Sounds like rounding errors to me. FontLab is based on a unit system that matches typefaces used in production. AI is not limited by such standards so it is cast on a much finer unit system. The problem comes in the conversion from AI to FontLab. The number of units get rounded down to 1000 causing minor glitches. This is one of the reasons it is not a good idea to begin with AI and convert to FontLab when designing type. Since you already have fairly finished AI drawings, you may not have much of a choice. Know that you must correct all of your drawings after conversion though! AI also does some funny things with points that need correction in type design use. It is truly better to begin your typeface directly in FontLab for best results and faster work.

ChrisL

Thanks, Chris. In the future, I will try doing it from FontLab from the start, although I find the drawing capabilities far inferior.

“although I find the drawing capabilities far inferior”

You will learn after a while that for type design, the tools are actually far superior. I started using AI in 1987 and love it as well but for type, it is not the best.

ChrisL

As someone who has used both extensively for drawing fonts, FontLab’s tools are not inferior, just different and, in your case, unfamiliar. For drawing glyphs, once I got accustomed to them, I found that FontLab’s tools are better suited to drawing glyphs.

About the only thing I don’t like is the way the scaling tool works. I still prefer the way that works in Illustrator. In FontLab, all the transformation tools work like this: Click to set an anchor/pivot point, drag to the desired scale/rotation angle/skew angle, release the mouse button to finish. In Illustrator it works like this: Click and release to set an anchor/pivot point, click and drag to the desired scale/rotation angle/skew angle, release the mouse button to finish. The difference is subtle, but in the case of scaling, you can be much more precise in Illustrator, all because of that second click, especially when scaling by a small amount. In FontLab, I often have to resort to using the transformation palette because of the imprecision of the scaling tool.

Ash,

If you scale your Illustrator drawing to the proper size you will have a good chance at reducing most of the rounding error.

1 pt in Illustrator corresponds to 1 unit in FontLab, So if you want to make your caps 700 units high in FL, scale them up to 700 pts high in Illustrator.

But I would recommend buying ScanFont from FontLab. It gives you a great deal of control over importing eps outlines into FontLab, and rather than cut and paste into separate cells, ScanFont will do that whole process in the blink of an eye.

The price of ScanFont pays for itself first time you use it.

JamesM