Anchors and Pins panel

The Anchors and Pins panel Window > Panels > Anchors & Pins helps you manage the Anchors and Pins in your font. Anchors and Pins are two ways of positioning and attaching things together. Anchors work with glyphs, while Pins work with Elements.

The panel shows the list of Anchors and the list of Pins corresponding to the current glyph. Further, the panel can be used to activate/deactivate any anchors or pins; to view and edit their properties; see the glyphs/elements linked to the selected anchor/pin; and to delete selected anchors and pins.

To see the list of Anchors, select the Anchors button in the panel header. Note that the list of anchors is displayed by default. To see the list of Pins, select the Pins button in the panel header. FontLab will remember your selection if you close the panel and reopen it in the same session.

To activate/deactivate an anchor or pin, click the icon (diamond-shaped in the case of anchors, circular for pins) to the left of its name. Activated anchors and pins are shown with their icons filled, while deactivated ones are outline only. To activate/deactivate all pins or anchors for the current glyph, go to the corresponding list and use the buttons in the panel header.

To view/edit the properties of an anchor or pin, select it in the list. You will be able to see its properties — name, position and location express — in the fields below. The Name of an anchor or pin is important for linking, so be cautious about changing it. By default, anchors named with a leading underscore (example: “_top”) are automatically linked to their counterparts without the underscore (“top”). So changing the name will break the link. Position is displayed as the X and Y coordinates of the anchor/pin. Finally, the Location Expression fields are used for linking anchors or pins to guidelines or to other anchors or pins. To link an anchor or pin horizontally, add the name of a guideline, anchor or pin in the left Location Expression field. Similarly, to link an anchor or pin vertically, add the name of a guideline, anchor or pin in the right field. Note that the Location Expression fields also allow the use of simple mathematical functions. Usually anchors in diacritic glyphs (with underscore in their names) are linked to anchors in base glyphs. For example, anchor “_ogonek” will get “ogonek” both in x and y location fields.

To view the list of glyphs or elements that are linked to the selected anchor or pin, select the button. Once this part of the panel is open, you can select any anchor or pin from the corresponding list and see its linked glyphs or elements.

To remove selected anchors or pins, click the – button at the panel’s bottom.