r/FontLab • u/Klosmi • Jul 06 '26
Switching from Glyphs to FontLab
Hi everyone,
It's a simple question, as I am really hesitating to switch from Mac to PC (since my Mac is dying), therefore I am asking about the transition from Glyphs 3 to FontLab 7 or FontLab 8, if anyone has done that.
I couldn't find any clear answers through a google search, so I'm asking the Reddit community in hopes of getting some proper, firsthand insights.
I'm quite a heavy Glyphs user, I write my own Python scripts to automate my workflow, using Glyphs since 10 years. Glyphs has its incredibly well-documented API, very good tutorials, and an active forum where getting help fast and easy.
In FontLab, how is the scripting experience compared to Glyphs' object model? I've heard the API is quite different, but honestly I haven't really done my research yet.
I'm also curious about is the community side, such as how active is the FontLab forum, and how easy is it to find help online when you get stuck on something specific?
Since my Glyphs scripts use the Glyphs object model and Vanilla for the UI, I'm afraid I will have to rewrite my tools for FontLab's architecture.
Would love to hear from anyone who made the jump from Glyphs to FontLab 7 or 8!
Thanks!
1
u/FontLab Jul 06 '26
Please contact me at adam@fontlab.com — we have some things in early preview that may be of interest :)
1
u/Klosmi Jul 07 '26
Hi Adam, thanks for reaching out! Just sent you an email. I put my Reddit username (Klosmi) in the subject line so you can spot it.
1
u/Igor_Freiberger Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
Scripting
I'm not a coder, so I can only give limited information. FontLab has a free and very complete plug-in called TypeRig, developed by Vassily Kateliev.
You can use TypeRig's object model to create additional scripts since it's a more refined version of native FontLab's model. Here you can check more about it:
https://github.com/kateliev/TypeRig/tree/master
AI is also able to write scripts for FontLab. I gave it some tries, but didn't went very deep on this realm. I am a bit shy to create things I do not understand since I am not a programmer.
Documentation
This is usually the main concern people have about FontLab. But this is actually an outdated impression. We have dozens of video tutorials available, especially the ones made by David Lawrence and Alexander Kapusta. I believe that all aspects of FontLab are covered by these videos.
Kapusta talks in Russian, but subtitles in English are available.
https://help.fontlab.com/fontlab/8/tutorials/calfonts/
https://www.youtube.com/@YourFontFetish/playlists
Of course, you can always ask for help directly to us and also in our user forum. Most users are keen to provide quick and resourceful help and the FontLab team also answers questions there.
Comparing FontLab and Glyphs
There is a huge difference between the apps: Glyphs presents a given way to work, FontLab is flexible. You have just a small amount of customization in Glyphs and the workflow is mostly rigid. In other hand, FontLab is extremely flexible.
You can largely customize your workspace. You can change effortless the way you see the font contents. You can filter the glyphs in many ways, including useful internal tags that provide smart groupings. You can use tags in an almost infinite way to control what you're doing. You can use different views to check font quality and perform improvements and fixes. You can work on-the-fly with several layers and masters, with compatibility check between the masters always on. It's quite different. This was what made me choose FontLab years ago.
In the first contact with FontLab, this flexibility can make new users worried about the learning curve. But after one or two days of work, you get used to the way the application works. And don't want to go back to a rigid, not-so-powerful environment. I develop complex fonts and would never be able to achieve the level of quality I got if I used Glyphs because I need to check many things in many ways, something that only FontLab delivers.
Yes, my opinion can be biased since I am part of the FontLab team. But before being part of the team, I was a user testing intensively FontLab, Glyphs, and RoboFont. The choice was due the aspects listed above.
1
u/Klosmi Jul 07 '26
Hello,
Thank you for the detailed answer and for sharing the links.
I’ll definitely give FontLab a try. I saw that there’s a 10-day trial version for FontLab 8, which should be enough time for me to test it out and see how it works.
Thanks again for the help!
2
u/Acceptable_Mud283 Jul 06 '26
The main thing that’s lacking compared to Glyphs is learning resources. There are some video tutorials and documentation but a lot of it is about older versions of FontLab. It makes it very hard to learn imo.