<HTML>
<HEAD>
<!-- Created with AOLpress/2.0 -->
<!-- AP: Created on: 11-Dec-2000 -->
<!-- AP: Last modified: 9-Feb-2002 -->
<TITLE>The Element Menu</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1 ALIGN=Center>
The Element Menu
</H1>
<P>
This menu is not present in the Metrics View.
<P>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Font">Font Info</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Info">Get/Char Info</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Dependencies">Show Dependencies</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Problems">Find Problems...</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Bitmaps">Bitmaps Available...</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Regenerate">Regenerate Bitmaps...</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Transform">Transform...</A>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Flip">Flip Horizontally</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#FlipV">Flip Vertically</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Rotate">Rotate 90° CW</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Rotate90CCW">Rotate 90° CCW</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Rotate180">Rotate 180°</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Skew">Skew</A>
</UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Expand">Expand Stroke...</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Remove">Remove Overlap</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Simplify">Simplify</A><BR>
Simplify More
<LI>
<A HREF="#Cleanup">Cleanup Chars</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="elementmenu.html#Add-Extrema">Add Extrema</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#MetaFont">MetaFont...</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#AutoTrace">AutoTrace</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Align">Align</A>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="elementmenu.html#Average">Average Points</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="elementmenu.html#Space-Pts">Space Points</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="elementmenu.html#Space-Regions">Space Regions</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Parallel">Make Parallel</A>
</UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Round">Round to Int</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Clockwise">Clockwise</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Counter">Counter-Clockwise</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Correct">Correct Direction</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Accented">Build Accented Char<BR>
Build Composite Char</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Merge">Merge Fonts...</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Interpolate">Interpolate Fonts...</A>
</UL>
<P>
<DL>
<DT>
<A NAME="Font">Font</A> Info
<DD>
In all views this brings up the <A HREF="fontinfo.html">Font Info
dialog</A>.<BR>
CID keyed fonts can set information on the CID font as a whole (rather than
just the current sub-font, which is what this command does) from
<A HREF="cidmenu.html#FontInfo">CID->CID Font Info</A>.
<DT>
Get/Char <A NAME="Info">Info</A>
<DD>
In the outline view this brings up <A HREF="getinfo.html">one of four different
dialogs</A> (Point Info, Image Info, Reference Info or Character Info) depending
on what is selected.<BR>
In the font and bitmap view this only brings up the
<A HREF="getinfo.html#Character">Character Info dialog</A>.
<DT>
Show <A NAME="Dependencies">Dependencies</A>
<DD>
This dialog is only available in the font and outline character views. It
shows you what characters contain a reference to the current character. You
can open a window looking at any of the dependent characters by selecting
that character and pressing the [Show] button.
<DT>
Find <A NAME="Problems">Problems</A>...
<DD>
This command is only present in the font view and the outline character view
and will search for several common problems. In the character view it will
select anything that needs to be fixed, in the font view it will check all
selected characters and if any have problems will open them and select the
problems. It will post a message telling you of each problem found. It brings
up the <A HREF="problems.html">Find Problem</A> dialog to let you choose
what problems to look for.
<DT>
<A NAME="Bitmaps">Bitmaps</A> Available...
<DD>
This brings up a list of pixel sizes for bitmap fonts.<BR>
<IMG SRC="bitmapsavail.png" WIDTH="263" HEIGHT="366" ALIGN="Right"> If you
have bitmap fonts this will show their pixel sizes. If you remove a size
that is in the list then that font will be deleted from the sfd file. If
you add a size then that size font will be created and stored in the sfd
file.
<P>
PfaEdit deals in pixel sizes, not point sizes. The conversion between pixels
and points differs on different systems and indeed on different screens.
A point is (approximately) 1/72 of an inch, a pixel is however big a pixel
happens to be on your screen. Usually pixels range from about 1/72 of an
inch to about 1/144 of an inch. Different systems support different screen
resolutions as "standard", and PfaEdit tries to know about these standards.
