Type designers are lucky to have a variety of extremely-capable tools for creating new fonts. My favorite of these is RoboFont.
If you’re just getting started in RoboFont, it’s very worthwhile to browse through the docs. You can take a look at user questions (and ask your own!) on the RoboFont Forum. But, it can also be pretty nice to learn tips from folks who use it, so here’s a blog post with a smattering of tips for using the software to the fullest.
I covered some of the reasons I like RoboFont in an earlier post, Getting Started in Type. This post actually started as a section of that article, but I have since realized that I would like to add more extensions and more details. If you haven’t already read that article, there are lots of helpful general type design tips there, so consider giving it a look, too!
Most RoboFont extensions can be found at https://robofontmechanic.com/. I have added specific links where tools are better or only available in specific repos.
Some of the free extensions I couldn’t work without:
Paid extensions
You can get more-detailed documentation about RoboFont extensions at https://robofont.com/documentation/extensions/.
Paste gives you access to your Clipboard History, which is helpful in many situations (email, code, interface design, etc etc), but also handy in RoboFont. You can copy a couple of contours, then (if you remember the order you copied things in) paste them as needed. Hard to explain, but very handy.
Divvy allows you to easily set the sizing of windows without dragging things around manually. This is helpful in lots of scenarios beyond type design, but especially nice in a multi-window app like RoboFont. Set up some global shortcuts to make this even quicker! There are other “window manager” apps for Mac, but this one offers my preferred balance of simplicity and power.
Sometimes, it’s nice to work in the evening without blasting your eyes with a ton of bright light. Luckily, RoboFont settings allow you to get a pretty serviceable dark mode in two steps:
Most of the time, it is helpful to work with the Glyph View and the Space Center side-by-side. Use Divvy (mentioned above) to set up 50% of your screen with a glyph, and the other 50% with the Space Center, then adjust the glyph while keeping an eye on the glyph in the context of spacing strings, at different scales, and/or more! I didn’t do this for a long time, but then I picked up the tip from James Edmonson (OHno Type Co) on Instagram, and it changed my life.
Get familiar with using the Transform (T) tool, along with the modifier keys. This can be very unintuitive at fist, but becomes pretty powerful over time. I will try to make a video or say more about this at some point, because it can be easy to miss but seriously helpful.
If you get stuck on a problem, chances are, someone will be happy to help you out. Sometimes, just the act of clearly writing out your problem will help you solve it on your own! This applies to basically all aspects of computers and software, but is particularly true in learning & using RoboFont and its associated tools.
Generally, if you run into an unexpected issue, open the Output Window (Python > Output Window, or Option+Command+o) and check for error messages.
There is a lot more that could be said about RoboFont, but hopefully this post is able to help you learn a few useful things you didn’t already know. Enjoy!