to normal coverage tables except that instead of specifying a lookup there are replacement glyphs inline. There must be the same number of replacement glyphs (`rg1, rg2,rg3`) as match glyphs (`g5, g6, g7`) and there may be only one coverage table in the match section.

  Warning

  This format has some limitations, if there are multiple lookups they will be applied in textual order (First lookup in the string is the first one applied). This limitation is also present in Adobe’s feature files so I hope it shan’t be a severe limitation.

font.addSmallCaps(scheight=None, capheight=None, lcstem=None, ucstem=None, symbols=None, letter_extension=None, symbol_extension=None, stem_height_factor=None)

  This function uses keyword parameters. None are required, if omitted a default value will be used (generally found by analyzing the font).

  For each selected letter, this function will create a corresponding small caps glyph. If you set the `symbols` keyword to `True` it will also create small caps variants of digits and symbols.

  The outlines of the new glyph will be based on the outlines of the upper-case variant of the letter. These will then be scaled so that a glyph which was `capheight` high will now be `scheight` high, and so that stems which were `ucstem` wide will be `lcstem` wide. Normally the ratio of stem heights is the same as the ratio of stem widths, but you may change that with `stem_height_factor`.

  When it creates a new glyph it will name that glyph by appending “.sc” to the original lower case letter name (so “a” would become “a.sc”) you may change the extension used with `letter_extension`. Similarly symbols and digits will use the extension “taboldstyle”, but you may change that with `symbol_extension`.

  When it creates a glyph it also creates two lookups one bound to the feature “c2sc” and the other to “smcp”. A mapping from the lower case letter to the small caps letter will be provided under “smcp”, while a mapping from the upper case to the small caps under “c2sc”. Symbols will have both lookup maps attached to the original glyph.

font.alterKerningClass(subtable_name, first_classes, second_classes, offsets)

  Changes the kerning class in the named subtable. The classes arguments are tuples of tuples of glyph names (each sub-tuple of glyph names is a kerning class). The offsets argument is a tuple of kerning offsets. There must be as many entries as `len(first-class)*len(second-class)`.

font.autoKern(subtable_name, separation[, minKern, onlyCloser, touch])
font.autoKern(subtable_name, separation, glyph_list1, glyph_list2[, minKern, onlyCloser, touch])

  The named subtable must be a kerning pair subtable that already exists.

  This command will automatically generate kerning pairs for the named subtable. If no glyph lists are specified it will look at all pairs of the glyphs in the selection; if glyph lists are specified then it will look at all pairs that can be made with one glyph from the first list and the second from the second list.

  It will attempt to guess a good kerning value between the two glyphs – a value which will make the optical separation between the two appear to be `separation` em-units. If `minKern` is specified and the (absolute value of the) kerning correction is less than this number then no kerning pair will be generated. If `onlyCloser` is set to true then only negative kerning offsets will be generated (only thing which moves two glyphs closer together). If touch is set to 1 then the kerning offset will not be based on optical distance but on the closest approach between the two glyphs.

font.appendSFNTName(language, strid, string)

  Adds a new (or replaces an old) string in the sfnt ‘name’ table. Language may be either the English name of the language/locale as a string, or the number representing that language in MicroSoft’s specification. Strid may be one of the (english) string names (Copyright, Family, SubFamily, etc.) or the numeric value of that item. The string itself is in UTF-8.

font.buildOrReplaceAALTFeatures()

  Removes any existing AALT features (and any lookups solely controlled by such features) and creates new ones containing all possible single and alternate substitutions available for each glyph.

font.cidConvertByCmap(cmap_filename)

  Converts a normal font into a CID-keyed font with one subfont using the CMAP to determine the mapping.

font.cidConvertTo(registry, ordering, supplement)

  Converts a normal font into a CID-keyed font with one subfont.

font.cidFlatten()

  Converts a CID font into a normal font (glyphs will be in CID order).

font.cidFlattenByCMap(cmap_filename)

  Converts a CID font into a normal font using the encoding specified in the CMAP file.

font.cidInsertBlankSubFont()

  Adds a new (blank) sub-font into a cid-keyed font and changes the current sub-font to be it.

font.cidRemoveSubFont()

  Removes the current subfont from a cid-keyed font.

font.close()

  Frees memory for the current font.

