FontForge Element Info Dialog Explained

The Element Info dialogs in FontForge—most notably the Font Info window accessed via the Element menu—serve as the central control panel for defining a font's metadata, metrics, encodings, and typographic behaviors. This guide provides a clear, structured breakdown of the specific categories of information displayed within this dialog, detailing how technical properties, TrueType/OpenType tables, PostScript metrics, and OpenType layout features are organized and configured.

PS Names (PostScript Names)

The PS Names section contains core identification properties required by PostScript-based formats and general rendering engines:

  • Fontname: The internal PostScript identifier (contains no spaces).
  • Family Name: The typographical family name grouping related weights and styles.
  • Weight: The style descriptor (e.g., Regular, Bold, Italic, Light).
  • Copyright & Version: Legal ownership statements and semantic font revision numbers.

General Metrics

The General panel establishes the basic coordinate grid and global geometric bounds:

  • Ascent and Descent: The vertical space allocated above and below the baseline.
  • Em Size: The total design unit size for the Em square (commonly 1000 for PostScript or 2048 for TrueType).
  • Italic Angle: The slant angle (in degrees off vertical) used for italic or oblique designs.
  • Underline: Specifications for the vertical position and thickness of underline strokes.

TrueType (TTF) Names

This section manages multilingual, human-readable name records written to the OpenType/TrueType name table:

  • Name Records: Fields for standard naming conventions across platforms (Windows and Mac), including Full Name, Unique Font Identifier, Subfamily, Designer Name, Vendor URL, and License Description.
  • Language Support: Enables localization of font names for specific language systems.

OS/2 Metrics and Classifications

The OS/2 panel controls how Windows and other modern operating systems interpret and render the font:

  • PANOSE Classification: A 10-digit numerical system detailing visual characteristics (seriffed, weight, proportion, etc.).
  • Weight & Width Classes: Standardized numerical scales (e.g., Weight Class 400 for Regular, 700 for Bold).
  • Metrics: Distinct vertical metrics including WinAscent, WinDescent, TypoAscender, TypoDescender, and TypoLineGap to control cross-platform line spacing.
  • Code Page and Unicode Ranges: Checkbox arrays designating which script blocks and character sets the font officially supports.

Lookups (GSUB and GPOS)

The Lookups section configures advanced OpenType typographical features:

  • GSUB (Glyph Substitution): Definitions for features like standard ligatures (liga), discretionary ligatures (dlig), small capitals (smcp), and localized forms (locl).
  • GPOS (Glyph Positioning): Rules for pairwise kerning (kern), mark-to-base attachment (mark), and cursive connections.
  • Subtable Settings: Granular control over the order of execution, scripts, and language tags mapped to each feature.

Layers and Glyphs

This section manages outline structure and internal rendering modes:

  • Spline Types: Settings to toggle between Cubic (Bézier curves used in PostScript/CFF) and Quadratic (curves used in native TrueType).
  • Active Layers: Visibility, foreground/background status, and editing permissions for design layers.

Related: Element > Glyph Info

When inspecting a single character rather than the entire font, the Element menu also provides the Glyph Info dialog, displaying:

  • Unicode Data: Assigned Unicode value, glyph name, and character script.
  • Metrics: Left side bearing, horizontal advance width, right side bearing, and vertical advance.
  • Components: References and transformation matrices for composite glyphs (such as accented characters).
  • Color and Comments: User-defined labels and notes used for internal production tracking.