Pre-release version of Laboratorium is pictured in Typography News No. 23, by @jectives.com.

Laboratorium samples with small caps and old style numbers. English, French, German, Vietnamese, Spanish, and Esperanto.

More samples of Laboratorium —now using Hungarian, Czech, and Portuguese, all with Old Style figures.

FontLab 8 Tip: Stems In File > Font Info you can define stems for each master automatically (1). A stem is a repeating value for vertical (2), horizontal (3), and diagonal stems (4). It can also be a value for distance in the apex of a curve (5).

More samples of Laboratorium —now in Italian, Dutch, Russian, and Polish. The second column of Russian shows how Cyrillic, Latin, and Greek scripts work together.

Laboratorium samples in English, French, German, and Spanish.

Laboratorium, a serif type family for texts, is coming. Samples with Latin repertoire, weights, symbols, and random words.

Laboratorium: Call for Testers #font #typography #serif #ligatures #cyrillic #latin #greek #armenian #fontlab #typeface

FontLab 8 Tip: Workspaces After you arranged your FontLab interface, save it as a Workspace in Windows > Workspaces > Save Workspaces. Double-click its default name to rename (1). Drag its name to reorder the menu (2), import (3) and export (4) a Workspace with these buttons.

FontLab 8 Tip: Custom Shortcuts Customize shortcuts in Tools > Commands and Shortcuts. All commands from menus are available (1). Use this field to find a command (2), type the shortcut and set it (3). In use shortcuts can't be set, click the red alert to remove them first (4).

FontLab 8 Tip: Sidebearing Secrets In Glyph panel, you can set the values for left and right sidebearings. But you're not limited to integers. Add a = before the value to lock it –so changes in contours will not affect the sidebearing (1).

FontLab 8 Tip: Nonspacing Elements In the Elements panel there is a column to assign the nonspacing attribute (1). Elements marked with it are not considered in sidebearings or glyph width. But why this option does exist? +

FontLab 8 Tip: Indicators in Font Window II Indicators 2, 3, and 4 can be turned on/off in Preferences > Font Window. But the indicator for modified glyphs since the last save operation is always shown.

FontLab 8 Tip: Indicators in Font Window I Font Window shows: a gray line (1) when the glyph was modified; a red line (2) when there is an error with glyph name or Unicode code; a blue icon (3) when the glyph is an auto layer; and a note icon when it has a note (4).

FontLab 8 Tip: Preview in Glyph Window While working in Glyph Window (1), at any moment you can preview the result simply holding the Space key (2). You also can use View > True View (or Shift + Space) to make the filled areas always visible (3).

FontLab 8 Tip: Sliding Nodes in Diagonals Select a node in a diagonal segment (1). Hold the Alt/Option key and move it. The node slides along the diagonal, which angle does not change (2). If the node is a tangent, the handle position is also preserved.

FontLab 8 Tip: Moving Nodes But Not Handles Select a node with handles (1), hold Alt/Option key, and move it. The handles are not moved (2). This works with any kind of node (3) and also with multiple nodes at once (4). Multiplier keys (Shift and Ctrl) can be used together.

FontLab 8 Tip: Coloring Many Glyphs at Once 1. Select the glyphs in Font Window. 2. Go to Glyph > Flatten Layer. 3. Open the Color panel. 4. Choose and Apply any color. Done. Why flatten? Since color is an element attribute, you need a single element in each glyph to do this.

FontLab 8 Tips: Adding Gradients III Besides the liner gradient, FontLab offers the radial (4) and the conical gradients (5). Both are fully editable using the controls from Elements panel. A sample of all gradients can be seen in (6).

FontLab 8 Tip: Adding Gradients II You can add more colors to the gradient with a double click in the gradient control ❶ or in the ribbon from the color options in Elements panel ❷.

FontLab 8 Tip: Adding Gradients I In the Elements panel, click in the color button and select one kind of gradient ❶. Select the initial colors to change them in the gradient control ❷. Slide the triangles to change how the gradient is built ❸.

FontLab 8 Tip: Adding Colors II In the normal editing mode, the Glyph Window show the element colors with a very light tint to avoid visual pollution ❸. Don't worry, the colors are there. Just hold the Space key to preview the glyph ❹.

FontLab 8 Tip: Adding Colors I Colors are applied to elements. Just select the element in the Elements panel and open the color table using the dot at right ❶. You can also use the properties area, where there is more options, including color stroke ❷.

FontLab 8 Tip: Element Guides II Just like Font and Glyph guides, an Element guide can receive a name (A), a custom color (B), be locked (C), get is position numerically defined (D), a thickness (E) and an expression using values and parameters, like "ascender/2".

FontLab 8 Tip: Element Guides I Element guides belong to the element active when it was created and can be linked to nodes. To create it, choose the Guides tool (G), hold Alt and drag. These guides are good to mark sidebearings (A), anchor positions (B) or geometric middles (C).

FontLab Tip: From Straight to Curve To turn a straight (1) into a curve, hold Alt and click it (2). The handles have he same size and angle at the beginning, but of course you can freely mode them (3). To turn one of the nodes into a tangent, just double-click it (4).

