1. A visual shape appearing as type. >* 5 # k $ m Q Ligature
If you work during this lesson, you will finish your homework by the end.
Character
Unicode symbol for the smallest unit of a letter or number. The character “M” can be an upper or lower case glyph.
Glyph
A visual shape appearing as type. >* 5 # k $ m Q
Ligature
A single glyph created from the fusion of two or more letterforms, as in script. Letters may belong as separate characters, but be welded together for visual simplicity.
Ligatures solve the problem of letters bumping into each other. They make text flow for faster reading. Shifts in type spacing can appear while you are typing.
Ligatures tend to be needed more often in serif and decorative fonts than sans serif. Sans serif fonts might contain a few ligatures, but you will need to check before using a font. These glyphs are designed as part of the font.
Graphemes
The combinations of characters in the joined glyphs oe, ae are single shapes--one glyph for apparently two letters.

2. Ligatures are fused letter combinations
Ligatures are fused letter combinations. When you type with the ligatures setting on, your letters may come closer to each other and fuse into one glyph.
Not every font offers ligatures. And font names may have different designers with variations on one appearance. When trying to make these functions work, you will need to use a font that comes with fused letter combinations. Some examples:
Bickley Script
Verdana – Matthew Carter’s fuses fi and fl forms.
Gill Sans – Erik Gill’s, with only fi
Caslon – Wyld includes swash
Baskerville
Most ligatures are designed only for lower case letters.
Typical ligatures are f with i, f with l, the Old English S (f) with h and Old English c with t.

3. InDesign can automatically insert ligatures from any font that contains them (most fonts have fi and fl). For PostScript Type 1 and TrueType fonts, go to the Characters docker, find the tiny arrow flyout menu, and select Ligatures.
Choosing OpenType from the same menu will allow you to use ligatures from OpenType fonts. Then select Discretionary Ligatures from the submenu.
Photoshop and Illustrator can only insert ligatures from OpenType fonts. In Photoshop character docker, choose OpenType > Standard Ligatures. In Illustrator, turn on ligature insertion from the Window>Type>OpenType panel (Shift-Option-Command-T [PC: Shift-Alt-Ctrl-T]).
Keep automatic ligature insertion turned on, unless you have a good reason.
Read

4. Ligature Changes with Spacing
When you use tracking or kerning, InDesign will divide the letters and return them to ligatures, as needed. Even when letters are set tightly together in decreased tracking or kerning space, a fixed ligature will not be the right solution, as it gives irregular spacing.
When type is full-justified, spacing has to be stretched or squeezed to fit type into fully filled lines. After a certain amount of spacing, InDesign will treat ligatures parts as independent characters.

6. If the automation does not give sensible results, then correct it manually. This will happen. The legibility is most important, then aesthetics, then consistent glyphs.
Do not work so hard to justify text, that the text is illegible, like newspaper columns with lots of holes and stretched spacing from forced justification.
Squishing letters together will cause dark blobs of ink, tense collisions, and slower reading.
If you don’t trust your judgment, then select both letters, and adjust the tracking until you see the ligature.

7. Inconsistency in ligatures can get too obvious in display type
Inconsistency in ligatures can get too obvious in display type. When using small font sizes, words will need kerning or tracking, or else ligatures might need to be turned off.
A headline leads the viewer onto the page, and into the content. It is the first statement a viewer's eye settles on, and forms the impression for the following text.
Designers use narrow tracking and kerning, but applying ligatures in a title is usually not appropriate. Ligatures are designed to facilitate fast reading of paragraphs, while headings are short bold statements.
There are also letter combinations that conflict with each other. Serif faces will sometimes overlap. The hook of a sans serif f tends to be narrower than in a serif face, so it’s less likely to overlap an ascender to its right.

8. Graphemes combine characters that represent one sound – Æ / æ is not two letters, but one grapheme glyph.
Some of these are proper spelling in specific languages.
Greek diphthong αι alpha iota
Latin diphthong æ æ
Cyrillic, Ossetic, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish use graphemes with specific pronunciations. .

9. Graphemes
American English simplifies these and spells them without the combination, or separates the letters.
Mediæval, dæmon, archaeology. You may still find an author preferring to use the grapheme for effect.
International Keyboards have these characters.
In MS Word, Æ and æ
Ctrl + Shift + & +letter.
Code points æ are $00C6 Æ and $00E6æ
Decimals 0198 and 0230 on the number pad.
Unicode (hex)
Upper case - U+04D4
Lower Case U+04D5

10. OPEN TYPE OpenType provides several advantages:
- Higher kilobyte per glyph limit
- Cross-platform support (Win and Mac)
- Based on Unicode
- Support for both PostScript Type 1 or TrueType outlines
- Support for ligatures, fractions, swashes, and other advanced typographic features
- One font may contain characters for multiple alphabets
(Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Cyrillic; kanji, kana, romaji)
Open Type Menu
Find in drop-down arrow to far right of text options.

