Working with Anchors

An anchor is any control point that is:

·       Rounded to the grid using any of the rounding options available with Visual TrueType.

·       Has no parent control point.

·       May or may not be a parent point itself.

For example, a control point with one or more links going from it, but no link coming to it becomes an anchor point. The point snaps to the nearest pixel boundary in the specified X or Y direction.

By default, each side-bearing point is anchored in both the X and Y direction. You can anchor any other control point that has no parent or child points just by rounding it to the grid. However, anchors usually are by-products of links, interpolations, and shifts.

An anchor appears on the point, either vertical (Y direction) or horizontal (X direction), according to the direction of the hint that created the anchor. Linking or shifting to an anchored control point will clear its anchor in the direction of the link.

When working with anchors, you should choose Show X Direction or Show Y Direction from the Visual TrueType menu so you can see anchors for either or both directions. In addition, you should choose:

·       Anchors to display the anchors.

·       Rounding Methods to display symbols for the rounding methods applied to the points

·       Cvts to display highway signs so you can review and change references to the control value table.

To create Anchors via the keyboard, you must type the appropriate VTT Talk commands into the VTT Talk window (Ctrl + 5).

To anchor a control point that has no parent or child points

1.       Select the Visual TrueType Options submenu of the Display menu, and ensure that either Show X Direction or Show Y Direction is enabled.

2.      On the same Visual TrueType Options submenu, verify that Anchors, Rounding Methods, and Cvts are enabled.

3.      Select the appropriate link, interpolate, or shift tool by clicking its icon in the toolbar or pressing the appropriate function key.

4.     Point to the control point you want to round.

5.      Holding down the right mouse button, and click a rounding method from the menu (for details, see “Rounding Control Points”)