FontForge Visual Cues for Unencoded Glyphs

This guide covers the distinct visual cues FontForge uses to help type designers identify unencoded glyphs within its workspace. By observing specific indicators in the main Font View window, such as grid positioning, cell header labels, and glyph information dialogs, you can immediately distinguish between glyphs mapped to standard Unicode code points and those operating without assigned encodings.

Grid Positioning at the Bottom of the Font View

In standard encoding views (such as Unicode BMP or ISO-8859-1), FontForge renders the defined character set in sequential order according to their code points. Glyphs that lack an assigned encoding slot are pushed to the very end of the font display. When scrolling past the final mapped character of the chosen encoding, these glyphs appear clustered together in the overflow space, visually separating them from standard character ranges.

Omission of Hexadecimal Code Points in Cell Headers

Above each cell in the Font View grid, FontForge displays metadata about the character inside. For standard encoded glyphs, this header includes both the glyph's name and its assigned hexadecimal representation (such as U+0041 for "A"). For unencoded glyphs, the hexadecimal code point is entirely absent from the cell header, leaving only the glyph name (for example, ampersand.alt or a raw generated label like glyph1042).

Explicit Encoding Value of -1

When inspecting a glyph via the status bar at the top of the window or by opening the Glyph Info window (under Element > Glyph Info), FontForge explicitly notes its lack of encoding. The encoding field in these panels will display an index value of -1 or simply label the encoding value as None. This negative integer is the standard internal cue FontForge uses to denote that a glyph has no location in the current encoding table.

Distinct Separation in Compact View

When switching to the Compacted View (Encoding > Compacted), FontForge removes all empty, unmapped slots from the interface. In this view, unencoded glyphs remain visible alongside populated encoded slots, but they still retain their code-free labels. Designers can quickly scan the matrix to identify alternate glyphs, ligatures, or components purely by looking for entries that lack the typical U+XXXX identifier pattern.