FontLab VI 6.1.3.7009 Full Version

The ultra bold font editor

FontLab VI is an integrated font editor for macOS and Windows that helps you create fonts from start to finish, from a simple design to a really “ultra bold” complex project, and brings a spark of magic into type design. FontLab VI is available as a 30-day free fully functional trial.

Whether you’re an expert or a beginner, you can create, open, modify, draw, space, kern, hint and export desktop, web, color and variable fonts. Your design process will be faster and more efficient with FontLab’s groundbreaking drawing tools and responsive contour operations.

Next-generation drawing
Creating Bézier curves is no longer “mastery or mystery.”

Brush & Power Brush
Apply the Power Brush to a “skeleton” contour for live, adjustable calligraphic strokes. Control the angle and thickness of the brush, and tweak it even after you’ve drawn. Save Power Brush presets and apply them to other contours across your font.

see video
read about Power Brush
Pencil tool
Our Pencil is a radical new sketching tool. Trim, tweak, modify, smooth, adjust. Nothing gets in the way of creative successive approximation — especially not the usual constraints of wrangling Bézier curves.

see video
read about Pencil

Rapid tool
Our Rapid tool is a Pen on turbo. Click for a line, double-click for a curve, that’s it. FontLab knows which nodes should be extremes, and automatically makes smooth curves with your chosen node positions.

Move the Rapid handles to change the curve segment Tension, or double-click to apply the current font-wide default. Rapid is great for quick drawing of consistent shapes, or for intelligent manual tracing of a scan or background image.

see video
read about Rapid
Pen tool
If you like drawing with an industry-standard Bézier pen, FontLab VI has a great Pen tool for you. We’ve combined the best of Fontographer, FontLab Studio, and some other approaches.

And if you find a traditional Bézier pen hard, you’ll love the rest of our drawing tools.

read about Pen

Seriously better Béziers
We love curves so much that we are making them better.

Control the form, not just points
With our Tunni Lines, you can finally move both handles on a curve in sync, Balance their proportions and tune the curve Tension.

If you like your shapes but not where the nodes are, just Shift+Alt+Slide them to a better position along the curve, or even beyond it, without altering the existing shape.

see video
read about Tunni Lines
Adjust big-time in no time
Some nodes define a stem position, but some are Servants that just follow along when you move others.

With just one move of a node, Ctrl+Alt+Nudge handles or intelligently Power Nudge other nodes. Select and move nodes and handles across contours and multiple glyphs. Link points to Power Guides with Magnet to orchestrate major shape changes quickly and consistently.

see video
read about Power Guides
Curve Tension

Curve tension is a measure of how much a curve deviates from a straight line between two points, from zero to 100%. So for example, Helvetica has more tense curves than Frutiger or Myriad. A smooth outline will have constant tension, or a steady decrease or increase from curve to curve. FontLab VI not only lets you visualize curve tension, but also lets you see it numerically, edit it visually, and even use the Rapid tool to draw curves with tension set to your specifications. So if you want to make a font with more squarish curves like Helvetica or Eurostile, FontLab VI can help you draw it that way from the start.

Draw with consistency & precision
FontLab VI can dynamically Suggest snap locations for nodes, angles and stem distances as you draw, so you’ll get equal distances — even without using our new Guides that snap and measure like no other.

See stem and whitespace thicknesses, handle lengths and angles automatically measured as you draw. Scale, rotate and slant losslessly thanks to FontLab’s fractional drawing precision and live integer rounding, apply the rounding to bake in the integers.

see video
read about Guides
Smooth the bumpy curves
Harmonize your curves to make them really fluid, or “G2 curvature continuous” in math-speak. Make your node a Genius, which stays fluid even if you move the handles — view the Curvature to prove it.

Curves even stay smooth and true to their form when you Simplify a contour or remove some nodes with Eraser. No software does it better, say the mathematicians.

see video
read about Genius nodes

Smart cornering
Our corner nodes can be clever, too. Create and adjust live rounded corners and ink traps with Smart Corners.

Use Scissors on intersections, and we will recreate overlapping contours, so you can move them independently.

see video
read about Smart Corners
Catch glitches
Easily spot odd points and suspicious curves with the revamped FontAudit, our live outline custodian. Its intuitive problem highlighting (a nod to Tal Leming’s Glyph Nanny) and improved fixing algorithms will help you turn your outlines into pro outlines.

see video
read about FontAudit

Fill tool: live pathfinding
Draw open or closed lines and contours. In the areas created by their intersections, use the Fill tool and click to fill and Alt+click to unfill. We’ll do the pathfinding — manually setting path direction is so 1980s.