11. OPEN TYPE MENU
Open the Glyph Docker
Window >Type and Tables > Glyphs panel for viewing options. Drop-down menu at the small arrow upper right.
Select text. Character panel or Control panel checked OpenType font.
OpenType --Select an OpenType attribute, such as Discretionary Ligatures
Fractions. Options are also found under styles.
Options not available for that particular font will be bracketed [Ordinal].
Each font differs

12. Open Type
Certain fonts are capable of more than one set of appearances.
You will find an Open Type menu in InDesign, where you can access these additional features.
Your homework for this class will involve the Open Type menu. First, find out which fonts you have on your computer, and which are Open Type fonts.
The O stands for Open Type, amd TT for True Type.
Look for one or more of these that have the features you need to show. You will need to test different ones by looking at the checks and brackets.

13. Discretionary Ligatures
Font designers may include optional ligatures that shouldn’t be turned on in every circumstance.
Selecting the discretionary option allows these additional optional ligatures to be used, if they are present.

14. 1/8 is three characters, while ½ is one symbol.
Fractions
Numbers separated by a slash (such as 1/2) are converted to a fraction character, when fractions are available.
1/8 is three characters, while ½ is one symbol.
In word processors, the symbol is only available for a few commonly-used fractions, like ½ and ¼. Open type fraction settings have a greater range, preventing mixed styles on one page.
Ordinal
When ordinals are available, ordinal numbers such as 1st become formatted with superscript letters 1st .
This is the proper way of writing the ordinal, and should be used when possible.
Notice there is a difference between the automated ordinals in Word and those that come designed with the font family.
Proper typesetting also applies to letters, such as the superscript a and o in the Spanish words segunda 2a and segundo 2o.

15. Swash
When available, regular and contextual swashes are provided: these may include alternate caps and end-of-word alternatives.
If swash is in [brackets], the font was not designed with extra swash characters.
Titling Alternatives
Some fonts come with Swash variables. When swash is turned on, upper case letters change to a more formal or dramatic shape and size. Lower case characters may change as well, depending on the font. Below, title case prompted special title glyphs.

16. Stylistic Sets
Similar to swashes, OpenType fonts may include extra glyph sets designed for more dramatic effects.
The menu for stylistic set has more choices than may ever be offered, but most or all of them will be bracketed, showing the font was not designed with more than one or two alternates for glyphs.
Stylistic Sets can be applied to all the text, or selected characters.
If a glyph in a stylistic set combines other OpenType settings, the most specific glyph overrides the character set glyph.
Window > Type and Tables > Glyphs Panel

17. Stylistic Sets

18. Contextual Alternatives
When available, contextual ligatures and connecting alternates are activated. Alternate characters are included in some script typefaces to provide better joining behavior.
For example, the letter pair “bl” in the word “bloom” can be joined so that it looks more like handwriting. This option is selected by default.
All Small Caps
Not every font has small caps built into the font design. We usually set small caps through the character format functions, but small caps designed for Open Type menu setting have better spacing and design, improving their legibility and appearance across a larger area.

19. Slashed Zero
When the difference between the number 0 and the letter O is important, such as in passwords, we use the zero with a slash through it.
Many fonts do not come with slashed zeros, but you can insert symbols or substitute fonts that do contain them.

20. Positional Forms
The position of a character within a word is important in some languages, or in cursive scripts where letters overlap. Select that character, and set its position.
This feature is in Arabic fonts, but not many others. Don't worry if you are not able to show examples in your homework.
Superscript and Subscript
Raised and lowered Open Type glyphs should be sized correctly, when possible.
If these options are not available, look for Numerator and Denominator availability.

21. Numerator & Denominator
If your font choice only converts the basic fractions, such as 1/2 or ¼, then you might have the option to Apply Numerator and Denominator attributes.
Proportional Lining
Capitals and full-height figures keep the same height, but vary the widths are provided. Good for ALL CAPS.

22. Tabular Lining
When working with tables of numbers, having decorative or even irregular character sizes can get in the way. Tabular lining sets characters to uniform widths for full-height figures.

23. Proportional Oldstyle
Old style is used for a classic appearance. These fonts or subsets vary characters in height and width.
Tabular Oldstyle
Varying-height figures with fixed, equal widths built into the font. This option is recommended when you want the classic appearance of old-style figures, but you need them to align in columns.
Default Figure Style
Figure glyphs use the default figure style of the current font.

24. InDesign fonts: What's hidden in a family
Homework
Make a page in InDesign showing examples of each of these Open Type attributes. Grade is based on a complete and accurate sampling.
Go through the menu one by one. Turn in the page of examples as one screen shot jpeg. Make sure you use fonts that come with the features. Brackets indicate that font does not.

25. InDesign fonts: What's hidden in a family
Homework
SCREEN SHOTS
If you are new to screen shots, follow these steps.
1. With your homework open in InDesign, arrange the document and zoom so the whole page can be viewed.
2. Hit the Print Screen key on your keyboard. This puts the image into your system clipboard/scrapbook.
3. Open an imaging program, and paste. In Photoshop, File>New>from Clipboard>paste. You may crop out the desktop edges if you'd like, but keep your toolbars and layers dockers.
4. Then export or Save to Web as a jpeg.