  Warning: Any python references to it will become invalid.

font.compareFonts(other_font, filename, flags_tuple)

  This will compare the current font with the font in `other_font` (which must already have been opened). It will write the results to the `filename`, you may use “-” to send the output to stdout. The `flags` argument is a tuple of strings and controls what will be compared.

  outlines

    compare outlines

  outlines-exactly

    compare outlines exactly (otherwise allow slight errors and the unlinking of references)

  warn-outlines-mismatch

    warn if the outlines don’t exactly match (but are pretty close)

  hints

    compare hints

  warn-refs-unlink

    warn if references need to be unlinked before a match is found

  strikes

    compare bitmap strikes

  fontnames

    compare font names

  gpos

    compare glyph positioning

  gsub

    compare glyph substitutions

  add-outlines

    for any glyphs whose outlines differ, add the outlines of the glyph in the second font to the background of the glyph in the first

  create-glyphs

    if a glyph exists in the second font but not the first, create that glyph in the first and add the outlines from the second into the background layer

font.createChar(uni[, name])

  Create (and return) a character at the specified unicode codepoint in this font and optionally name it. If you wish to create a glyph with no unicode codepoint, set the first argument to -1 and specify a name.

  If there is already a character at that (positive) codepoint then it is returned. If the optional name parameter is included and differs from its current name then the character is also renamed.

font.createInterpolatedGlyph(glyph1, glyph2, amount)

  Create (and return) a glyph with the same unicode code point as glyph1. The glyph may not already exist. The contents of the glyph will be formed by interpolating between glyph1 and glyph2. If amount==0 the result will look like glyph1, or 1 then like glyph2.

font.createMappedChar(enc)
font.createMappedChar(name)

  Create (and return) a character at the specified encoding in this font. If there is already a character there, return it

font.find(contour[, error_bound, search_flags])

  Searches the font for all glyphs containing the contour (or layer) and returns an iterator which returns those glyphs.

  error-bound: defaults to 0.01.

  search_flags: tuple of the strings: reverse, flips, rotate, scale.

  When found, the glyph.temporary is set to a dict of:

      {
        "findMatchedRefs": matched_refs_bit_map,
        "findMatchedContours": matched_contours_bit_map,
        "findMatchedContoursStart": matched_contours_start_bit_map,
      }

font.findEncodingSlot(uni)
font.findEncodingSlot(name)

  Tests whether a glyph with this codepoint or name is in the font’s encoding and returns the encoding slot. If the glyph is not present it returns -1.

  (If a glyph with that name/unicode is in the font, but is not in the encoding, then a value beyond the end of the encoding will be returned).

font.glyphs([type])

  Returns an iterator which will return the glyphs in the font. By default they will be returned in “GID” order, but if type is specified as “encoding” they will be returned in encoding order. If returned in encoding order it is possible that a glyph will be returned more than once if there are multiple encoding slots which reference it.

font.generate(filename[, bitmap_type, flags, bitmap_resolution, subfont_directory, namelist, layer])

  Generates a font. The type is determined by the font’s extension. The bitmap type (if specified) is also an extension. If layer is specified, then the splines and references in that layer will be used instead of the foreground layer.

  Flags is a tuple containing some of

  afm

    output an afm file

  pfm

    output a pfm file

  tfm

    output a tfm file

  ofm

    output a ofm file

  composites-in-afm

    Store composite info in the afm file

  glyph-map-file

    Output a glyph map file giving the mapping between output gid and glyphnames

  short-post

    Do not include glyphnames in a ttf/otf file

  apple

    output apple advanced typography tables

  opentype

    output opentype tables

  old-kern

    output an old style ‘kern’ with opentype tables

  winkern

    only add kern pairs for mapped glyphs (required for kerning in some/all versions of Windows)

  dummy-dsig

    output an empty DSIG table so MS will mark a font with .ttf extension as an OpenType font.

