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Open the example project from the home page, then click any glyph tile in the left strip. The pencil tool is selected by default — drag to sketch. Press T (or click Trace) to convert your sketch to Bézier outlines.

Yes — best in landscape (≈1180px viewport) where everything fits comfortably. In portrait or on phone-sized screens (<1024px) you'll see a non-dismissible banner noting that some controls won't fit; the editor still loads + most flows work, but the right-sidebar panels overlap the canvas at narrower widths. Apple Pencil is supported on the sketch tool — pressure-sensitive, traces to Bézier the same as mouse + tablet input.

Locally, in your browser's IndexedDB. Nothing leaves your machine unless you choose to export (.font.json file) or share via cloud (one-click upload to Vercel Blob when configured).

Three options. (1) Copy share link — uploads to cloud, recipient opens the URL in any browser. (2) Export as .font.json — sends a file the recipient can drop on their home page. (3) Print specimen — Cmd+P on the share view gives you a designer-grade PDF.

No — it lives until you delete it. The originator (the browser that uploaded the share) can revoke at any time via the "Unshare project" trash button in the editor header; that fires the DELETE API with a constant-time-compared delete token, and both the share and the token are removed from the cloud store. Recipients can still view the share until you revoke it; there's no built-in expiration.

No. The share view is read-only. If they want to edit, they can import the .font.json into their own browser as a fresh project — their edits won't affect yours.

OTF and WOFF2 directly from the share page download buttons. The full Export tab in the editor also offers TTF (with ttfautohint), UFO (for Glyphs/RoboFont/FontLab compatibility), a designer-bundled .zip with a test HTML page, and the portable .font.json.

TTF export runs through Pyodide + fontTools + ttfautohint (autohinting for screen rendering at small sizes). First export loads Pyodide (~7MB, cached); subsequent exports are ~2 seconds. OTF + WOFF2 export entirely in-browser via opentype.js and take ~150ms.

You own everything you draw. The demo project is MIT-licensed under the same terms as the source code. If you build your own font, you decide the license — set it in the project metadata before export.

The audit module is the headline feature — a continuous integrity + teaching check across 94 codes spanning contour shape, vertical metrics, OpenType invariants, brief completeness, multi-script coverage, kerning hygiene, and anchor naming. Every code carries plain-English prose explaining what it means + why it matters, and around 30 codes have a one-click "Fix" button that applies the auto-fix. Errors block release; warnings are advice. Click "All" next to an issue to see every glyph with the same audit code. The same 94-code engine also runs from a terminal via `npx patens audit my.font.json` — drop it into your CI as a font-design lint step.

Composites — letters like Á that combine a base (A) with a mark (acute). The audit module flags composable glyphs you haven't drawn yet; the bulk-compose action in the glyph browser builds them automatically from their parts.

Open /project/demo/edit?fresh=1 — the ?fresh=1 parameter rebuilds the demo from source, ignoring any local edits.

Large projects (200+ glyphs) take a moment to deserialize from IndexedDB. The editor stays responsive after; loads are amortized. If you see consistent lag during editing, open DevTools → Performance and capture a trace; please share via GitHub issue.

Cloud share caps uploads at 5MB JSON (per the API limit). Local IndexedDB has no hard cap but stays performant up to roughly 500 drawn glyphs with kerning + classes + masters.

Yes, after the first load. The app caches the static bundle; once a project is in your IndexedDB, you can edit it without network. Cloud share requires connectivity, but local export (OTF/WOFF2) works fully offline.

Email hi@patens.design with your browser, OS, project, and steps to reproduce. Patens is in private alpha; public issue tracking opens at launch.

Email hi@patens.design — lead with the problem you want to solve before suggesting how.

Read CONTRIBUTING.md in the repo. Areas where help is wanted: more audit codes, curve-fitting refinements, refining the bespoke Cyrillic shapes (Я / Ж / Ф ship as sketches), and the Greek-lowercase roadmap item.

See docs/setup.md in the repo — per-platform instructions for Vercel, Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, and self-host. Each integration gracefully degrades when not configured, so you can enable them independently.