Using the Clipboard
Whole-glyph clipboard operations let you reuse existing work within a font or transfer it to another font. The crucial distinction is whether the operation adds glyphs or places their contents into specified destinations.
Duplicate and Append add entries. Ordinary Paste uses the target cells and can replace existing content. Check the active font, the target selection, and the intended kind of transfer before choosing between them.
Duplicating Glyphs
Edit > Duplicate, with the Font window active, creates new glyphs from the selected glyphs. The originals remain in the font.
The dialog also offers choices concerning independent glyphs, components or references, kerning-class membership, and linked metrics. These can preserve relationships to the source rather than producing a wholly independent design. Use the independent-glyph choice for an ordinary separate copy, and inspect linking options before assuming every property is independent.
Choose the new name or suffix and inspect New glyphs, Copy kerning classes, and Link metrics together. A distinct name alone does not make every relationship independent.
- Select the glyphs you want to duplicate.
- Choose Edit > Duplicate.
- Choose a predefined suffix, such as
.ss01,.alt, or.old, or enter a custom suffix in the Duplicate Glyph dialog. For several glyphs the suffix applies to the group; for one glyph, inspect its proposed new name as well. - Inspect the duplication options, then click OK.
- Review the newly added glyphs, their names, and their intended character assignments.
A suffix such as .alt can describe the purpose of an alternative. If a proposed name already exists, FontLab generates a unique name using a numeric extension. With no chosen suffix, numeric naming can likewise distinguish the duplicates. The operation does not require replacing an existing glyph merely to obtain a name.
Those relationships are covered in Building Composites by Hand, Preparations, and Relational Spacing. A duplicate's unique name by itself does not establish that every element or metric is unlinked from the original.
The Duplicate offset preference concerns duplicated drawing objects in the Glyph window. It should not be assumed to offset every whole-glyph duplicate created in this workflow.
Appending Glyphs
Append Glyphs adds the clipboard glyphs to the target font without using its selected cells as replacement destinations.
- In the source Font window, select the existing glyphs to transfer.
- Choose Edit > Copy Glyphs, or press Cmd+C (Ctrl+C on Windows) while the grid has focus.
- Activate the target font's Font window.
- Choose Edit > Append Glyphs.
- Inspect the added glyphs and their names and assignments.
Copy carries a structured JSON-based representation of FontLab glyph data, not just the text visible in the captions. The Font window context menu provides alternative access to Copy Glyphs and Append Glyphs. Empty prospective positions do not provide glyph data to copy. The copied group follows the selected cells' display order; it is not ordered by the chronology of your clicks.
Append adds entries at the end of the target font's internal sequence, keeping the clipboard order. Another active display sort or filter can show them elsewhere or hide them, so a different onscreen position does not establish that they were not appended.
Name conflicts are resolved with unique names rather than by replacing existing target glyph content. Character assignments still have to fit the target font: a copied assignment already in use cannot be treated as a new independent default for another glyph. Inspect the resulting assignments when combining fonts.
Use Copy rather than Cut when the source must remain intact. Append's additive behavior in the target does not reverse an earlier Cut from the source.
Pasting Glyphs
Paste is a positional operation in the Font window. It can put copied content into existing or prospective cells under the names supplied by those destinations.
Warning: Paste can replace glyph content and can continue into cells beyond the highlighted selection. Save before replacing important work, and make the target selection large enough for the group you intend to place. Use Append when the intention is simply to add the copied glyphs under their own names.
How the destinations are chosen
For a group of copied glyphs, FontLab pairs the first copied glyph with the first selected destination, the next with the next selected destination, and so on, in cell order. The selected cells need not be adjacent.
If copied glyphs remain after the selected destinations are exhausted, pairing continues with the cells immediately following the last selected cell. Those continuation cells can contain existing glyphs even though they were not part of the highlighted selection.
For example, with two copied glyphs and only one selected destination, the second copied glyph can be placed into the following cell. This is a positional example, not an instruction to match the two source glyphs by their names.
There is also a single-source case: when one glyph is copied and several target cells are selected, FontLab repeats that copied glyph across those selected destinations. Selecting more cells does not necessarily leave the extra cells untouched.
For destinations within the Table view, the destination name supplies the pasted glyph's identity. A source named a.alt pasted into the position named a is not simply appended as another a.alt. This can be useful for an intentional replacement, but is wrong when your purpose is to preserve all source names.
Do not rely on running past the end of the displayed collection as a substitute for Append. Use explicit destinations for positional placement and Append Glyphs for adding entries independently of those positions.
Replacement choices
When the mapped destinations include existing glyphs, FontLab can display the Replace Glyphs dialog. Its three principal choices are:
| Choice | Intended result |
|---|---|
| Replace existing glyph contents with new contents | Places the copied contents at the destinations without keeping the displaced contents as separate glyphs |
| Replace contents but keep existing glyphs under new names | Preserves the displaced glyphs under unique names while placing the new contents at the destinations |
| Append glyphs, keep existing glyphs unchanged | Adds the copied glyphs instead of replacing the mapped destinations |
Keeping displaced glyphs under new names preserves an alternative source, not two glyphs with the same identity. FontLab gives the displaced glyphs unique names and clears their Unicode assignments as the destinations take over their original roles. Inspect the retained copies before treating the operation as an exact backup of all relationships.
The replacement dialog lists the affected glyphs above three different policies. The middle choice preserves displaced content under new names; Append leaves the existing glyphs in place.
The dialog can also offer ways to retain construction links. Those choices are separate from the replacement policy; an ordinary independent copy and a reference-based transfer should not be assumed to behave identically.
A session option can suppress the replacement warning and reuse the chosen policy. Holding Option on macOS or Alt on Windows while invoking Paste requests the dialog again when a replacement conflict exists. Do not assume that the absence of a dialog means no replacement is occurring. When every mapped target is empty, there may be no replacement conflict to confirm.
A controlled paste
- Copy the intended glyphs from the source Font window.
- Activate the target font and inspect the active filter and display order.
- Select the intended destination cells, allowing for the single-source repetition rule and any continuation beyond the selection.
- Choose Edit > Paste Glyphs. If the replacement dialog appears, review its listed targets and choose the required policy, or cancel.
- Inspect the target names, drawings, and assignments before saving.
When the target scope is unclear, cancel and use a smaller explicit selection or Append. A successful paste means data was transferred; it does not establish that the resulting glyph identities are the ones you intended.