Hello Typedrawers,
I am designing a font family and thinking about adding a OT feature for French only, allowing to substitute in few specific cases the normal space with a thin one, as in French should be.
I’m planning to do it with a ligature-like substitution (sub space guillemetright by space_guillemetright.loclFRA;) inside locl{} language FRA. I could even do it with a contextual kerning, whatever…
It would be particularly useful on the web or software other than Indesign, where it’s a pain to type « thin space ».
My question is not about the technique but if it’s a good idea or not.
I’m discussing with some graphic designers and type designers I know but can’t find a solution. Some of them tell me “NO: you have to leave the work to the typographer”.
However, in real life I see that people don’t know how to type thin spaces or even don’t know they have to + on the web it’s a pain even if you know the rules.
Even for me knowing the rules, it’s a pain to type “thin space” and I’ll appreciate it comes straight with the font.
What do you think about it?
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Comments
And it only takes seconds to change /guillemetright /space to /guillemetright /thinspace with find and replace. So you wouldn’t be doing the user a big favor.
For the thin space, correctors like http://www.antidote.info/ or http://www.prolexis.com/ automate the correction.
I don't see how this is an interoperability issue. Yes, this font is spaced differently. Why is that a problem? We expect spacing to change when we change fonts.
Also, Adobe has been doing different spacing for French for some characters for at least a decade, and while some people have liked it and a few have not liked it, nobody has freaked out about it. It is not that big a deal.
space guillemet
, and it will preserve a rough approximation. If people type the correctthinspace
themselves, the string will be better, and the font won’t touch it. I’m for this sort of fix, as long as it’s clearly delineated, such as in thelocl
feature.Speaking with Georg, he suggested to simply add a negative kern between space and guillemetleft and so on in French only (using
language FRA
into akern
feature). It would be easier than a ligature.And yes, if an user uses the correct space (thin space) no substitution and no kerning happens.