  no-FFTM-table

    Do not generate an ‘FFTM’ table

  TeX-table

    Include a ‘TeX ‘ table in an ttf/otf file

  round

    Round PS coordinates to integers

  no-hints

    Do not include PS hints

  no-flex

    Do not include PS flex hints

  omit-instructions

    Do not include TrueType instructions

  PfEd-comments

    Include font and glyph comments in the ‘PfEd’ table

  PfEd-colors

    Include glyph colors in the ‘PfEd’ table

  PfEd-lookups

    Include lookup names in the ‘PfEd’ table

  PfEd-guidelines

    Include guideline locations in the ‘PfEd’ table

  PfEd-background

    Include background (and spiro) layers in the ‘PfEd’ table

  symbol

    Generate an sfnt with a Symbol cmap entry rather than a Unicode entry.

  See also `font.save()`.

font.generateTtc(filename, others[, flags, ttcflags, namelist, layer])

  Generates a truetype collection file containing the current font and all others listed – the `others` argument may be `None`, a font, or a tuple (or list) of fonts.

  Flags are as above,

  Ttcflags is a tuple consisting of the following

  merge

    Try and share tables and glyphs among the various fonts.

  cff

    Use the CFF glyph format rather than the TrueType format (the OpenType documentation says that this does not work, but both the Mac and unix/linux accept it).

font.generateFeatureFile(filename[, lookup_name])

  Generates an adobe feature file for the current font. If a lookup-name is specified then only data for that lookup will be generated.

font.genericGlyphChange(stemType=<str>, thickThreshold=<double>, stemScale=<double>, stemAdd=<double>, stemHeightScale=<double>, stemHeightAdd=<double>, stemWidthScale=<double>, stemWidthAdd=<double>, thinStemScale=<double>, thinStemAdd=<double>, thickStemScale=<double>, thickStemAdd=<double>, processDiagonalStems=<boolean>, hCounterType=<str>, hCounterScale=<double>, hCounterAdd=<double>, lsbScale=<double>, lsbAdd=<double>, rsbScale=<double>, rsbAdd=<double>, vCounterType=<str>, vCounterScale=<double>, vCounterAdd=<double>, vScale=<double>, vMap=<tuple of tuples>)

  This function uses keyword parameters. Which ones are required depends on the three type arguments (`stemType, hCounterType, vCounterType`).

  If `stemType` is omitted, or is the string “uniform”, then the `stemScale` parameter must be specified (and `stemAdd` may be). `stemScale` specifies a scaling factor by which all stems (horizontal and vertical, thick and thin) will be scaled. A value of 1.0 means no change. While `stemAdd` specifies the number of em-units to add to the width of each stem.

  If `stemType` is the string “horizontalVertical”, then values must be specified for `stemHeightScale` and `stemWidthScale` (and may be for `stemHeightAdd, stemWidthAdd` ). The first of these specifies scaling for the height of horizontal stems, and the second scaling for the width of vertical stems.

  If `stemType` is the string “thickThin”, then values must be specified for `thinStemScale`, `thickStemScale` and `thickThreshold` (and may be for `thinStemAdd, thickStemAdd` ). The first of these specifies scaling for the width/height of thin stems, and the second scaling for the width/height of thick stems. While the `thickThreshold` argument specifies the size (in em-units) at which a stem is classified as “thick”.

  If `hCounterType` is omitted, or is the string “uniform”, then horizontal counters, and the left and right side bearings will all be scaled using the same rules, and `hCounterScale` must be specified to provide the scaling factor (while `hCounterAdd` may be specified).

  If `hCounterType` is the string “nonUniform”, then horizontal counters, and the left and right side bearings may all be scaled using different rules, and `hCounterScale, lsbScale` and `rsbScale` must be specified to provide the scaling factors (while `hCounterAdd, lsbAdd,` and `rsbAdd` may be specified).

  If `hCounterType` is the string “center”, then the left and right side-bearings will be set so the new glyph is centered within the original glyph’s width. (Probably more useful for CJK fonts than LGC fonts).

