To add a new table to the font:
You will probably have to use the
Hex Editor, described in Other tables, to
edit any table which doesn't appear on the New Table popup.
There are three ways to open a table for editing:
When you open a table, its contents are shown in a
dedicated editor window or dialog box. Each table
type has its own editor:
Many editors operate in similar ways, as described in the rest of
this manual.
This dedicated-editor approach is similar to that taken by the Apple
development tool ResEdit. But unlike ResEdit, TrueEdit does not allow
its users to add editors for new tags.
If you open a table and the editor window simply shows hexadecimal
numbers, then TrueEdit does not have a specific editor for that
table.
This window is the Hex Editor; Chapter VI: Other
Tables provides some suggestions on how to use this editor. You
can open the Hex Editor for any table, even if a dedicated editor
exists, by holding down the Option key as you open the
table.
Developing fonts for QuickDraw GX can be broken down into several
steps, each of which involves several tables. This manual is
organized according to these steps.
Here's a guide to what tables TrueEdit supports, and where they are
covered in this manual. Note that some tables are discussed in
several chapters.
feat
-- Feature name
mort
-- Glyph metamorphosis
name
-- Name
fmtx
-- Font metrics
just
-- Justification
kern
-- Kerning
lcar
-- Ligature caret
name
-- Name
opbd
-- Optical bounds
prop
-- Glyph properties
trak
-- Tracking
acnt
-- Accent attachment
bdat
-- Bitmap data
bloc
-- Bitmap location
bsln
-- Baseline
cmap
-- Character to index mapping
name
-- Name prop
-- Glyph
properties
vhea
-- Vertical header
vmtx
-- Vertical metrics
fdsc
-- Font descriptors
name
-- Name
OS/2
-- OS/2
head
-- Font header
post
-- PostScript
cvt
-- Control value table
hdmx
-- Horizontal device metrics
hhea
-- Horizontal header
hmtx
-- Horizontal metrics
loca
-- Index to location
maxp
-- Maximum profile
The operational details of TrueEdit's dedicated editors vary from editor to editor. Specific instructions are included in the later chapters of this manual. This section introduces two general operations common to several editors.
Many tables (cmap
, mort
,
lcar
, just to name a few) themselves consist of a number
of entries or subtables. Although editors may differ, most let
you choose Add Entry from the Edit menu (or
press Command-A) to add a new entry.
The entries within a table can be edited; again, the exact details depend on the editor. To edit an entry, choose Edit Entry from the Edit menu, press Command-E, or double-click the entry in the editor window.
The standard Macintosh editing commands -- Cut, Copy , Paste, and Clear -- are available on the Edit menu. You can use these commands to remove tables from a font, to copy tables from one font to another, and to edit the contents of tables.
The Undo command is not implemented in TrueEdit 2.0.
To remove a table from the font:
You can use the Copy and Paste commands on the Edit menu to move tables between fonts.
Remember that many of the tables in a TrueType GX font have important interdependencies. As discussed in TrueType GX Fundamentals, failure to keep track of these links can lead to a corrupt font.
Many TrueEdit editors use source tables
('TRnn
') as part of the editing process.
These tables are not official TrueType GX tables, but they are
required within TrueEdit for editing the font. A complete list of
TrueEdit's source tables appears in Appendix
C.
TrueEdit automatically deletes the appropriate source tables when you delete the effects they support, but it does not cut, copy, and paste them automatically. It also does not warn you if you delete a source table directly, even though this renders part of your font uneditable.
However, you should remove the source tables (by deleting them in TrueEdit) before you ship the finished font. Keep a reference copy of the font with the source tables intact, for future revisions and development.
These cautions also apply to the 'clas
' table.