Glyph Window Anatomy
The Glyph window combines an editing canvas with controls for choosing tools, setting the text, and inspecting the current glyph. Some controls are permanent parts of the window; others can be shown when you need them. Their arrangement can differ with your workspace settings.
This expanded Glyph-window layout shows the text and glyph bars, side controls, and floating widgets around the editing canvas.
[REVIEW] Refresh the whole-window illustration for the current control arrangement and add a compact-horizontal Toolbar example showing the active-window controls. The instructions below describe the updated layout.
Content Area
The central content area is the canvas on which you draw, edit, and inspect glyphs. It can show one glyph or a text sequence. The current glyph receives the editing controls; neighboring glyphs provide context.
Outlines are only part of what the canvas can display. Font dimension lines, spacing controls, guides, nodes, handles, and measurements help you position and assess the drawing. Their visibility depends on the active tool and view settings; see Glyph Window Modes. A missing line or handle does not necessarily mean the underlying data is absent.
FontLab uses Detailed, Inactive, and Preview views to display different amounts of drawing information. Detailed view exposes editing structure; Inactive view provides context for glyphs you are not editing; Preview emphasizes the rendered appearance. Switching tools can change the visible details without changing the outlines.
Toolbar
The Toolbar is the strip of tool buttons. It can be vertical at a side edge or horizontal across the workspace. Click a tool to activate it. Use Quick Help to identify a tool. Choose Window > Toolbar to show the strip if it is hidden.
The tools cover several kinds of work:
| Work | Tools |
|---|---|
| Select and edit drawing objects | Contour, Element |
| Draw paths and shapes | Brush, Pencil, Rapid, Pen, Ellipse, Rectangle |
| Reshape and construct outlines | Eraser, Knife, Scissors, Fill |
| Measure, attach, and transform | Attach, Thickness, Stem, Guides, Rotate, Scale, Slant |
| Work with text and spacing | Metrics, Kerning, Text |
| Prepare specialized font data | Matchmaker, TrueType Hinting |
In regular mode, a separate group of buttons controls the view: nodes, coordinates, spacing controls, the grid, glyph guides, font guides, curvature, FontAudit, and hints. These buttons show or hide information; they do not select a drawing tool.
Drag the Toolbar by its grab area to move it. Docking indicators appear at available window edges; release at an indicator to dock it there. A docked Toolbar is vertical at a side edge and horizontal at the top or bottom. Limited width can hide some tool buttons; compact mode also groups tools behind popup menus, so the visible button count is not a reliable indication of which tools are available.
Compact horizontal mode
A horizontal Toolbar has regular and compact modes. Double-click an empty area of the horizontal strip to switch between them. Double-clicking a tool button retains that tool's own action, so use the space around the buttons for the mode switch. FontLab remembers the compact-mode setting.
Compact mode collects related tools into groups. Click a group's main button to activate its remembered tool. If a tool in that group is already active, clicking the main button cycles to the next available tool in the group. Click the small arrow to choose a tool directly from a menu that shows its icon, name, and available shortcuts. For example, Contour and Element share a group, as do Metrics and Kerning. The menu exposes the alternatives even though only one group button is shown.
The View options popup gathers the display toggles, including nodes, coordinates, grid, guides, font dimensions, zones, hints, and FontAudit. These are visibility choices, not drawing tools. The View panel and View menu remain available for the same kinds of display adjustments; see View Sets and the View Panel.
Use the grab area at the far left to drag or dock the Toolbar. Space is reserved for that handle before the first control. In a vertical Toolbar, double-click its header, away from the close control, to switch between one and two columns; compact tool groups are a horizontal layout.
Active-window controls in the Toolbar
A docked, compact horizontal Toolbar can also accommodate controls from the active Font or Glyph window. The main tool groups stay centered. Extra controls use the available space on either side:
| Active window | Left of the tool groups | Right of the View options popup |
|---|---|---|
| Font window | Sidebar toggle, layer/master selector when available, then Font Info if it fits | Color Flag picker, extended flag buttons if they fit, the flag-search arrow, then Search |
| Glyph window | Content sidebar toggle and layer/master selector when available | Color Flag picker, then Search |
The controls move rather than being duplicated. Their current values, selections, and actions stay associated with the active window. Switching between a Font and Glyph window changes which window supplies them. The sidebar toggle and layer/master selector keep the same toolbar positions in both contexts.
Space on each side is assessed separately. On the right, Search has first priority, followed by the compact flag controls. The Font window's extended flag buttons appear only with additional room. When the Toolbar narrows, those extended buttons hide first while the compact picker remains available. If the compact controls no longer fit, they return to the window's own bar; Search can remain on the Toolbar until its own space is needed. The extended flag buttons return with the Font window's compact flag controls. Widening the Toolbar makes the controls available there again.
Switching to regular mode, docking the Toolbar vertically, hiding it, or leaving it floating returns these controls to their windows. Their normal window-bar visibility rules still apply. If a familiar control seems to have disappeared from a window, first check the active window and the compact Toolbar.
The Font window's Table and List buttons stay at the far right of its Status Bar. Hide unfiltered glyphs stays in its Property Bar, immediately before the Cell Caption control. These controls do not move into the Toolbar.
Toolboxes
Some tools display a small floating toolbox with their sub-tools. For example, the Pen toolbox provides choices that affect how the next node is drawn. The Contour, Eraser, Brush, Rapid, Pen, Knife, Scissors, Ellipse, and Rectangle tools have toolboxes.