  If `hCounterType` is the string “retainScale”, then the left and right side-bearings will be set so the new glyph is within within the original glyph’s width, and the side-bearings remain in the same proportion to each other as before.

  If `vCounterType` is omitted, or is the string “mapped”, then certain zones on the glyph may be placed at new (or the same) locations – similar to BlueValues. So you can specify a zone for the baseline, one for the x-height and another for the top of capitals and ascenders (and perhaps a fourth for descenders). Each such zone is specified by the `vMap` argument which is a tuple of 3-tuples, each 3-tuple specifying a zone with: Original location, original width, and final location.

  Note

  No default value is provided for this argument you must figure out all the values yourself.

  If `vCounterType` is the string “scaled”, then vertical counters, and the top and bottom side bearings will all be scaled using the same rules, and `vCounterScale` must be specified to provide the scaling factor (while `vCounterAdd` may be specified). This is probably most useful for CJK fonts.

font.getKerningClass(subtable_name)

  Returns a tuple whose entries are: (first-classes, second-classes, offsets). The classes are themselves tuples of tuples of glyph names. The offsets will be a tuple of numeric kerning offsets.

font.getLookupInfo(lookup_name)

  Returns a tuple whose entries are: (lookup-type, lookup-flags, feature-script-lang-tuple). The lookup type is a string as described in `font.addLookup()`, and the feature-script-lang tuple is also described there.

font.getLookupSubtables(lookup_name)

  Returns a tuple of all subtable names in that lookup.

font.getLookupSubtableAnchorClasses(subtable_name)

  Returns a tuple of all anchor class names in that subtable.

font.getLookupOfSubtable(subtable_name)

  Returns the name of the lookup containing this subtable.

font.getSubtableOfAnchor(anchor_class_name)

  Returns the name of the subtable containing this anchor class.

font.importBitmaps(bitmap_font_file[, to_background])

  Load any bitmap strikes out of the bitmap-font-file into the current font

font.importLookups(another_font, lookup_names[, before_name])

  The first argument must be a `font` object, the second a string or a tuple of strings, and the third, another string.

  It will search the other font for the named lookup(s) and import it into the current font. (Contextual lookups which invoke other lookups will have any nested lookups imported as well).

  Lookups will be imported in the order listed. If a before-name is specified, then it is looked up in the current font and all lookups will be added before it, if not specified lookups will appear at the end of the list.

font.interpolateFonts(fraction, filename)

  Interpolates a font between the current font and the font contained in filename.

font.isKerningClass(subtable_name)

  Returns whether the named subtable contains a kerning class.

font.isVerticalKerning(subtable_name)

  Returns whether the named subtable contains a vertical kerning data

font.italicize(italic_angle, ia=lc_condense=, lc=uc_condense=, uc=symbol_condense=, symbol=deserif_flat=, deserif_slant, deserif_pen, baseline_serifs, xheight_serifs, ascent_serifs, descent_serifs, diagonal_serifs, a, f, u0438, u043f, u0442, u0444, u0448, u0452, u045f)

  This function uses keyword parameters. None are required, if omitted a default value will be used. Some keywords have abbreviations (“ia” for “italic_angle”) you may use either.

  This function will attempt to italicize each selected glyph. For a detailed explanation of what this entails please see the information on the Italic dialog.

  The `*_condense` keywords should be 4 element tuples of floating point numbers; these numbers correspond to: Left side bearing condensation, stem condensation, counter condensation and right side bearing condensation. These numbers should be small numbers around 1 (scale factors, not percentages).

  Set at most one of the `deserif_*` keywords.

  Setting `a` to `True` will turn on the transformation that applies to the “a” glyph. Setting `u0438` will control the transformation that applies to the glyph at unicode codepoint U+0438.

