When you generate a font from a file which has open contours FontLab mark those glyphs with RED color. Try and check those warned glyphs again.

When you get this warning box, make sure that you have “Highlight glyphs..” checked.

Before you export your file from AI, use the “clean-up Path” feature and this will fix a few things like stray points.

ChrisL

thanks for the comments, please keep them coming.

I have tried the ’clean up path’ feature and it says ’clean up note: no clean up was necessary’.

In the Illustrator, even if you have some open countours it fills the shapes automatically. You should check your drawings in wireframe mode to make sure you have all your shapes closed. On a PC, Ctrl+Y is the shortcut for the Outline preview.

this is the ’B’ so far, made up of individual blocks. I tested grouping them all together but this has the same result

How big your Illustrator drawings are? Enlarge your letters say 250mm height and try copy pasting the outlines directly into the FontLab. If that doesnt work, try welding all your blocks with the pathfinder and export it again.

It might be the little dots you can see in each of the rectangles. Illustrator (by default) places individual points at the center of shapes created using the rectangle tool and these can be carried over to FontLab when you import the art. You can eliminate them in Illustrator by selecting everything, opening the Attributes palette and clicking on the “Don’t Show Center” button (middle left part of the palette). If you already got everything in FontLab, you’ll have to manually delete them all.

make sure you dont have such dot on your entire art board.

The illustrator vectors are 150mm approx. i have enlarged one to 250mm. the warning box appears again. Do the blocks need to be outlines or rasterized in any way?

Thanks for the tips. It doesn’t seem to like it when I remove the center dots either.

Blocks should contain vector outlines only.
Can you upload the Illustrator file here? Only the one which has letter B.

i think its just jpg, gif or png. not sure how to upload the AI file

can you mail this to me at snrajpurohit@gmail.com?

sure will mail it shortly

Hi Ross,

I saw the Eps file you sent me, it has those crop marks if you have noticed. When I import this Eps file into FontLab, those marks comes with it as well. You have to delete those crop marks in the FontLab. or else release the crop area in the Illustrator file itself. I have marked them in the red.

Here is your Illustrator file

I hope this will help.

Thanks for the tips. The ’open contour warning’ hasn’t appeared so that must be a good sign. I have removed the crop marks in fontlab. I am not sure how to remove them in Illustrator though.

To test that the ’B’ letter works do I select ’File’, ’Generate font’ or ’Generate All’ to see if it will work as an output Truetype file to write with?

Generate font and save as TrueType/OpenType TT.

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To remove the crop marks in the Illustrator,
Go to Object/Crop Area/Release and delete the bounding box.

The letter ’A’ is the only one which seems to work when I click ’Generate Font’. ’A’ is the only one which appears every time on output in truetype format.

Letter ’B’ appears but only in the preview when I click ’Generate All’.

I don’t even have those funky red arrows on my outlines.

Check out these basic FontLab tutorials.

And if you want to continue with designing typefaces, its worth buying a copy of this book called Learn FontLab Fast by Leslie Cabarga.

Another pair of basic tips, for moving AI files into Fontlab:
Flatten/expand appearance of any object not drawn with the pen tool, and
Save the exported file in the earliest version of Illustrator/EPS file available in the Illustrator version you are using — e.g. Legacy formats.