FontLab 7: a year in updates

FontLab 7 launched in December 2019 with over 250 new features. Twelve months later, it has rather more than that. Here is what the 2020 update cycle actually delivered — not counting FontLab 7.2, which has its own post.

The journey from 7.0 to 7.2 ran through six named releases (7.0.1, 7.1, 7.1.1, 7.1.2, 7.1.3, 7.1.4), all free for existing users. The highlights, grouped by theme:

Drawing and editing

  • Ink traps and looped corners — the Scissors tool gained the ability to add simple ink traps in one click; a new looped corner component type lets you design decorative corner terminals as reusable Smart Corners.
  • Harmonize Handles — a new node type that produces G3-continuous (ultra-smooth) curves, useful wherever two curve segments must blend without a visible inflection.
  • Knife improvements — duplicate a node by clicking with the Knife, or view the cut angle before committing.
  • High-precision dragging — hold Cmd/Ctrl to nudge nodes and handles in tiny increments without zooming in; applies to non-node segment editing as well.

Metrics and measurement

  • Quick measurement — the live stem-thickness tool (showing distance between opposing paths as a rainbow gradient) became smarter: it picks the closest distance automatically as you move the pointer, and respects italic angle with Shift+Ctrl.
  • Diagonal handle length display — see the length of any handle or line segment as you draw or adjust it.
  • Link sidebearing to opposite — one click to make left and right sidebearings mirror each other, updating live.

Variation and masters

  • Add variation easily — 7.1.4 introduced a workflow for adding a master or axis to an existing single-master font without restructuring the file by hand.
  • Multi-master preview — the Preview panel can display several masters simultaneously as overlaid wireframes, making interpolation problems visible without switching masters.
  • 30× faster interpolation (arriving in 7.2.0 beta builds during late 2020) — large variable font projects that previously took seconds to preview became near-instant.

Files and interoperability

  • Glyphs.app interchange — improved .glyphs import and a new dedicated export path, making it easier to move work between FontLab and Glyphs.
  • UFO and VFM — expanded metrics and kerning import from VFM, plus fixes to UFO export for folders with unusual characters in their paths.
  • Microsoft VOLT — 7.1.4 added export of OpenType features directly to VOLT format for complex-script font engineering.

All of these shipped as free updates. If you have FontLab 7 and have not updated recently, grab the latest build from the FontLab product page. Full documentation starts at the FontLab Help Center.

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