Tools

All tools which are accessible from the Toolbar are mapped to single-letter keystrokes, but there are two ways of activating the tools.

1. You can tap (press and quickly release) on the shortcut key to activate the tool permanently. Once you’re done using the tool, tap on another key to activate another tool.
2. You can hold (press and hold) the shortcut key to activate the tool temporarily. It will remain active until you release the key, then the previous tool is activated.

You can work with the Contour tool, and by holding various single-letter keys you can quickly, temporarily, activate important additional tools like Knife, Eraser, Pen, Scale, Rotate, and then switch back.

For example, if you need to add a node, hold J or 3, the Knife cursor appears. Click to add a node, release the key and you are back in normal outline editing. You can tap on J to switch to Knife more permanently if you need the tool for more operations, then tap on A to switch back to the Contour tool.

Most tools support both tap and hold. In the list below, the exceptions are marked:

• Tap only: pressing the key activates the tool permanently (switches to it)
• Hold only: press and hold the key to activate the tool temporarily, release to deactivate it

Note

When you hold a tool keystroke, you can further press the usual modifier keys (Shift, Ctrl and Alt).

Key	Tool
A / 1	Contour tool for selecting, moving and editing points
V	Element tool for moving elements (components)
M	Metrics tool for metrics editing
K	Kerning tool for kerning editing
T	Text tool (Tap only) for text keyboard input
2	Eraser tool for removing non-extrema nodes or, with Shift, any nodes
B	Brush tool
N	Pencil tool
5	Rapid tool
P	Pen tool
J / 3	Knife tool for adding nodes and slicing the outlines
Q	Scissors tool for disconnecting or opening contours
U	Magnet tool for attaching points to guides
F	Fill (Bucket) tool
G / 4	Guides tool for measuring and adding short guides
O	Ellipse tool
I	Rectangle tool
W	Horizontal Flip (Tap only)
E	Vertical Flip (Tap only)
S	Quick Scale (Hold only)
D	Quick Slant (Hold only)
R	Quick Rotate (Hold only)
Z / Y	Zoom in (Tap only)
X	Zoom out (Tap only)
C	Power Nudge mode (Hold C or tap ShiftC)
H	Preview Rounding (live integer rounding).
L	View > Tunni Lines
[	Align Selection Left/Top (Tap only)
|	Center selection horizontally or vertically (Tap only)
]	Align Selection Right/Bottom (Tap only)
`	Quick Preview (Hold only)
Space	Pan & Preview (Hold only)
Esc	Exit Text tool or New Element (Tap only)
/	Glyph name input (Tap only)
#	Unicode input (Tap only)