Dutch Type Library

In the IKARUS-based file system, whose origins date back almost 50 years and which is used in the DTL font tools, glyph data is stored by number. A number is linked via an external character layout (.cha) file to a character (PostScript) name, Unicode code point, and font encoding, among a few other things. The order of the glyph data is essentially independent of the way the data is displayed, although the ‘default’ order can, of course, be the display order. The display of glyphs need not be limited to a single window. We use two glyph windows per font in DTL FoundryMaster, from and into which glyphs can be opened directly for editing, copied, and pasted.

Copying within glyph databases can be done by selecting source and target slots only, but also by glyph number. In the latter case, characters can simply be pasted into a database (without selecting anything) and the glyphs will overwrite existing slots by their number or otherwise be added to the database. It makes sense to organize the glyph data properly, i.e., to use an internal logic that, for example, is easy to remember. However, since the form of organization is in the hands of the user, the order of the glyphs can have any logic of its own. It must be said that creating an associated character layout file is somewhat time consuming and, above all, has to be done without any errors.

However, even the names of the characters and the Unicode code points are not fixed and can easily be overwritten in generated fonts during the post-production process in DTL OTMaster –to the extent that that makes sense, of course.