The Contextual Alternates and Ligature feature stop working in InDesign when tracking is increased beyond +20.
This is a problem for pseudo-random typefaces in which the effect should work whatever the letterspacing.
Is there another on-by-default OpenType feature I can put this effect in?
It seems strange to publish versions with different built-in letterspacing, but that’s what I intend to do.
I think that’s a better solution than putting the options in Stylistic Sets, as those are so annoying to locate in GUIs.
Opinions?
And would “Loose” and “Extra Loose” be good names or just “…+50” or whatever the amount is?
1
Comments
One would think that software would respect the “required” aspect of these specific tags and leave them on regardless of tracking.
I haven’t actually checked to see if Adobe does this [yet]. If so, I would expect it may require the World-Ready Composer (as I believe these feature tags were added primarily with non-Latin in mind).
You could run some tests for yourself.
That’s a priceless piece of information.
I should have thought to check the chart at Typoptheque.
https://www.typotheque.com/fonts/opentype_feature_support
{rlig} isn’t affected by tracking changes in InDesign, at least as far back as v7.5
However, it still fails when baseline shift is applied to part of a line (although not the whole line), and when point size is changed for less than a line.
Now I have to go back and update all my old [calt} fonts. Grrrrrrr.
Looks like Photoshop and Illustrator don’t support {rlig}, which is unfortunate.
The good news is that in the major Adobe apps (CS, haven’t checked CC), tracking can be adjusted without breaking the effect. However, in Photoshop and Illustrator, changing Baseline Shift or Point Size of one character in a line (but not the whole line) turns off or disrupts the effect.
There are several lookups in the code.
Feel free to send me the font file, and I'll run it through FontCreator so you can test it without duplicating the lookup.
More importantly, however, I wonder if there would be any compounding issues when both features are simultaneously activated. Perhaps it won’t matter if final changes in the earlier feature don’t result in any targets when the series of subs is repeated. Or maybe the result will just be “extra” randomness. ;-)
Did {rclt} not give nonbreaking results? Or is it not supported widely enough? I would think it would be parallel with {rlig}. I don’t know if the fact that it is not listed in that Typotheque list is indicative of anything (that list seems slightly out of date anyway).
Kent, I tried {rclt} in InDesign CS and it didn’t work.
As for tow identical features with different tags, that would only be an issue in InDesign, as Illustrator and Photoshop don’t support {rlig}, and InDesign seems to work fine with both {rlig} and {calt} in the font—toggling {calt} on/off makes no difference.