Glyphs

Glyph menu

New Glyph	Cmd+Alt+Shift+N. Adds an empty glyph to every master.
Duplicate Glyph	Copies the current glyph under a new name.
Remove Glyph	Deletes it from every master.

A language row in the left panel that is missing glyphs shows a plus. Pressing it adds every glyph that row names, encoded, to every master at once. That is the fast way to take a font from one script coverage target to another.

The Glyph section of the right panel holds the name, the Unicode value, the kerning groups, and the metric keys.

Unicode values are accepted as 0041, U+0041, or 0x41.

Renaming updates every place the old name was used: components in other glyphs, group membership, kerning pairs, the open text session, and the selection. You do not have to go and fix references by hand.

Kerning groups and metric keys are covered in Spacing and Kerning.

Cmd-click toggles a cell, and shift-click selects a range in the order shown. Colour marks apply to the whole selection at once, and the footer copies the selection as text so you can paste a glyph set somewhere else.

Sort the grid by name or by Unicode value from the View menu, and narrow it with the search box and filters in the left panel.

The Related section of the right panel lists four things, each one click away.

Related

Base	The glyph this one is built from.
Siblings	Suffix variants, such as a.alt beside a.
Uses	The glyphs it places as components.
Used by	Every composite that places this one.

Use it to reach the rest of a family without searching for names.

Layers block

Backup	Copies the current drawing into a fresh layer, named backup-1, backup-2 and so on. Try something without losing what you had.
Swap	Exchanges the drawing with a named layer’s copy. Undoable.
Delete	Drops a layer’s copy of this glyph. An emptied layer goes with it.
+ Intermediate	An intermediate layer for interpolation. See Masters and Interpolation.

The Background section is separate. It shows, sends to, swaps with, or clears the UFO public.background layer, which is saved with the font. It can also ghost another glyph behind the drawing, named by hand.

Image commands

Place Image…	Puts a bitmap behind the glyph as a reference.
Trace Image…	Converts the placed bitmap into contours, replacing what the glyph holds. Undoable.
Remove Image	Takes the bitmap away.
Import SVG…	Brings an SVG outline in as contours.
Export Glyph as SVG	Writes the current glyph out beside the source.

An annotation is a note dropped at a point on a glyph. Use it to mark what is unfinished, or to leave a message for whoever opens the file next.

Annotations are per master, and they are never exported. They live in the source for the people working on it.