A Path Decoration is a small designed sub-shape attached to a specific point on an outline. When the glyph is rendered the decoration replaces the area around that point with the designed shape; the rest of the path is unchanged.
Path Decorations are a design tool. The font formats have no representation for decorations, so they are always decomposed into plain geometry when the font is exported. Inside the glyph editor, in the FontCreator project file, and in the .glyphs format, decorations are kept and applied non-destructively, so the original outline is preserved as you authored it.
The shape of a decoration is defined by a separate donor glyph in the same font; multiple points can reference the same donor, so changing the donor glyph updates every place it is used.
Two kinds of decoration are supported:
•Corner Decorations — attached to a corner point. The donor glyph is inserted around the corner, giving the corner a custom finish (a notch, bevel, chamfer, ornament, etc.) without redrawing it by hand.
•Cap Decorations — attached to the endpoint of an open path. The donor glyph is inserted as the terminal cap.
Attaching a Decoration
Select a point, then attach a corner or cap decoration through the relevant command and pick the donor glyph. The decoration follows the point: if the point moves, is renumbered through editing, or has its on-curve neighbours reorganised, the decoration stays attached because it identifies its target by a stable internal reference rather than by a numeric index.
Decompose Path Decorations
The Decompose Path Decorations command permanently bakes every decoration on the active layer into the authored outline. The decorations are applied, then their references are removed — leaving plain outline geometry.
The font exporter performs the same operation automatically, so this command is needed only when the authored geometry itself should reflect the post-decoration shape — for example to simplify a glyph for handoff to a tool that does not understand decorations.
Available from Glyph → Decompose → Path Decorations in the main menu.
