FontLab 8.4.3 — macOS

If you have used a vector drawing app like Illustrator, you already know the feel of FontLab's drawing tools. FontLab 8 builds on that familiarity, letting you create and edit high-quality fonts without a steep learning curve.

Open the Glyph window and test the Edit menu

Import your artwork

FontLab accepts AI, EPS, TIFF, and BMP files. Drag a sketch or vector outline onto a glyph slot, and it becomes a guide for your drawing.

Batch transform glyphs

Select multiple glyphs and apply a scale, rotate, or shift. The batch transformation tool saves time when adjusting an entire alphabet.

Drag and drop glyphs

You can drag glyphs from one slot to another. This makes it easy to reuse a letterform or swap a design between weights.

Work with encodings

FontLab 8.4.3.8984 fits into the font editing landscape alongside a few other apps, each with a different approach. Compared to Glyphs (also a professional editor, strong on variable fonts and Google Fonts integration), FontLab stays closer to the classic type designer's workspace — you get a generous Glyph window, a Metrics panel, and a Font window that feels like a drafting table. Glyphs leans into a more minimalist interface and a glyph‑composition model that some find faster for large families. FontLab, on the other hand, keeps the traditional Bézier‑curve toolkit that anyone coming from Fontographer or FontLab Studio 5 will recognize.

Against FontCreator (Windows‑only, but used on Mac through emulation or Boot Camp), FontLab offers a more complete environment for OpenType features and Unicode coverage, especially for scripts like Arabic and Hebrew. FontCreator is lighter and quicker for simple TrueType edits. FontLab 8 is heavier on drawing tools, batch transformations, and programmable transformations — it suits a production environment where consistency across hundreds of glyphs matters more than raw speed for a single character.

Neither of those apps matches FontLab's undo depth: more than 200 levels. Beginners often don't think about undo until it is too late. FontLab gives a generous safety net.

A specific workflow: building a lowercase "n" from a scanned sketch

Start with a paper sketch scanned to 600 dpi, saved as a TIFF. Open FontLab 8.4, create a new font, and double‑click the lowercase "n" slot. Import the TIFF file through File > Import — FontLab accepts TIFF, BMP, AI, and EPS. The sketch appears as a locked template layer.

1. Choose the Pen tool (the one you know from Illustrator) and trace the left stem. Hold Shift to constrain the vertical line.
2. Draw the arch: a curve from the stem tip to the right stem. FontLab shows Bézier control points. Adjust them until the curve matches your sketch.
3. Draw the right stem, same height. Select all three shapes and open the Glyph > Metrics panel to set sidebearings. A typical "n" needs a left sidebearing around 30 units and a similar right sidebearing.
4. Use the Batch transformation tool to copy this "n" structure to "m", "h", and "u". Select the glyphs, choose Transform > Scale, and adjust the arch width for "m".
5. Open the Font window and drag a copy of "n" into the "ñ" slot. Add a tilde accent above it using the Accents tool.

Export the font as OpenType (TTF or OTF) with Unicode encoding. The whole process, from importing the sketch to a working font family, takes about an hour once you've done it a few times.

A typical session: spacing a lowercase alphabet

I open FontLab on a Tuesday morning, a day after sketching an upright sans‑serif lowercase set. The font file already has basic glyphs but the spacing is uneven — "a" sits too close to "b", while "o" floats with too much air.

I start in the Font window. I select all lowercase glyphs and open the Metrics panel. The panel shows sidebearings as editable numbers. I scroll through the alphabet, clicking each glyph and adjusting left and right bearings by eye, using the trace of the sketch as a guide. For "o", I set left to 25 and right to 30. For "n", 30 and 30.

Every few adjustments, I hit Cmd+Z — the 200+ undo levels mean I can backtrack through half an hour of spacing experiments without losing work. After the alphabet looks balanced, I use the Batch transformation tool to mirror the spacing to uppercase glyphs, scaling the sidebearings proportionally.

I test the font in the built‑in viewer, typing a pangram like "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog". I notice "ff" and "fl" need ligatures. I open the OpenType features panel, create a new ligature lookup, and draw the "ff" ligature in a new glyph slot. The panel lets me assign the Unicode Private Use Area code point and map it to the standard "ff" sequence.

By lunch, the lowercase alphabet is spaced and ligatured. I save the font, export a test OTF, and install it on the system to check it in a text editor. The session runs about three hours.

Mistakes beginners make with FontLab

Not setting up the font's metrics first. New users open a glyph and start drawing without defining the font's ascent, descent, cap height, and x‑height in the Font info dialog. Without those reference lines, every glyph ends up at a different vertical position. Set them before drawing the first "H".

Over‑using the Pen tool when the Shape tools suffice. Beginners reach for Bézier curves for everything, even straight stems. The Rectangle and Ellipse tools create perfect verticals and curves in one click. Reshape them with the Node tool later.

Ignoring Unicode and encoding. A font that looks right in the editor might display as blank boxes if the glyphs are not assigned to the correct Unicode code points. Always check the Encoding panel after importing artwork or creating new glyphs.

Forgetting to save versions. FontLab's undo is deep, but it does not save between sessions. Save a copy before large batch transformations. Beginners often transform an entire alphabet, decide they dislike the result, and realize the undo history is gone after closing the file.

Assuming TrueType and OpenType behave the same in all apps. FontLab handles both, but beginners export a TrueType font and wonder why it looks heavy in a web browser. OpenType with PostScript outlines (CFF) often renders better on screen. Test in the target application before finalizing the format.

FontLab supports editable code pages and encodings. Open a legacy Mac TrueType or ASCII/Unix Type 1 font and see how its character set maps out.

• FontLab 8.4 brings 500 improvements over version 8.
• It also includes 900 improvements over FontLab 7.

• macOS 10.14 or later
• Intel processor