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Simplify glyph shapes
Simplify glyph shapes

Cleaning complex object paths to speed up Fontself

Franz avatar
Written by Franz
Updated over a week ago

Fonts 💔 Too Many Points

Current font technologies are not meant to support massive amount of vector points - like thousands per glyphs - as such fonts can slow computers or crash printers.

Fontself will warn you if a glyph contains over 1000 points, and unless this happens only for a few glyphs, it is recommended to simplify such objects first.

There are a couple approaches to optimize complex shapes: with Illustrator’s own Simplify tool or with third-party plugins.

Optimize/simplify shapes in Illustrator

You can get significant shape optimizations by using Illustrator's Object > Path > Simplify command.

You should also consider cleaning up your shapes with Pathfinder or Object > Flatten Transparency... to minimize the amount of points of your most complex objects.

For example this A shape was reduced from 665 points to just 186:

Optimize/simplify shapes with plugins

Third-party solutions like the powerful Astui and the easy VectorFirstAid from Astute Graphics can lead to fewer points while keeping greater fidelity than Illustrator's Simplify tool. See how they can compare:  

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