  The `f` keyword is slightly more complex. Setting it to 0 turns off all transformations of glyphs like “f”, setting it to 1 will give “f” a tail which looks like a rotated version of its head, and setting it to 2 will simply extend the main stem of “f” below the baseline.

font.lookupSetFeatureList(lookup_name, feature_script_lang_tuple)

  Sets the feature list of indicated lookup. The feature-script-lang tuple is described at `font.addLookup()`.

font.lookupSetFlags(lookup_name, flags)

  Sets the lookup flags for the named lookup.

font.lookupSetStoreLigatureInAfm(lookup_name, boolean)

  Sets whether this ligature lookup contains data to store in the afm.

font.mergeFonts(filename[, preserveCrossFontKerning])(font[, preserveCrossFontKerning])

  Merges the font in the file into the current font.

font.mergeFeature(filename, boolean)

  Merge feature and lookup information from an adobe feature file, or metrics information from the (afm, tfm, etc) file into the current font. The optional boolean will try to skip invalid feature lookups containing replacement glyphs which do not exist in the font, which can help in reusing large feature files.

font.mergeKern(filename)

  Deprecated name for mergeFeature above

font.mergeLookups(lookup_name1, lookup_name2)

  The lookups must be of the same type. All subtables from lookup_name2 will be moved to lookup_name1, the features list of lookup_name2 will be merged with that of lookup_name1, and lookup_name2 will be removed.

font.mergeLookupSubtables(subtable_name1, subtable_name2)

  The subtables must be in the same lookup. Not all lookup types allow their subtables to be merged (contextual subtables may not be merged, kerning classes may not be (kerning pairs may be)). Any information bound to subtable2 will be bound to subtable1 and subtable2 will be removed.

font.printSample(type, pointsize, sample, output_file)

  Type is a string which must be one of

  fontdisplay

    Display all glyphs in the font in encoding order

  chars

    Display the selected glyphs scaled to fill a page

    Ignores the pointsize argument.

  waterfall

    Displays the selected glyphs at many pointsizes.

    The pointsize argument should be a tuple of pointsizes here.

  fontsample

    The third argument should contain a string which will be laid out and displayed as well as FontForge can.

  fontsampleinfile

    The third argument should contain the name of a file which contains text to be laid out and displayed.

  If output is to a file (see `fontforge.printSetup()`) then the last argument specifies a file name in which to store output.

font.randomText(script[, lang])

  Returns a random text sample using the letter frequencies of the specified script (and optionally language). Both script and language should be expressed as strings containing OpenType Script and Language tags. “dflt” is a reasonable language tag. If the language is not specified, one will be chosen at random. If ff has no frequency information for the script/language specified it will use the letters in the script with equal frequencies.

font.reencode(encoding[, force])

  Reencodes the current font into the given encoding. Optionally force reencoding.

font.regenBitmaps(tuple_of_sizes)

  A tuple with an entry for each bitmap strike to be regenerated (rerasterized). Each strike is identified by pixelsize (if the strike is a grey scale font it will be indicated by `(bitmap-depth<<16)|pixelsize`.

font.removeAnchorClass(anchor_class_name)

  Removes the named AnchorClass (and all associated points) from the font.

font.removeLookup(lookup_name[, remove_acs])

  Remove the lookup (and any subtables within it). remove_acs (0 or 1), specifies whether to remove associated anchor classes and points.

font.removeLookupSubtable(subtable_name[, remove_acs])

  Remove the subtable (and all data associated with it). remove_acs (0 or 1), specifies whether to remove associated anchor classes and points

font.removeGlyph(uni[, name])(name)(glyph)

  You may either pass in a FontForge glyph object (from this font) or identify a glyph in the font by unicode code point or name. In any case the glyph will be removed from the font.

  If you use (uni,name) to specify a name, set uni to -1.

  Warning

  This frees FontForge’s storage to this glyph. If you have any python references to that storage they will be looking at garbage. This does not go through the usual python reference mechanism.

font.replaceAll(srch, rpl[, error_bound])

  Searches the font for all occurrences of the srch contour (or layer) and replaces them with the replace contour (or layer).

font.revert()

  Reloads the font from the disk.

  Warning

  If you have any references to glyphs which live in the font those references will no longer be valid, and using them will cause crashes. This is very un-python-like.

font.revertFromBackup()

  Reloads the font from the backup file on the disk.

