NOTATIO

One thing you ought to do that will probably fix most, if not all, the problems here is to clear out any GSUB lookup tables that reference non-existent glyphs that you (I presume) removed from the font. Honestly, you can probably just remove all the GSUB lookup tables. I don't think you'll need any of them. Most of them are for non-latin languages anyway.

Thanks.
Here is what is the problem: italic is not found, and roman is cut away.
I get this on OS X: And he gets this on Win: After I posted my last reply, I attempted to make another version, it seems working on Win now.

About GSUB lookup tables: I have lost my sfd files, I will try to find on my backups (maybe I don't need it as long as I can open otf). Is there any automation (automatic tool) to remove these?

OCTO wrote:Thanks.
Here is what is the problem: italic is not found, and roman is cut away.
...
After I posted my last reply, I attempted to make another version, it seems working on Win now.
...
About GSUB lookup tables: I have lost my sfd files, I will try to find on my backups (maybe I don't need it as long as I can open otf). Is there any automation (automatic tool) to remove these?

Not that I'm aware of, but it's pretty easy to manually do. I'm happy to do it for you. Is v2.0 the latest version?

N.B. The cut away problem in the roman variant is a windows "feature". The "Windows Descent" value is too small and doesn't go down far enough. I'd extend that further beyond the lower bound of all glyphs in the font. That should fix that. Not sure about what could be causing the missing italic, but I'm happy to investigate since I'm on a Windows box.

Dear tisimst,
I have managed to re-produce Muzitex in Glyphs Mini.
I opened FreeSerif and simply copy/pasted needed symbols in a new document. Than I emboldened it by 15 (something) and rounded the corners.
I saved it as Muzitex2 and separated the italic style. Now it works for my copyist on Windows!

I will post a new version here soon, another testing font is found in my last post (as a zip file).

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

I've taken the liberty to go through the two latest files you posted. There were a handful of glyphs that really needed some help. Sometimes changing the weight with an automatic function can cause problems, so I suspect that happened here (e.g. look at the lower right hook on "u", "n", 'i' in your ITALIC file). The glyph outlines of "Musitex2-regular" seemed to be fine in that regard. I adjusted the Win Descent value to 300 so there shouldn't be any clipping now and I changed the internal and external font names so that Windows will properly associate them as the "Musitex2" family of fonts. The cleaned up files are attached if you want them. Enjoy!

Oh, that is very helpful, tisimst!
Many thanks, I will forward this to my copyist.

Btw, how have you learned all this about fonts, is there any good book on it, or any other resource? Tisimst, Knut?

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

OCTO wrote:Oh, that is very helpful, tisimst!
Many thanks, I will forward this to my copyist.

You are most welcome! I hope it can be helpful.

Btw, how have you learned all this about fonts, is there any good book on it, or any other resource? Tisimst, Knut?

To be quite honest, I've learned most of what I know from being on the front-lines, so to speak. I'm sure there are lots of resources out there, but my main source of knowledge has just come from experience, trial-and-error, diving into well-constructed fonts to find out what others have done, and reading through FontForge documentation and other forums. Realize that this has all come over the course of the past 5 years for me, so nothing quickly learnt, I'm afraid. I'll try to share what I know as we go along, if that's alright.

I have finally managed to create a compatible font for OS X and Windows.
It is (as before) derivate of Free Serif https://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/

I left the regular font intact and added SemiBold version, which is one that has to be used as music text (expressions, technique). It displays good on my printouts.
(I just don't call it Muzitex.)

Free Serif Semibold and Free Serif Semibold Italic.

Enjoy.

EDIT: Another good thing with FreeSerif is that it has extreme many symbols. You can use within Expression categories in Finale without need to combine other fonts. FreeSerif has arrows, notes, accidentals (even qurter-tones), clefs, dynamics, ornaments, custom parenthesises, and of course complete Cyrillic, Greek, etc etc.. Finally one font with everything included!

Thanks, OCTO!

OCTO wrote:I left the regular font intact and added SemiBold version, which is one that has to be used as music text (expressions, technique).

Do you use semibold for all text expressions regardless of staff size. Which one do you use for staff names?
I'm curious whether or not you would consider using a thinner font as long as it was low contrast.

OCTO wrote:Another good thing with FreeSerif is that it has extreme many symbols. You can use within Expression categories in Finale without need to combine other fonts. FreeSerif has arrows, notes, accidentals (even qurter-tones), clefs, dynamics, ornaments, custom parenthesises, and of course complete Cyrillic, Greek, etc etc.. Finally one font with everything included!

It does indeed seem to cover a vast number of Unicode ranges. Besides the standard alphabet, numerals and punctuation, which symbols do you feel are practical in a text font intended for use in music?

I'm asking this, of course, because of my own text font project. I want to put together a font that is as well-equipped for use in music as possible, without needing to spend time on a lot of symbols that no-one will use anyway.

Knut, FreeSerif is meant to replace all textual fonts at once.
For instance, no ONE single font can create latin alphabet and following:
- accidentals, clefs, articulation, styled expressions
- different types of arrows
- extended types of vertical and horizontal braces of any length
- non latin alphabet for lyrics or titles, incuding ligatures
- byzantine notation symbols
- and endless list of other symbols, which can, or no, be useful in music notation.

So basically you have one music font (Maestro for instance) and just one single font for everything else.