TypeTech Forum

FontLab Workshop

Day 1: Wednesday, September 29, 2004

09:00 – 10:00

Welcome (15 min)

09:15 / Jürgen Willrodt:
Formats & hinting 101 – Type 1 & TrueType. (45 min *)

Overview of the differences in Type 1 (“PostScript”) and TrueType style outlines and hinting. Including visual examples and issues in font editing.

09:15 / FontLab Session 1 (45 min *)

Ted Harrison / Yuri Yarmola:
Introduction to FontLab Studio.

Font Window, Glyph Window.

10:00 – 11:00

10:00 / David Lemon:
Introduction to Unicode & the character/glyph model. (45 min *)

10:00 / FontLab Session 2 (45 min *)

Ted Harrison / Yuri Yarmola / Adam Twardoch:
Drawing Glyphs & Customizing FontLab.

Panels, windows, drawing tools, brushes.

Break (15 min)

11:00 – 12:00

11:00 / Thomas Phinney (with Peter Constable):
Introduction to advanced font formats. (90 min *)

Problems with traditional DTP, GX/AAT, OpenType, Graphite, Variation fonts/MMs.

11:00 / FontLab Session 3 (45 min *)

Ted Harrison:
OpenType the Easy Way.

Quickly create OpenType fonts.

11:45 / FontLab Session 4 (45 min *)

Adam Twardoch:
Mysteries of the Font Header.

Family naming, font encoding.

12:00 – 13:00

12:30 / Lunch (45 min)

13:00 – 14:00

13:15 / Emil Yakupov:
TrueType hinting quality. (30 min *)

13:15 / FontLab Session 5 (45 min **)

Adam Twardoch:
Introduction to Python scripting.

Automating repetitive tasks in FontLab using the Python scripting language.

13:45 / David Lemon:
Font philosophy 101 – OpenType vs AAT. (15 min *)

14:00 – 15:00

14:00 / Erik van Blokland, Simon Daniels, Thomas Phinney, Adam Twardoch, Jürgen Willrodt:
Font development tools overview. (60 min *)

FontLab applications, RoboFab, DTL FontMaster, Ikarus, Microsoft Font Validator, Adobe FDK testing tools, Microsoft VOLT, FontTools/TTX, Apple font tools.

14:00 / FontLab Session 6 (60 min **)

Ted Harrison / Yuri Yarmola:
Font Family Creation using MM.

Using FontLab’s Multiple Master functionality to build large font families.

15:00 – 16:00

Break (15 min)

15:15 / Simon Daniels:
Basics of OpenType layout. (30 min *)

Substitution features, positioning features, lookup types, language support vs. typographic features

15:15 / FontLab Session 7 (60 min **)

Adam Twardoch:
Advanced Metrics.

Glyph metrics, class kerning, family metrics.

15:45 / Simon Daniels, Jürgen Willrodt:
Real world support. (30 min *)

Unicode & advanced font formats in OSes & Applications.

16:00 – 17:00

16:15 / Peter Constable, Simon Daniels, Adam Twardoch et al.:
Unicode vs. single-byte & hacked encodings for languages. (Panel, 45 min *)

Many existing fonts use old single-byte character sets. Some even use "hacked" faux western encodings where defined single-byte encodings aren't available to represent local languages. But many new and upcoming applications will only work with Unicode encoded fonts. The panel discusses the problem and solutions.

16:15 / FontLab Session 8 (45 min **)

Yuri Yarmola:
OpenType Features.

Adding OpenType Layout Features to the fonts.

Day 2: Thursday, September 30, 2004

09:00 – 10:00

Welcome (15 min)

09:15 / Attila Korap:
Making Fonts for Central & Eastern Europe. (30 min *)

09:15 / FontLab Session 1 (45 min *)

Ted Harrison / Yuri Yarmola:
Introduction to FontLab Studio.

Font Window, Glyph Window.

09:45 / Peter Constable:
OpenType for Indic & other "complex script" languages. (60 min **)

Character processing, glyph processing.

10:00 – 11:00

10:00 / FontLab Session 2 (45 min *)

Ted Harrison / Yuri Yarmola / Adam Twardoch:
Drawing Glyphs & Customizing FontLab.

Panels, windows, drawing tools, brushes.

Break (15 min)

11:00 – 12:00

11:00 / Thomas Phinney, Adam Twardoch:
Class Kerning explained. (60 min **)

Principles of class kerning, FontLab and OT class kerning.

11:00 / FontLab Session 3 (45 min *)

Ted Harrison:
OpenType the Easy Way.

Quickly create OpenType fonts.

11:45 / FontLab Session 4 (45 min **)

Ted Harrison / Yuri Yarmola:
Font Family Creation using MM.

Using FontLab’s Multiple Master functionality to build large font families.

12:00 – 13:00

12:00 / Erik van Blokland:
New approaches for multi-axis fonts. (30 min **)

New methods for variation/MM fonts, with x-masters, and n-dimensions (not limited to AAT or TrueType curves).

12:30 / Lunch (45 min)

13:00 – 14:00

13:15 / Erik van Blokland:
XML Tools for font development. (45 min **)

Using FontTools/TTX, Robofab and Apple's tools with sfnt fonts (TrueType, OpenType, AAT).

13:15 / FontLab Session 5 (45 min *)

Adam Twardoch:
Mysteries of the Font Header.

Family naming, font encoding.

14:00 – 15:00

14:00 / Thomas Caldwell:
More performance in Font Quality Assurance. (60 min *)

Using Microsoft Font Validator (experiences), scripting of QA jobs with Phython, FontLab and applications (examples), outlook.

14:00 / FontLab Session 6 (60 min **)

Adam Twardoch:
Introduction to Python scripting.

Automating repetitive tasks in FontLab using the Python scripting language.

15:00 – 16:00

Break (15 min)

15:15 / Laurence Penney, John Butler, David Lemon, Thomas Phinney, more TBA:
TrueType hinting / OpenType layout features. (Workshop, 75 min **)

Bring your troubles to the workshop on your laptop and get expert assistance! Others are welcome to watch, learn and ask questions. Open to FontLab and VTT users with TrueType hinting problems, and to VOLT/FDK/FontLab/FontMaster users with OpenType layout feature problems.

15:15 / FontLab Session 7 (60 min **)

Yuri Yarmola:
Advanced Metrics.

Glyph metrics, class kerning, family metrics.

16:00 – 17:00

16:15 / FontLab Session 8 (45 min **)

Adam Twardoch:
OpenType Features.

Adding OpenType Layout Features to the fonts.

16:30 / Peter Constable, John Hudson, David Lemon, Thomas Phinney et al.:
Advanced fonts philosophy 201. (Panel, 30 min **)

How do the philosophies of OpenType, AAT and Graphite differ? Panel discusses differences in where processing is done (by the font or by the text engine) and in handling of character vs. glyph distinctions.

* beginner ** advanced