<TABLE BORDER CELLPADDING="2" ALIGN=Center>
<CAPTION>
Some conversions between points and pixels
</CAPTION>
<TR>
<TH><P ALIGN=Left>
<U>Screen Resolution</U><BR>
Point Size</TH>
<TH>72dpi<BR>
Mac</TH>
<TH>75dpi<BR>
X</TH>
<TH>96dpi<BR>
Win</TH>
<TH>100dpi<BR>
X</TH>
<TH>120dpi<BR>
Win</TH>
</TR>
<TR>
<TH>10pt</TH>
<TD>10</TD>
<TD>10</TD>
<TD>13</TD>
<TD>14</TD>
<TD>17</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TH>12pt</TH>
<TD>12</TD>
<TD>12~13</TD>
<TD>16</TD>
<TD>17</TD>
<TD>20</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TH>18pt</TH>
<TD>18</TD>
<TD>19</TD>
<TD>24</TD>
<TD>25</TD>
<TD>30</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TH>24pt</TH>
<TD>24</TD>
<TD>25</TD>
<TD>32</TD>
<TD>33</TD>
<TD>40</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<P>
Sadly your screen will probably not match one of the standard screens precisely.
On X the standard resolutions are 75 and 100dpi, on MS Windows 96 and 120dpi,
and on the Mac 72dpi. This dialog provides the conversion between pixel size
and point sizes at these resolutions.
<P>
Normally the new characters are created by rasterizing the outline font.
If your system has the freetype2 library installed (and you checked the "Use
FreeType" box) then PfaEdit will use the FreeType rasterizer to generate
bitmaps, otherwise it will use PfaEdit's built-in rasterizer (which isn't
as good, but involves a little less overhead).
<P>
Finally, if you have no outline font then the new characters will be created
by scaling the (bitmap) font displayed in the font view.
<P>
In CID keyed fonts there will not be a set of bitmaps for each sub font,
instead the entire complex of sub-fonts share bitmaps.
<DT>
<A NAME="Regenerate">Regenerate</A> Bitmaps...
<DD>
If you have changed the outline that a bitmap is based one then you should
(at some point) look into changing the bitmap too. This command allows you
to regenerate a subset of the characters in a given bitmap font. In the font
view you can regenerate all selected characters, while in the bitmap and
outline views you can regenerate the current character. You can pick what
pixel sizes should be regenerated too (unlike the above command, removing
a bitmap size from the regenerate list will not delete it).
<DT>
<A NAME="Transform">Transform</A>...
<DD>
<A HREF="transform.html">In the Font and Outline Views this brings up a
dialog</A>, but in the bitmap view there is a submenu with a selection of
choices that are meaningful in a bitmap.
<DL>
<DT>
<A NAME="Flip">Flip</A> Horizontally
<DD>
Flips the bitmap horizontally.
<DT>
<A NAME="FlipV">Flip</A> Vertically
<DD>
Flips the bitmap vertically.
<DT>
<A NAME="Rotate">Rotate</A> 90° CW
<DD>
Rotates the bitmap 90° clockwise.
<DT>
<A NAME="Rotate90CCW">Rotate</A> 90° CCW
<DD>
Rotates the bitmap 90° counter-clockwise.
<DT>
<A NAME="Rotate180">Rotate</A> 180°
<DD>
Rotates the bitmap 180°
<DT>
<A NAME="Skew">Skew</A>
<DD>
Allows you to specify a ratio by which to skew the bitmap 1:3 means for every
3 pixel rise in y, skew the bitmap one pixel horizontally.
</DL>
<DT>
<A NAME="Expand">Expand</A> Stroke...
<DD>
Only in the font and outline views. In the font view it applies to all foreground
splines in all selected characters. In the outline view it applies to all
paths that have at least one point selected (or if no points are selected
then it applies to all paths).<BR>
<IMG SRC="twolines.png" WIDTH="247" HEIGHT="247">
<IMG SRC="expandedlines.png" WIDTH="247" HEIGHT="247"><BR>
Above is a simple example of what expand stroke can do. It takes the two
open paths above left and turns them into the two closed paths right.<BR>
<IMG SRC="expandstroke.png" WIDTH="317" HEIGHT="295"><BR>
The Expand Stroke dialog gives you control over various aspects of the expansion
process. You can chose a stroke width, how the ends of an open path should
be drawn, and how the path should look when two splines (or lines) join which
do not have the same slope (ie. at a corner point). Or you may choose to
have the path be that which would be traced by a calligraphic pen.
