OpenType Support

**jwhitham** · 13 July 2013, 04:42 PM

Comparing what Wordpad or MS Paint are doing to what the Xara render engine is doing is comparing apples to oranges. Those applications are just calling GDI - not Kernel, that plays no part - to render some text for them at a given position. Xara has to fetch the glyph outline and use it as a vector graphic. Try getting Wordpad or Paint to fill text with a bitmap, or 3D extrude it.

WRT ligatures, I can use the ae, oe and fl ones from fonts where they are present, are you guys referring to some kind of custom ligatures?

**gwpriester** · 13 July 2013, 05:00 PM

jw - There are some fonts that have an extensive number of glyphs and some ligatures aside from the more common ones, that do not appear when you try to find them in Character Map. InDesign and Illustrator do offer support for these. My screen capture is from Illustrator CS5.5

I should point out, however, that unless someone is really into decorative typography or heavy duty typesetting, there are prescious few occassions that call for these.

**jwhitham** · 13 July 2013, 05:27 PM

Thanks Gary. That's interesting, I just installed Scriptina and wound up with two fonts. One called Scriptina - Alternates shows as empty in Character Map, but if I type say "th" in Xara and select that font it applies the correct ligature.

**gwpriester** · 13 July 2013, 05:30 PM

I did not know that. Cool.

**jwhitham** · 13 July 2013, 05:40 PM

Sort of. Not being able to see them in Character Map means you have to know what is available in order to use them.

**angelize** · 13 July 2013, 06:55 PM

Open Type fonts can also contain more than just extra ligatures. Some contain extra glyphs with different styles of ascenders and descenders, swashes, small caps and more. Support for this in Designer Pro would be very nice.

**gwpriester** · 13 July 2013, 10:37 PM

So here go Gary, I'm a helpful bod ... go learn about Ligatures yourself and then enlighten others, here's a good start: http://opentype.info/blog/2012/11/20/whats-a-ligature/

You could also point out that I misspelled precious. Thanks for the link. I'm not sure how managed to hold down jobs in advertising as an art director at Y&R LA and SF for 20 years and run my own graphic design business for 10 years without this knowledge.

My point being that if you really want that kind of control, then get Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress. Designer Pro has never claimed to be a substitute for these programs any more than they have implied you will never need to use Photoshop again.

Designer does have very good tracking and kerning controls, and on the occasions when you want to really fine tune your type, they offer a good solution. A ligature or a set of ligatures is fine as long as the other characters are properly kerned.

This discussion is getting tedious. You're not getting a spiff because there is no bug. Live with it.

**humblenations** · 13 July 2013, 06:35 PM

Originally Posted by gwpriester

I should point out, however, that unless someone is really into decorative typography or heavy duty typesetting, there are prescious few occassions that call for these.

Decorative Typography ... as in graphic design with words in it. All typography is decorative. Or should be and there are certain letters placed together don't work ... let me give you an example 'i' proceeded with an 'f'. So it's not all making things look fancy. Sometimes its about balancing words nicely. Open Type supports it. Open type has been around for ages. Most new commercial typefaces come with ligatures to improve the balance. Some even do some fun things. Xara, a graphics applications, which has a text tool does not.

Oh, it's fine you don't need it ... isn't really a good answer for any designer worth their salt. It's really evident by it's omission in the software. It stands out like a sore thumb to me. And by saying 'precious few occasions' shows what you know about the design of typography, Gary. You can sing the praises of Xara all you like but spreading that sort of disinformation and propaganda, because it fulfils your narrative, is dangerous. You should spread good knowledge about design to help other people out. Increase the knowledge not the ignorance.

So here go Gary, I'm a helpful bod ... go learn about Ligatures yourself and then enlighten others, here's a good start: http://opentype.info/blog/2012/11/20/whats-a-ligature/