FontForge Shortcut Keys for Quick Navigation

FontForge provides a comprehensive set of keyboard shortcuts designed to accelerate navigation across your font project. Utilizing these hotkeys allows type designers to jump between glyphs, pan and zoom editing canvases, and traverse control points without relying on constant mouse clicks. This guide covers the essential navigation shortcuts across the Font View, Outline (Glyph) Window, and Metrics View.

The Font View acts as the project dashboard. Use these keys to browse and select glyph slots quickly:

  • Arrow Keys: Move the active selection box up, down, left, or right by one glyph cell.
  • Page Up / Page Down: Scroll through the font table one full screen at a time.
  • Home / End: Jump immediately to the beginning or the end of the current row or font mapping.
  • Ctrl + G (Go to): Opens the "Go To" dialogue box. Type a glyph name (e.g., ampersand), decimal value, or hexadecimal Unicode point (e.g., 0x0041 or uni0041) to jump directly to that glyph.
  • Enter: Opens the currently selected glyph in the Outline editing window.

When drawing and modifying vectors, moving smoothly across glyphs and contours is critical for maintaining design rhythm.

Switching Between Glyphs

  • Page Up: Moves to the previous defined (non-empty) glyph in the font.
  • Page Down: Moves to the next defined (non-empty) glyph in the font.
  • Shift + Page Up: Moves to the preceding glyph slot in encoding order, including blank slots.
  • Shift + Page Down: Moves to the subsequent glyph slot in encoding order, including blank slots.

Canvas Panning and Zooming

  • Magnifying (Zoom In): Press Control + Plus (+) or Control + Scroll Wheel Up.
  • Minimizing (Zoom Out): Press Control + Minus (-) or Control + Scroll Wheel Down.
  • Fit to Window: Press Control + 0 to scale the canvas so the entire glyph outline fits comfortably within the view.
  • Pan Canvas: Hold down the Middle Mouse Button (or hold Spacebar in supported builds) and drag the canvas in any direction.

Point-to-Point Traversal

  • Tab: Move the selection to the next control point along the active contour path.
  • Shift + Tab: Move the selection to the previous control point along the active contour path.

The Metrics Window is used to evaluate spacing, side bearings, and kerning pairs.

  • Page Up / Page Down: Scroll horizontally through long test strings loaded in the window.
  • Left / Right Arrow: Step cursor focus between adjacent characters to adjust individual left and right side bearings.