<DT>
<A NAME="Remove">Remove</A> Overlap
<DD>
Only in the font and outline views. If two closed paths intersect then there
will be overlap. This will get rid of it, leaving one closed path behind.
(if the path directions are wonky, strange things result).<BR>
<IMG SRC="expandedlines.png" WIDTH="247" HEIGHT="247">
<IMG SRC="overlappedlines.png" WIDTH="247" HEIGHT="247"><BR>
This command is probably the buggiest in PfaEdit. So before PfaEdit invokes
the command it will save the state to the error recovery file.<BR>
Warning: Splines which are tangent (or nearly so) cause problems. Points
which are close together can cause problems.
<DT>
<A NAME="Simplify">Simplify</A>
<DD>
Only in the font and outline views. If you have lots of points on a path,
some of which do not materially add to the path's shape, then this command
will remove the extraneous points. (It will not remove points where the slope
at the point is horizontal or vertical as postscript likes to have these
points present).
<DT>
Simplify More
<DD>
This is a varient of the simplify command, obtainable if you hold down the
shift key when invoking from the menu. It will allow the slope to change
on points around the points being removed.
<DT>
<A NAME="Cleanup">Cleanup Char</A>
<DD>
This is similar to the simplify command. In this case if there is a spline
which actually traces out a line but none the less has control points, then
this command will remove the control points.
<DT>
<A NAME="Add-Extrema">Add Extrema</A>
<DD>
Only in the font and outline views. In the font view (or if nothing is selected
in the outline view) it will look at each spline in the character and find
where the extrema are and insert points at those locations (assuming there
aren't points there already). If there are points selected in the outline
view then it will only work on splines which are between two selected points.
<DT>
<A NAME="MetaFont">MetaFont</A>...
<DD>
This <A HREF="MetaFont.html">dialog</A> is only present in the font and outline
character views. It allows you to make fonts bolder or condensed. It doesn't
work very well.
<DT>
<A NAME="AutoTrace">AutoTrace</A>
<DD>
This command is only available if you have downloaded Martin Weber's
<A HREF="http://sourceforge.net/projects/autotrace/">autotrace program</A>.
If you have a background image in a character then autotrace will automagically
trace the outlines of that image.<BR>
If you hold down the shift key when you invoke AutoTrace from the menu then
you will be prompted for arguments to pass to it, if you do not hold down
the shift key PfaEdit will use the same arguments it used last time. AutoTrace's
arguments are described in "$ autotrace -help" or in the README file that
came with the program. Please do not specify input/output files or formats.
PfaEdit fills these in.<BR>
I may not be loading the results of autotrace properly in all cases (I do
in my test cases, of course). AutoTrace traces out both foreground and background
regions, so I may sometimes leave behind a lump which represents a background
area. Just delete it if it happens (and send me the image so I can fix things
up).<FONT COLOR="Red"><BR>
<STRONG>CAVEAT: </STRONG></FONT>Autotrace 2.8 changed its argument conventions
(around Dec 2001). New versions (after 15 Dec) of pfaedit will not work with
autotrace2.7, old versions of pfaedit will not work with autotrace2.8. I
see no way to make something work with both or to detect the current version...
<DT>
<A NAME="Align">Align</A> menu
<DD>
This submenu is only present in the outline view, it allows you to align
points or to space them out along an axis.
