Simple Glyphs

Around the glyph there are four lines that represent the bearings. These are shown by default but you can hide them through the "show bearings" button on the drawing toolbar.

The character 4 is represented by a glyph with two contours (one contour you see as the black area and the white area within the four is the other contour).

From the drawing toolbar you can change the way you can modify the glyph. The screenshot above is in contour mode while the one below is in point mode. You can also change between contour and point mode by double-clicking inside the edit area.

Here are two dotted lines that can be added by dragging them from the top ruler. If you want to add a vertical guideline, you can drag one from the left ruler. To remove a guideline, simply drag it back to the ruler.

The main difference between contour and point mode is the fact that in contour mode all operations are related to the contours while in point mode you change the points. There are two diiferent kind of points. The rectangles represent on contour points and the circles are off curve points. To understand how the points make the contours here is a little summary about it;

Two on curve points next to each other will make a piece of a line straight through the points. When there is an off curve point between two on curve points then a (bezier) curve is drawn. This kind of curve will start in one on curve point and end in the other on curve point while the curve tends to move towards the off curve point. The contour will also go exactly in between two off curve points.

Next: Composite glyphs...