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Is there a way to preview hairline letterforms?
I'm working on a hairline typeface right now, something similar to Marian -- http://commercialtype.com/typefaces/marian -- and I'm wondering if there's some Python snippet or something out there that allows you to preview your path without expanding it.
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19 Mar 2013 — 10:31am
How similar is it?
hhp
19 Mar 2013 — 12:16pm
There is no way to preview strokes in FontLab - however - you can do this with Glyphs.
Cheers!
19 Mar 2013 — 4:47pm
Thanks! Anyone know if Robofont can preview a stroke? I've been looking into making that purchase.
19 Mar 2013 — 6:45pm
There's a Trial version of RoboFont available if you don't get an answer here.
20 Mar 2013 — 10:52am
Maybe someone who works at Commercial Type can answer this directly, but I have to imagine Marian was either built in Glyphs or they had some special python code that allowed them to preview it. Hrant -- if you're implying, "Is this going to be just another form of Marian, a hairline spine/outline form of a classic typeface?" the answer to that is no. Hopefully it will see commercial release within the year, though.
20 Mar 2013 — 10:56am
Cool. Good luck wit it.
hhp
22 Mar 2013 — 9:19am
.
20 Mar 2013 — 7:01pm
In Robofont, you can certainly turn off fill, but that's not really previewing a stroke.
I'd ask Frederick directly, he might know of a plugin:
@typemytype
Jason C
20 Mar 2013 — 8:18pm
There is an outliner plug-in for RoboFont (free download):
http://doc.robofont.com/extensions/download-extensions/outliner/
21 Mar 2013 — 4:25am
RoboFont’s preview doesn’t work well with open paths, they are always closed automatically.
With some Python hacking skills you could probably make the Outliner plug-in to work better for this purpose.
21 Mar 2013 — 5:00pm
Thanks, Jason, Mark & Jens! Outliner looks like exactly the tool I'm looking for, and it's swaying more and more towards buying RoboFont.
28 Mar 2013 — 7:46am
This is easy to do in FontLab.
In the metrics window switch it to outline view. Shift Command p on a Mac.
29 Mar 2013 — 10:52am
Thanks for the great tip, James. I wasn't aware it was possible in FontLab too.