Workflow, Automation, and Customization

A font project needs a working record as well as a finished result. Notes, source versions, and release records help you understand an earlier decision, return to a useful state, or hand the work to someone else. This chapter gathers the practices and tools that support that continuity.

Repeated work can be organized as action sets or expressed in scripts, with optional AI assistance for suitable tasks. Automation still needs a defined target and a way to check the result. The final section covers adapting FontLab to your work through saved arrangements, preferences, shortcuts, and customization files. These choices make recurring tasks easier to repeat and maintain.

Project Documentation and Management

Keep decisions, source versions, and release records understandable over time and through project handoffs.

Annotating Project Sources

Record project decisions through master, glyph, and element notes, and place visual annotations with stickers.

Project Data and Versioning

Separate editable sources from releases, preserve useful versions, and prepare project data for handoff.

Automation

Repeat work through actions, scripts, and optional AI assistance while retaining control over targets and results.

Actions

Choose and configure batch operations, set their glyph and master scope, and inspect their results.

Action Sets

Build, review, save, and run ordered action sequences for repeated work.

Python Scripting

Use the Scripting panel and console, run scripts, inspect output, and organize script files.

The Python API and Libraries

Understand FontLab’s Python packages, bundled libraries, and extension options before choosing an API or installing dependencies.

Automation Hooks and Direct Data Access

Configure initialization hooks and inspect or edit structured glyph, layer, and element data through the Source panel.

AI-Assisted Automation

Configure optional AI assistance, make precise requests, and verify the scripts or font changes it produces.

Customization

Adapt the interface, preferences, shortcuts, and supporting data files to your working methods.