<DL>
<DT>
<A NAME="Average">Average</A> Points
<DD>
This will look at all the selected points and find the coordinate with the
least change. Then it will average find the median point on that axis and
set all the selected points to have that value for the appropriate
coordinate.<BR>
So if you have a line which is almost horizontal, and select its endpoints
and apply this command it will be horizontal.<BR>
<IMG SRC="Constrain2_1.png" WIDTH="122" HEIGHT="90">
<IMG SRC="Constrain2_2.png" WIDTH="122" HEIGHT="90"><BR>
(if you select exactly two points, and they lie close to a 45 diagonal, then
they will be forced to the diagonal rather than to horizontal/vertical)
<DT>
<A NAME="Space-Pts">Space Points</A>
<DD>
If you have three or more points selected then PfaEdit will figure out the
coordinate that has the greatest change and will space the points out regularly
along that axis.<BR>
If you select one point (and that point is in the middle of a path) then
(internally) the point's location will be expressed in a coordinate system
which is rotated so that one axis is parallel to the line between the two
points that surround the selected point. The selected point will be moved
mid-way between the two on this axis, while it's other coordinate remains
fixed.<BR>
That's an extremely complicated way of saying: If the selected point is connected
to two points which are on a horizontal line, then the selected point's x
coordinate will be midway between the two, while its y coordinate remains
unchanged.<BR>
<IMG SRC="Constrain1_1.png" WIDTH="122" HEIGHT="90">
<IMG SRC="Constrain1_2.png" WIDTH="122" HEIGHT="90">
<DT>
<A NAME="Space-Regions">Space Regions</A>
<DD>
This is similar to the above command except that it allows you to make a
rather simple definition of a collection of points which should be moved
together. Each of these regions will be regularly spaced along the chosen
axis. A region is defined as a collection of points, each one of which is
within some maximum distance of at least one other point in the region. The
purpose of this is to allow you to space out the stems of the letter "m"
so that they regularly spaced horizontally. Sadly it won't work in many cases
because in a serifed font the serifs will often be closer to each other than
to their respective stems.<BR>
<IMG SRC="Spacem_1.png" WIDTH="140" HEIGHT="108">
<IMG SRC="Spacem_2.png" WIDTH="145" HEIGHT="108">
<DT>
Make <A NAME="Parallel">Parallel</A>
<DD>
If four points are selected, and there are two lines between them, then PfaEdit
will make those lines parallel. If there are four lines between them (ie.
they form a quadrilateral, then PfaEdit will turn it into a parallelogram.
(note, this only works on lines, not on curved splines)<BR>
The last point selected will be the one moved (sometimes PfaEdit doesn't
remember which point was selected last, then it will just pick one randomly.
If you don't want that to happen, select your points and then single click
on the one you want moved).
</DL>
<DT>
<A NAME="Round">Round</A> to Int
<DD>
Only in the font and outline views. PfaEdit stores point locations as real
numbers (ie. it retains fractional values). TrueType and PostScript Type1
only support integral values (Well with vast effort Type1 fonts can be made
to support real numbers but PfaEdit doesn't), so when generating the font
points are rounded to integral values. Open Type allows real numbers easily.
But they make the font file bigger. This command will round all selected
locations to the closest integer.
<DT>
<A NAME="Clockwise">Clockwise</A>
<DD>
Only in the outline view. If all selected paths have a clockwise direction
then this will be checked. Selecting it will make all paths be clockwise.
<DT>
<A NAME="Counter">Counter</A>-Clockwise
<DD>
Only in the outline view. If all selected paths have a counter-clockwise
direction then this will be checked. Selecting it will make all paths be
counter-clockwise.
<DT>
<A NAME="Correct">Correct</A> Direction
<DD>
Only in the outline view. Sets the direction of outermost paths to be clockwise.
The next path crossed will be made counter-clockwise, the next clockwise,
etc.<BR>
This command may produce unexpected results if two splines cross.
<DT>
Build <A NAME="Accented">Accented/Composite</A> Char
<DD>
Only in the font and outline views.
<P>
If the shift key is not depressed when selecting the menu item this will
only build accented letters, if the shift key is depressed it will build
general composite characters (fractions, ligatures, digits inside parens,
roman numerals, etc.) as well. If invoked by short-cut (Ctl-Shft-A) or mnemonic
it will only build accented letters.
<P>
If the current character is an accented character (and all the base characters
and accents have already been created) then this command will delete anything
that is currently in the foreground and put a reference to the base character
and another reference to the accent character into the foreground. So if
the current character were "À" then a reference to "A" would be added
to it, and a reference to "`" would be centered above the "A". <BR>
If <A HREF="editmenu.html#From">Copy From</A> is set to All Fonts then any
bitmaps will have a similar process done (even in the outline character view).
