Wrong size of copied characters

[Grütter]

(See my attached screenshot for demonstration)

If I replace an arbitrary character of a font by a copy of an other character of this font (by draging or copy&paste), then the two characters, which should be equal, have different sizes in the metric window (and also in e.g. MSWord). Either this is a bug, or "copy and paste" doesn't do what one expects.

In my screenshot, I replaced the "$" of arial.ttf by a copy of "\". Then I typed in the red rectangle 10x the original backslash "\", then 10x the "$", what should produce identical backslashes - but these backslashes (in the red frame) are 1 pixel smaller than the first 10, although the glyphs are obviously the same!

Please confirm or deny this strange behavior of FontLab 5.0 with WindowsXP SP3.

Thank you.

[Eigi]

The combobox at the bottom of the Metric/Kerning windwo uses a generic system font, not the font you are working on. You can check "Option :: General Options :: Fonts" to change that font to an other one, but it will never be the current font you are working on in FontLab.

[Grütter]

Thank you for this answer.

You are right: The 20 backslashes in the red frame are MS Sans Serif, the FLS default font, and not MS Arial. BUT THAT DOESN'T SOLVE THE PROBLEM: I replaced one week ago (see my posting from 08.25.2008 on page 1) the "$" by the "\" in MS Sans Serif as well. So, why are in the red frame the first ten backslashes of MS Sans Serif bigger than the last 10 replacing backslashes (former dollar-signs) of MS Sans Serif?

And secondly: As you can see in my first screenshot from august 25, if I generate a font with "$" replaced by "\" (starting with MS Sans Serif or Arial, it doesn't matter), and I use it to name my icons on the desktop or in MSWord, the original "\" and the replacing "\" of the same font have different sizes.

Again: Maybe a bug?

[Eigi]

If the outline is identical it must be a matter of hinting

[Grütter]

I also had this idea. But if I copy and paste a character, I expect that the hints are also be copied, aren't they? I'm not familiar with hinting, I have to read the 1000 page manual...

[Grütter]

Now I know it's a hinting issue and not a bug. But I wonder why the hints are not copied when I copy a whole character. I can't imagine a situation where a character should be copied, but not its hinting information...
I looked for a way to copy also the hints, because the difficult work is already done, I don't wont to do it again. I read more than 100 pages of the manual of FLS, but didn't find any solution. Isn't it possible to save also the hinting when copying a character?

Sorry to bother you, but I'm a real beginner...

[Eigi]

If you open an existing TT Font FontLab keeps the original native TT Hinting, indicated by the blue 'T' in the glyph cells. FontLab can not decompile native TT Hinting and it is lost when you move the glyphs around like copy, past, insert & delete.
If you have handmade editable TT Hinting, indicated by the yellow 'T' in the glyph cells, you can copy/paste the glyphs in the same font without losing the hints.
You can also copy glyphs from one font to another without losing the editable hints if both fonts share the same global hinting settings.

[Grütter]

Thank you for this final answer. I understand that unfortunately native TT hintings can't be decompiled, but is it impossible to only copy them? If not, that would be a suggetion for FLS 5.1...