UPM exceeds 1000 & accents do not print properly in Word 2003 on a PC (revised)

[rogerxnz]

Hi
I am generating TrueType fonts for PC in version 5 and I see the warning that the sum of the ascent and the descent does not equal the UPM size (which is 1000). The sum is actually 1,199.

In Fontographer, I have replaced the dieresis accents above the vowels with the macron character (a short bar) and put the macron in the same position as the dieresis accents were in respect of each vowel.

On PCs running XP, in Word 2003, the macroned characters print incorrectly. With lower case vowels, the macrons print at the right height but to the left of the vowels and, in the case of caps, the macrons print over the vowels, instead of above them, so they look like strike-through lines although a bit higher than where strike-through lines would usually be.

In Indesign on the PCs, there is no such problem. Likewise with PCs running Windows 7.

On a Mac using word 2004 and 2011, there are no such problems.

What can I do to fix the position of the accents in Word on the PC?

In Fontographer, I have selected "Scale all glyphs according to UPM size change". Should I select the other option "Retain path coordinates when changing UPM size"? If I do that, should I proportionally reduce each of the ascender and descender values so they total 1000?

Should I select a higher UPM value of 2000, instead of the foregoing or as well?

Help, please.
Roger

[rogerxnz]

I have received the following advice from tech support which I share with you:

"The Windows operating system has a feature called "TTF Collision" which is designed to prevent fonts
from colliding when there is negative leading. Experiments with the ascender will sometimes cause the
system to override the metrics in your font and will push or insert leading.

Solution
To increase the leading use the Element > Font Info > General dialog and change the Ascent.
To decrease the leading, you can override the Windows operating system by selecting Element > Font
Info > OS/2 Metrics and inserting a value into the usWINascent field.

In Fontographer increasing the ascent will also scale the font so that the intended result of
gaining more white space between lines does not occur.

Solution
In order to gain the extra line space, without having to scale the characters:
1 Navigate to Element > Font Info > General
Element > Font Info only for Macintosh
2 Uncheck oeRetain path coordinates when changing em square"
3 Uncheck Automatically compute em square from ascent +
descent"

Sounds great and I will give it a go.
Roger

[BlueCatShip]

Roger, did this work, please?

I will be redrawing old FOG 4.1 font designs from scratch. (I can't find backup files on usable media I still have.) These, of course, included accent marks over vowels and so on, as you describe.

My understanding of how fonts are designed was that yes, accent marks on capitals and lowercase may often go above or below the stated em-square.

When I had, back then, looked at other fonts to see how they were produced, the accent marks might add to the total em's 1000 units to reach as much as 1250 or so. So I presume this is the standard practice in font design.

The alternative would be to scale everything down, which then makes stem weights and glyph heights and widths some very odd, inconvenient values, and results in what amounts to built-in leading of about 120% to 125%. This seems undesirable and unintended, and from what I could tell, not usual practice.

Advice would be appreciated. I'm self-taught.

Oh, if only I could find a backup somewhere in a storage medium I can still use. (I think it's all stuck on things that I can no longer access, or else those backups were lost in an old hard drive crash or two, many moons ago.) -- So I'm expecting to have to redraw what I had done back in the 1990's. Sigh. On the other hand, redoing it might be good practice and better for the ultimate design.