  Warning

  If you have any references to glyphs which live in the font those references will no longer be valid, and using them will cause crashes. This is very un-python-like.

font.save([filename])

  Saves the font to an sfd file. See also `font.generate()`

font.saveNamelist(filename)

  Saves the font’s namelist to a file.

font.getTableData(table_name)

  Gets binary data from any saved table. FF will save ‘fpgm’, ‘prep’, ‘cvt ‘ and ‘maxp’. FF may also save tables which you explicitly request. Do not expect to get binary data for tables like ‘GPOS’ or ‘glyf’ which FF will generate when it creates a font… that information is not currently available.

  Returns a binary string.

font.setTableData(table_name, sequence)

  Sets binary data of any saved table. FF will save ‘fpgm’, ‘prep’, ‘cvt ‘ and ‘maxp’. FF may also save tables which you explicitly request. Do not expect to set binary data for tables like ‘GPOS’ or ‘glyf’ which FF will generate when it creates a font… that information is not currently available.

  If sequence is None, then the named table will be removed from the font.

font.validate([force])

  Validates the font and returns a bit mask of all errors from all glyphs (as defined in the `validation_state` of a glyph – except bit 0x1 is clear). If the font passed the validation then the return value will be 0 (not 0x1). Otherwise the return value will be the set of errors found.

  Note: The set of errors is slightly different for TrueType and PostScript output. The returned mask contains the list of potential errors. You must figure out which apply to you.

  Normally each glyph will cache its validation_state and it will not be recalculated. If you pass a non-zero argument to the routine then it will force recalculation of each glyph – this can be slow.

Selection Based Interface

See the `selection` type for how to alter the selection.

font.addExtrema()

  Extrema should be marked by on-curve points. If a curve in any selected glyph lacks a point at a significant extremum this command will add one.

font.addInflections()

  Please see `contour.addInflections()`.

font.autoHint()

  Generates PostScript hints for all selected glyphs.

font.autoInstr()

  Generates TrueType instructions for all selected glyphs.

font.autoWidth(separation[, minBearing, maxBearing, height, loopCnt])

  Guesses at reasonable horizontal advance widths for the selected glyphs

font.autoTrace()

  Auto traces any background images in all selected glyphs

font.build()

  If any of the selected characters is a composite character, then this command will clear it and insert references to its components (this command can create new glyphs).

font.canonicalContours()

  Orders the contours in the selected glyphs by the x coordinate of their leftmost point. (This can reduce the size of the charstring needed to describe the glyph(s).

font.canonicalStart()

  Sets the start point of all the contours of the selected glyphs to be the leftmost point on the contour. (If there are several points with that value then use the one which is closest to the baseline). This can reduce the size of the charstring needed to describe the glyph(s). By regularizing things it can also make more things available to be put in subroutines.

font.changeWeight(stroke_width[, type, serif_height, serif_fuzz, counter_type, custom_zones])

  See the Element->Style->Change Width command for a more complete description of these arguments.

  Stroke_width is the amount by which all stems are expanded.

  Type is one of “LCG”, “CJK”, “auto”, “custom”.

  Serif_height tells ff not to expand serifs which are that much off the baseline, while serif_fuzz specifies the amount of fuzziness allowed in the match. If you don’t want special serif behavior set this to 0.

  Counter_type is one of “squish”, “retain”, “auto”.

  Custom_zones is only meaningful if the type argument were “custom”. It may be either a number, which specifies the “top hint” value (bottom hint is assumed to be 0, others are between), or a tuple of 4 numbers (top hint, top zone, bottom zone, bottom hint).

font.condenseExtend(c_factor, c_add[, sb_factor, sb_add, correct])

  Condenses or extends the size of the counters and side-bearings of the selected glyphs. The first two arguments provide information on shrinking/growing the counters, the second two the sidebearings. If the last two are omitted they default to the same values as the first two.