<P>
Choosing accents can be a slightly tricky process. Unicode says that accented
letters should be built out of the accents in the range 0x300-0x340, but
this does not work too well in postscript. A Type1 font works better if the
accented character is in the Adobe Standard Encoding, which means either
using accents around 0x2d0 or ascii characters. Pfaedit will first attempt
to find an accent around 0x2d0, then in ascii and finally in the 0x300-0x340
range.
<P>
Not all accents should be centered above the base character, a cedilla is
(usually) centered underneath the base, while other accents need to be placed
to the left or right, or even overstruck. PfaEdit should know about proper
placement of most accents (or at least a rough approximation thereto).
<P>
Some Unicode characters contain more than one accent. Additional accents
will be treated similarly. This command can also be used to generate more
general composite characters . Unicode 0x2163 is the roman numeral IV and
this command may be used to build it. Greek capital Alpha looks exactly like
Latin capital A and can be created. On the other hand the oe ligature will
be replaced by an "o" followed by "e", so be a little careful. Some accents
(for example cedilla) are treated unexpectedly on certain letters (different
ways in different languages), so be careful of g-cedilla. Å often merges
the ring into the top of the A, but here it will float above it. Be alert.
<P>
<FONT COLOR="Red"><STRONG><SMALL>NOTE:</SMALL></STRONG></FONT> My centering
algorithms attempt to guess what will look centered to the human eye (centering
it in the middle of the character will often not look centered). You should
examine all built characters and be prepared to adjust the accent.
<P>
The algorithms take some account of the italicangle<BR>
You can configure how high the accent should float above the base character
with the AccentOffsetPercent preference item. This lets you specify the
percentage of the em to use as a separation. To avoid accents at slightly
different heights, all characters near the x-height are treated as being
at the x-height, and similarly for all characters near the cap height.
<HR>
When displaying latin (cyrillic, greek, etc.) text amid a CJK characters
displayed vertically the convention is that the latin glyphs should be rotated
(if you were to rotate the page so that the CJK characters ran left to right
rather than top to bottom, then the latin characters would read normally).
Certain slots in Adobe's cid assignments have been left for rotated latin
letters. If you apply Build Accented Character to one of these slots it will
find the appropriate latin letter and rotate it properly.<BR>
If a character's name is "vertcid_<cid>" where <cid> is a decimal
number, then it is assumed to be a vertically rotated version of the glyph
at <cid>. In non-cid-keyed fonts, if a character's name is
"vertuni<uni>" where <uni> is a four digit hex number, then it
is assumed to be a vertically rotated version of that unicode character.
<DT>
<A NAME="Merge">Merge</A> Fonts...
<DD>
Only in the font view. If you are building a unicode font you will often
want to merge in fonts with other encodings. You can, of course, cut and
paste from one to the other, but usually that needs to be done one character
at a time (because the encoding may not be ordered the same as Unicode).
Instead, if your fonts are properly encoded (with proper unicode names),
then the Merge Fonts command will put them into the right places in the current
font.
<DT>
<A NAME="Interpolate">Interpolate</A> Fonts...
<DD>
Only in the font view. If you have a bold font and a light font and would
like to create a medium font, then you can interpolate a font between the
two (or you can extrapolate a font that's even bolder or lighter). Your two
fonts must have the same sets of characters, and each character must have
the same number of paths (ordered similarly) and each path must have the
same number of points on it, and must have the same references.
</DL>
<P>
<H2>
Other menus
</H2>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="filemenu.html">File</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="editmenu.html">Edit</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="pointmenu.html">Point</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="elementmenu.html">Element</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="hintsmenu.html">Hints</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="viewmenu.html">View</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="metricsmenu.html">Metrics</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="cidmenu.html">CID</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="windowmenu.html">Window</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="helpmenu.html">Help</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="HotKeys.html">Hot Keys</A>
</UL>
<P ALIGN=Center>
-- <A HREF="pointmenu.html">Prev</A> -- <A HREF="overview.html">TOC</A> --
<A HREF="hintsmenu.html">Next</A> --
<P>
</BODY></HTML>