FontLab 8 Tip: Docking Panels II You can click on the top right button to alternate between the docking modes. With a panel already docked, the option to pin the panel is available. With it, the panel can't be dragged out its position.

FontLab 8 Tip: Docking Panels I With the pointer over title bar, drag a panel to window limits or beside other panels to dock it. If the panel shows icon 1, it can be docked anywhere. With icon 2, it only docks to other panels. Icon 3 does not dock. Click the icon to change it.

FontLab 8 Tip: Alternative View View panel concentrates options to show, lock and snap to objects (1) and to show/hide visual aids (2). But you can have a second, alternative set up. Just click this small button (3) to commute between the two views.

FontLab 8 Tip: Select from Miniatures You can double-click the miniatures shown in the Elements panel to select elements or their contours. This works for groups of elements (blue), elements (red), and contours (orange). Especially useful in complex glyphs.

FontLab 8 Tip: Global Mask A Global Mask is a mask that appears in all glyphs, usually a reference used for some glyphs and later erased. Create it by selecting any contour (1) and go to Tools > Mask > Copy to Global Mask (2). Erase it with Tools > Mask Clear Global Mask (3).

WIP. Upcoming sans humanist typeface. Still needs adjusts in spacing. #typography #fonts

FontLab 8 Tip: Not-Saved Indicator When a font is not saved, FontLab shows in light blue the icon in the tabs and also in the window title. As soon as the file is saved, the icons turn gray.

FontLab 8 Tip: Autosave FontLab has the AutoSave feature and it can have the interval and the host folder defined by the user.

FontLab 8 Tip: Mask II Anything you paste can be used as a mask (1-2-3). The mask is actually a layer linked to your master (4). Go to Tools > Mask > Edit Mask to open it. Enable master visibility (the eye icon, 4) to see both the maks and the outline (5).

FontLab 8 Tip: Mask I Open any glyph, select its contours and hit Cmd+M or Tools > Mask > Copy to Mask (1). Now you have a copy of the contours as a mask to be a reference so you can compare the changes you do (2). Masks are better with inactive nodes and handles visible (3).

FontLab Tip: Master Compatibility II If the glyph has more than one contour or element, these also need to have the same order along masters to achieve compatibility (1, 3). Different contour or element order causes partial (2) or total incompatibility (4). #typography

FontLab 8 Tip: Elements III Select an element using the Element tool (the black arrow, 1), Now, if you move or transform it, the changes are applied only to this "copy". You can also modify only this reference using these controls of the Elements panel (2).

FontLab 8 Tip: Elements II The great thing about elements is that a change in one "copy" changes all other "copies" —called references. To do so, simply select the element (1) and edit the contour. All references reflect the modification (2).

FontLab 8 Tip: Elements I Elements are pieces you can re-use to build glyphs. They can be grouped and have a name (1). FontLab indicates how many glyphs use each element/group (2). These glyphs are shown in the table of Elements panel and can be opened with a double-click (3).

FontLab 8 Tip: Master Compatibility Masters are compatible when contours have the same number of nodes and handles, with the same start points (1). If nodes and handles don't match, Masters are shown in red (2). If difference is only in start points, they are light olive (3).

FontLab 8 Tip: Inverted Spacing A number of glyphs are simply the flipped version of other glyphs. To use the "normal" spacing inverted —this is, the left sidebearing in the right side and vice-versa— just type the glyph name with a | (bar) before it.

FontLab 8 Tip: Context Preview A small magic you can do in the Preview panel: type any text and add as many @ as you want. The @ will be replaced by the glyph of the window (1). And the reverse is also true: hit the small arrow button to make the Glyph Window show the text (2).

FontLab 8 Tip: Spacing Smartly It's possible to use a reference instead of a numeric value in the sidebearing fields. Simply type the reference glyph name (1). Other improvement is to fix the space with a = before (2) so the space remains the same if you change the contours.

FontLab 8 Tip: Export Window Contents Open a glyph and go to File > Export > Window Contents… (1). Choose SVG as the output format (2) and open the file in a graphic editor (3). Everything is exported as vectors! This is very good for instructional stuff and font specimens.

FontLab 8 Tip: Error in Glyph Code When a glyph appears with a red line, this means its Unicode is wrong or absent (1). Fix it with the generate button in the Glyph panel (2). If several glyphs present this error, select them and go to Font > Generate Unicodes (3). All fixed!

FontLab 8 Tip: Error in Glyph Name FontLab comes with a database of glyph names and Unicodes. If a glyph uses a non-standard name for a given Unicode, it's marked with an orange line (1). Fix this using the generate button in the Glyph panel (2).

FontLab 8 Tip: Virtual Tags FontLab 8 dynamically creates virtual tags according to the font contents. They are useful to filter different aspects like overshoots, scripts, descenders, etc. For example: Bos is overshoot at bottom in uppercase. Check the manual to all meanings.

FontLab 8 Tip: Customize the Glyph Window Preferences > Glyph Window allows you to change how all details will be shown. Experiment with the settings to find the more comfortable combination (1/2) and use the View panel to control what will be visible (3).

FontLab 8 Tips: One hundred units or more Most applications move an object ten times the unit in use with Shift + arrow. FontLab does more: you can define how many units Shift will move (1) and also use Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Win) with arrows to move ten times Shift (2). #typography