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 two adjacent on-curve points at the end of a stem, or to the end point of an open path. The donor glyph replaces the terminal between them.
Attaching a Decoration
Select a corner point and choose Glyph > Path Decoration > Add Corner Component, or select the two adjacent on-curve points of a stem terminal and choose Add Cap Component, then 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. Remove Decoration takes it off again.
The donor tells FontCreator how to land on the host through its anchors. A corner donor carries an origin anchor (pinned to the corner point) and left and right anchors for the in-stroke and out-stroke sides. A cap donor carries node1 and node2, one for each stem node; or, in the Glyphs corner style, an origin anchor with optional left and right arms, or no anchors at all, in which case the cap is placed rigidly on the two nodes at its design size. A cap donor may have more than one contour; all of them are placed together.
The Decoration Bar
With a decoration selected the glyph editor shows its controls, and keeps the decoration outlined while it is selected:
•Scale - horizontal and vertical scale of the donor. A negative horizontal scale mirrors a cap, for example to make the two arms of a Y symmetric.
•Alignment - four buttons, as in Glyphs: align the decoration to the out-stroke, to the in-stroke, to the middle, or keep its own orientation.
•Fit - for caps with node1 and node2 anchors: on, the cap scales to the distance between the two nodes, so it spans the full stem at any weight; off, it keeps its design size and is only positioned and rotated onto the nodes. New caps start with Fit off.
•Source - opens the donor glyph in the glyph editor (also Glyph > Path Decoration > Go to Source Glyph).
•Remove - removes the decoration.
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.
