Sources
Files and formats| UFO | Unified Font Object. A font source made of directories and files, so it works with version control. |
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| GLIF | The XML file that holds one glyph inside a UFO. |
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| Designspace | A file that names several masters and the axes between them. |
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| Master | One drawn source at a fixed position in the designspace. |
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| Axis | A dimension of variation, such as weight or width. |
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Drawing
Outlines| Contour | One closed or open path in a glyph. |
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| On-curve point | A point the outline passes through. |
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| Handle | An off-curve control point that shapes the segment beside it. |
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| Cubic | A curve with two handles per segment. What UFO and PostScript use. |
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| Quadratic | A curve with one handle per segment. What TrueType uses. |
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| Hyperbezier | A curve defined by its on-curve points, with the handles solved rather than placed. |
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| Extreme | The topmost, bottommost, leftmost, or rightmost point of a curve. |
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| Path direction | Which way a contour is drawn. Outer contours and holes must run opposite ways. |
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| Start point | The first point of a contour. Masters must agree on it to interpolate. |
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Building Glyphs
Composites| Component | Another glyph placed inside this one. |
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| Composite | A glyph built from components rather than drawn. |
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| Decompose | Replace components with copies of their outlines. |
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| Anchor | A named point that says where a mark attaches. |
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| Smart component | A component that carries its own axes, so one component holds a range of shapes. |
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Spacing and Text
Metrics and shaping| Advance width | How far the pen moves after drawing the glyph. |
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| Sidebearing | The space between the outline and the edge of the advance, left or right. |
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| Kerning | An adjustment applied to one pair of glyphs. |
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| Kerning group | A set of glyphs that kern alike, so one value covers many pairs. |
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| Shaping | Turning characters into positioned glyphs, applying the font’s own rules. |
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| Bidirectional | Text that mixes directions, such as Arabic with Latin inside it. |
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| Joining form | The shape a cursive letter takes by position: initial, medial, final, or isolated. |
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Output
Building a font| Compile | Turn sources into a font file a system can install. |
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| fontc | The Rust font compiler Runebender uses when a project has no build script. |
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| Production name | The glyph name that ships, which can differ from the working name. |
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| Variable font | One font file that holds a range along its axes rather than a single instance. |
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