If you have closed a toolbox, double-click its tool button to show it again. Drag its dotted handle, revealed at the left edge when you hover, to move it. Toolboxes share a position: moving one changes where the others appear. For tools with cycling sub-tools, repeated presses of the tool shortcut cycle through the choices and back to the ordinary tool.
Property Bar
The property bar runs horizontally across the Glyph window. You can place it at the top or bottom in Preferences > Glyph Window.
Its controls include the Content sidebar toggle, spacing controls, kerning and mark-attachment preview, the font and related-glyph selectors, a color flag, and glyph search. Some controls appear only when their associated data is available. In a docked compact horizontal Toolbar, the sidebar toggle, layer/master selector, Color Flag picker, and Search can move into the Toolbar as described above. The property bar makes room for the controls that remain, including its tool-dependent center section.
The center of the bar changes with the active tool and selection. With a glyph active, it can show identity and metrics; with drawing objects selected, it presents information relevant to those objects. Look here when you need exact values for the item you are working on. Changing tools changes the controls that are offered.
With the glyph as the working context, the property bar shows identity, metrics, and class fields.
Selecting a node changes the property bar to node-specific coordinates and editing controls.
Text Bar and Glyphs Bar
Choose View > Control Bars > Text Bar to show a field for the window's text. It accepts ordinary characters and glyphtext notation, which can address glyphs by name or codepoint. Its dropdown provides predefined texts. Editing this field changes the text displayed on the canvas, not the glyph drawings.
Choose View > Control Bars > Glyphs Bar to show a single row of glyph cells from the font. This is a compact way to find a glyph without returning to the Font window. Click the bar to give it keyboard focus, then use the arrow keys or type the beginning of a glyph name. Press Return or Enter, or double-click a cell, to make that glyph current in the Glyph window. Click the canvas to return to editing.
The Glyphs Bar can sit at the top or bottom of the window. Its end controls let you change its position or close it.
Content Sidebar
Click the Content sidebar toggle at the left of the property bar, or at the left of the compact Toolbar when it has moved there. It gathers the window's text and layout controls in one place: the text itself, predefined strings, simulated tracking (letter spacing) and leading (line spacing), and the Features toggle for text shaping and bidirectional processing. Feature management is covered in The Features Panel.
The sidebar text field and the Text Bar edit the same text. Use whichever gives you a comfortable amount of space. The sidebar's layout controls let you judge a text sample; changing a display setting such as simulated tracking does not rewrite the glyphs' spacing values.
Click the sidebar toggle again to close it. Automatic closing is configurable under Preferences > General > Panels and sidebars.
Rulers and Metrics Table
Choose View > Rulers to show horizontal and vertical rulers at the canvas edges. They report the current glyph's coordinates in font units, the units used to measure its design. The vertical ruler places zero on the baseline and positive values above it; the horizontal ruler also identifies the advance-width interval.
The Metrics Table is a numerical view of glyph spacing and kerning. It appears by default in Metrics and Kerning modes at the bottom of the content area; View > Metrics Table toggles it. Use it to compare neighboring glyph values while seeing the text above. Its values describe font data, unlike the sidebar's display-only tracking and leading simulation.
Widgets
Widgets are compact controls and readouts over the canvas. Choose an item in View > Widgets to show or hide it. They let you keep frequently used information close to the drawing without opening a full panel.
| Widget | Purpose and usual position | Can be moved |
|---|---|---|
| Contextual | Selection- and tool-dependent fields near the bottom of the canvas; See the Property Bar and Contextual widget sections here | Yes |
| Toolbox | Sub-tools for the active tool; See the Toolbar section here | Yes, by its dotted handle |
| Zoom | Quick zoom controls at the bottom-right; Navigating the Glyph Window | No |
| Measurements | Measurement display controls at the right edge; Live Measurement | No |
| Info | Glyph information at the bottom-left; See the Info description below | Yes |
| Fonts | Open-font switcher beside Info; Creating and Opening Fonts | No |
| Elements | Element navigation and selection near the top; The Element Model | No |
| Masters | Master switching at the left edge; Layers and Masters | No |
| Variations | Interpolation preview along the font's axes, initially at the top-right; Previewing, Diagnosing, and Fixing Interpolation | Yes |
The Contextual widget in its Glyph state combines identity, sidebearings, advance width, and class fields.
The Info widget brings the preview-area readout of the Font window’s Space-key popup onto the canvas for the current glyph. It shows the glyph under its name with dimension information where available; see Navigating the Font Window. It is distinct from the Glyph window’s held-Space Quick Preview.
The Fonts widget switches the current-font context introduced in Creating and Opening Fonts and previews the current glyph in each open font. A missing glyph uses a placeholder thumbnail; an existing glyph with no visible drawing has a blank preview. While you edit a text string, switching fonts selects the matching glyph in the newly current font. Check the font and active glyph before continuing an edit.
For a movable widget with a title bar, drag the title bar to reposition it. Its close button hides it, and its pin returns it to the default position. The Toolbox uses its dotted drag handle instead. Choose View > Widgets > Reset Location to restore the movable widgets' positions together.
Show only the widgets that help with the current task. Hiding a widget leaves the associated font data intact; you can show the controls again when you need them.