Adjust Tracking for Font Blocks in FontForge

Yes, you can adjust tracking across an entire font block or your entire glyph set in FontForge. Tracking refers to the uniform expansion or contraction of letter-spacing across a group of characters. In FontForge, this is achieved by batch-modifying the advance widths or the left and right side bearings of selected glyphs. This guide explains how to select your target glyphs and use the Transform Metrics dialog to achieve consistent, uniform tracking.

Step 1: Select the Glyphs

  1. Open your font file in FontForge’s main font view window.
  2. Select the glyphs you want to adjust:
    • To select all glyphs in the font, press Ctrl + A (Windows/Linux) or Cmd + A (macOS).
    • To select a specific block (such as Basic Latin or Cyrillic), click the first glyph in the range, hold Shift, and click the last glyph.
    • You can also use Edit > Select > Scripts & Ranges to select predefined Unicode blocks.

Step 2: Open the Transform Metrics Window

Once your selection is highlighted:

  1. Click on the Metrics menu in the top navigation bar.
  2. Select Transform Metrics....

Step 3: Configure Tracking Adjustments

The Transform Metrics tool allows you to modify the spacing around your selected glyphs uniformly:

  1. In the drop-down menu under the Left Side Bearing (LSB) section, choose how you want to adjust the spacing:
    • Increment by: Adds or subtracts a fixed design unit value (e.g., entering 10 adds 10 units of space to the left of each glyph; -10 reduces it).
    • Scale by: Multiplies the existing bearing by a percentage (e.g., 110% to loosen spacing proportionally).
  2. Apply the exact same adjustment to the Right Side Bearing (RSB) to maintain optical balance. For example, adding 15 units to both the LSB and RSB increases total inter-character tracking by 30 units per pair.
  3. Leave the Width (Advance Width) setting as Keep existing value or Set automatically to allow FontForge to calculate the new total width based on the adjusted bearings.

Step 4: Preview and Apply

  1. Click OK to apply the changes across the selected block.
  2. To verify the results, select a string of text and press Ctrl + K (or go to Metrics > New Metrics Window).
  3. Test combinations of characters in the Metrics Window to verify that word spacing and letter density look balanced at various sizes.