How To Create Anchors

This is a step by step tutorial by Peter Baker for adding anchor features to glyphs.

The learning curve for advanced typographical features is steep, if you want to understand them. But here is a step-by-step procedure for adding anchors to a font.

1. Open the Element --> Font Info dialog.
2. Highlight "Lookups" in the list on the left.
3. Click the "GPOS" tab, indicating that the lookup you want to add is for positioning glyphs.
4. Click the "Add Lookup" button. The "Lookup" dialog will now appear.
5. In the "Type" list at the top of the dialog, select "Mark to Base Position."
6. In the list below that, under "Feature," select "Mark." You can probably just accept the script/language list that appears on the right.
7. Click "Okay" to close the "Lookup" dialog.
8. Back in the "Font Info" dialog, under "GPOS," there should now be a line that reads something like "'Mark' Mark Positioning lookup 1. Make sure it is highlighted and click the "Add Subtable" button.
9. In the "Please name this subtable" dialog, either accept the offered name or supply a new one. Click "Okay."
10. An "Anchor class" dialog appears. Click "New Anchor Class" and type a name (say "MyAnchor") in the blank that appears.
11. Click "Okay" to close the "Anchor Class" dialog and "Okay" again to close the "Font Info" dialog.

Now open any glyph in an editing window. Let's say "e."

1. Right-click above the "e" glyph, and in the pop-up menu that appears select "Add Anchor."
2. In the "Anchor Point Info" dialog that appears, select the anchor class "MyAnchor."
3. From among the buttons below, make sure "Base glyph" is checked (it probably is already).
4. Close the dialog.

Now open a mark character--say the breve (uni0306) from the Combining Diacritics range.

1. Do what you did for the "e," but make sure that "Mark" is checked instead of "Base glyph."

Now play with your new toy:

1. While still in the editing window for the breve, type Ctrl-K to open the "Kerning Metrics" window.
2. Type the left-arrow key to position the cursor in the text-entry field in front of the breve.
3. Type "e." The breve should appear over the "e" in the big display below.
4. Leave the "Kerning Metrics" window open and return to the editing window for breve. Position the editing window so you can still see the e+breve combination in "Kerning Metrics."
5. Drag the anchor around in the editing window and see what happens in the "Kerning Metrics" window.