  A counter’s width will become:

      new_width = c_factor * old_width + c_add

  If present the `correct` argument allows you to specify whether you want to correct for the italic angle before condensing the glyph. (it defaults to True)

font.clear()

  Clears the contents of all selected glyphs

font.cluster([within, max])

  Moves clustered coordinates to a standard central value in all selected glyphs. See also `font.round()`.

font.copy()

  Copies all selected glyphs into (FontForge’s internal) clipboard.

font.copyReference()

  Copies all selected glyphs (as references) into (FontForge’s internal) clipboard.

font.correctDirection()

  Orients all contours so that external ones are clockwise and internal counter-clockwise in all selected glyphs.

font.correctReferences()

  Checks a font for glyphs with mixed contours and references (or references with transformation matrices which cannot be represented in truetype (ie. scaling by 2 or more)). If a mixed case is discovered FontForge will take the contours out of the glyph, put them in a new glyph, and make a reference to the new glyph.

font.cut()

  Copies all selected glyphs into (FontForge’s internal) clipboard. And then clears them.

font.paste()

  Pastes the contents of (FontForge’s internal) clipboard into the selected glyphs – and removes what was there before.

font.intersect()

  Leaves only areas in the intersection of contours in all selected glyphs. See also `font.removeOverlap()`.

font.pasteInto()

  Pastes the contents of (FontForge’s internal) clipboard into the selected glyphs – and retains what was there before.

font.removeOverlap()

  Removes overlapping areas in all selected glyphs. See also `font.intersect()`.

font.replaceWithReference([fudge])

  Finds any glyph which contains an inline copy of one of the selected glyphs, and converts that copy into a reference to the appropriate glyph. Selection is changed to the set of glyphs which the command alters.

  If specified the fudge argument specifies the error allowed for coordinate differences.

font.round([factor])

  Rounds the x and y coordinates of each point in all selected glyphs. If factor is specified then

      new-coord = round(factor*old-coord)/factor

  See also `font.cluster()`.

font.simplify([error_bound, flags, tan_bounds, linefixup, linelenmax])

  Tries to remove excess points in all selected glyphs if doing so will not perturb the curve by more than `error-bound`. Flags is a tuple of the following strings

  ignoreslopes

    Allow slopes to change

  ignoreextrema

    Allow removal of extrema

  smoothcurves

    Allow curve smoothing

  choosehv

    Snap to horizontal or vertical

  forcelines

    flatten bumps on lines

  nearlyhvlines

    Make nearly horizontal/vertical lines be so

  mergelines

    Merge adjacent lines into one

  setstarttoextremum

    Rotate the point list so that the start point is on an extremum

  removesingletonpoints

    If the contour contains just one point then remove it

font.stroke("circular", width[, CAP, JOIN, FLAGS])
font.stroke("elliptical", width, minor_width, ANGLE[, CAP, JOIN, FLAGS])
font.stroke("calligraphic", width, height, angle[, FLAGS])
font.stroke("polygon", contour[, FLAGS])
(Legacy interface)

font.stroke("circular", width[, CAP, JOIN, ANGLE, KEYWORD])
font.stroke("elliptical", width, minor_width[, ANGLE, CAP, JOIN, KEYWORD])
font.stroke("calligraphic", width, height[, ANGLE, CAP, JOIN, KEYWORD])
font.stroke("convex", contour[, ANGLE, CAP, JOIN, KEYWORD])
(Current interface)

  Strokes the lines of the contours in all selected glyphs according to the supplied parameters. See `glyph.stroke()` for a description of the syntax and the stroke documentation for more general information.

font.transform(matrix[, flags])

  Transforms all selected glyphs by the matrix. The optional flags argument should be a tuple containing any of the following strings:

  activeLayer

    Transform `font.activeLayer` only. (By default all layers are transformed.)

  guide

    Also transform `font.guide` layer.

  noWidth

    Do not change `glyph.width`.

  round

    Round to int after the transformation is done.

  simplePos

    Also transform simple positioning features and kern pairs.

  kernClasses

    Also transform kerning classes.

font.nltransform(xexpr, yexpr)

  xexpr and yexpr are strings specifying non-linear transformations that will be applied to all points in the selected glyphs of the font (with xexpr being applied to x values, and yexpr to y values, of course). The syntax for the expressions is explained in the non-linear transform dialog.

font.unlinkReferences()

  Unlinks all references in all selected glyphs and replaces them with splines.