Copy from Illustrator doesn't preserve white space

[leavesofjoy]

I am working on Mac Lion, with the latest Type Tool. I am trying to create a font of symbols by drawing them in Illustrator, since it is familiar to me, and then copying and pasting into Type Tool. On symbols that have open areas, this is not working.

The first image I'm attaching shows the symbol as I've drawn it in Illustrator. This is how it should look.

The second image is what it looks like when I paste it into TypeTool, with everything black. If I correct the path direction, one of the inner areas will empty, as shown in image #3.

I also tried just drawing the symbol in Type Tool, but when I do that, the horizontal bar across the middle has a white outline where it crosses the triangle, as in #4.

I'd really appreciate some help with this, as this program is really not intuitive, and the manual doesn't cover what I need to know.

-MN

[Dezcom]

Illustrator has an odd way of wrapping direction and dealing with closepaths.  Sometimes it thinks paths are closed when they are not.  The surrounding path direction can then look wrong.  I would trust the paths in Typetool to be correct and be dubious about what Illustrator shows.  Somewhere buried in AI, there is a away to reverse paths but it is not intuitive.  It is highly recommended that you draw directly in either of the font drawing apps and leave Illustrator for the illustrators. 

I assume you have started some work in Illustrator?

Just copy it into FontLab/FOG/Typetool and correct it there and be done with it.  Going back and forth between AI just means many cleanups. Type programs are designed to function under stricter rules of path direction and closure that the type industry needs to run error free on everything.  AI can do whatever it wants as long as you don't try to make sense of it somewhere other than Adobe apps.

[leavesofjoy]

Dezcom,
Thanks for your thoughts- but I still need help. I did copy it into TypeTool and try to correct it, as I outlined above, but it didn't work. I wasn't going back and forth, just the one copy and paste, and it doesn't work with anything I try to correct the paths. And, trying to draw the font directly in TypeTool didn't work, either, that's how I got that last image with the white outline. So, I appreciate your insights into this, but the problem is still there.

-MN

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