The Insert Contour tool (sometimes called the pen tool) lets you draw Bézier outlines point by point. Activate it from the Glyph menu (Glyph → Insert Contour), from the Insert Contour button on the Drawing toolbar, or from the glyph editor's right-click menu.
Click to add an on-curve point without handles. Click and drag to add an on-curve point with handles; the direction and length of the drag determine the direction and length of the handles. In a cubic contour this works for the first point too: its incoming handle is used when you close the contour.
In a cubic contour, a click after a dragged point makes a curve that leaves that point along its handle. While you move the mouse, the segment to the cursor is shown as it will be created. Hold Ctrl (Cmd on macOS) while dragging to move only the outgoing handle, which makes the point a corner.
For quadratic contours, you can also right-click to add an off-curve point. Whether a new contour is quadratic or cubic follows Preferred outline format on the Exchange page of the Options dialog.
Click and drag an existing point of the in-progress contour to move it to a new position; in a cubic contour a drag on the first point closes the contour instead (see below). A plain click on any point other than the first is ignored, so accidental clicks during a trace won't disturb the contour.
Press Backspace to remove the last point, Enter to finish the contour, and Esc to cancel it.
Constraining the Next Point
Hold Shift while placing the next point to constrain its position to a 45° angle relative to the previous point. This is useful for creating clean horizontal, vertical, or diagonal segments without snapping to the grid.
Closing the Path
Click the first point of the path to close the contour. To close a cubic contour with a curve, drag from the first point instead: the drag shapes the closing segment, an outgoing handle of the first point turns along so the point stays smooth (hold Ctrl, or Cmd on macOS, to leave it as it is), and the contour closes when you release the mouse button.
