White shapes & black shapes
Pay close attention to shapes being formed by both the outside and interior outlines—consider how the letter contours are carving out spaces. Focus on one at time: the interior curve, then the exterior curve, and vice versa.
Proof and print at size
Know your intended point size. Don’t be shy with serifs. Small details can get lost—make sure your design decisions feel intentional.
Expand your Edit View
The default width of the edit view isn’t wide enough for seeing glyphs well in paragraphs. Adjust Glyphs settings / preferences > Appearance > Text View Width to at least 24000.
Nail down your controls
Refine your “phones RHODES” and their spacing first, then proceed to other letters. Use Word-o-mat to evaluate the texture even with these select control characters.
Setup sample strings
Under Glyphs > Settings > Sample Strings, setup these spacing strings. You can then access them anytime through Edit > Select Sample Text (⌥ + ⌘F)
View the spacing sample text.
Draw letters in context
Evaluate them in spacing strings or a paragraph (either through Sample Text or a shortcut for a script) — i.e. with Word-o-mat.
Testing fonts
Don’t install fonts onto your computer—use the Adobe Fonts folder, and make sure it’s at the root level instead of the user level.
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/
Consult Glyphs Sites
The Glyphs Tutorials and Forum has a wealth of information, and searching it is often helpful. The creators are very engaged with responding to inquiries.
Here’s a set of tutorials to Getting Started.
Keyboard shortcuts
| Description | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Send to background | ⌘A (select all) + ⌘J |
| Toggle between background and foregraound | ⌘B |
| Swap background and foregraound | ⌃ + ⌘J |
| Move by 10 units | ⇧ + arrow keys |
| Adjust sidebearings, left side (by ten units) | ⌃ + arrow keys ( + ⇧ ) |
| Adjust sidebearings, right side (by ten units) | ⌘ + arrow keys ( + ⇧ ) |
| Kern (by ten units) | ⌥ + ⌘ + arrow keys ( + ⇧ ) |
| Align selection | ⇧ + ⌘A |
| Add Extremes points* | ⌘ + click on path |
Toggle measurement line | ⌃ + ⌥ + ⌘ + drag |
| Correct Path direction (in all masters) | ⇧ + ⌘R ( + ⌥ ) |
| Move only selected on-curve point (by ten units) | ⌥ ( + ⇧ )+ arrow keys |
| Move selected off-curve point symmetrically (by ten units) | ⌃ + ⌥ ( + ⇧ ) + arrow keys |
*Extreme points are on-curve nodes that lie at 90°. They help structure the curves cleanly. By default, Glyphs doesn’t support adding extremes only to a selected segment via keyboard, but you can do this via a script.
Generally speaking, keeping the shift pressed adjusts arrow-key increments to 10 units; shift + command adjusts them to 100 units.
The selected letter is the glyph on the right side of the cursor. You can adjust both the left and right side bearings of the glyph in this way, using those different keyboard shortcuts above.
⚠️ You may need to disable native Mac keyboard shortcuts for some Glyphs shortcuts to work.
Plugins
Installable through the Plugin manager. Most will add an item under View > Show xxx, but some (such as Word-o-mat) will be accessible through a different menu.
⚠️ Before installing any plugins, make sure you first install all Modules available from the Plugin Manager, and restart Glyphs.
- Angled Handles
- All Angles
- Backdrop
- Component Order
- Kerning Values
- Master Compatibility
- Proofing Tool
- Smart Plumblines
- Smooth Node Angle and Proportion
- Stem Thickness
- Tops and Bottoms
- Variable Font Preview 3
Reporter plugins
The Reporter plugin will help you manage your installed plugins in your right sidebar. This allows you to easily toggle on/off certain informational layers.
Word-o-mat!
Once installed, select the glyphs you want to test (if not running it on all characters,) and activate it through Edit > word-o-mat. If you run into trouble with the installation, check out this post on the forum.
Proofing Tool
A custom plugin developed by Occupant Fonts to support a quick proofing process directly from within Glyphs. Follow the Readme for instructions on how to use it.
Scripts
Installable via the Plugin Manager
( Script > Open Scripts Folder in the menu)
