Re: Ligatures (was: FAQ entry)

From: John Hudson (tiro@tiro.com)
Date: Mon Mar 10 2003 - 12:45:26 EST

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    At 05:51 AM 3/10/2003, Pim Blokland wrote:

    >Of course. Similar problems exist in other languages: German has fä,
    >fö, fü; Dutch has fà, fè, fì, fò etc. Time to update those ligature
    >tables!

    It is not normal, in text typography, to ligate the f to accent marks (I
    have seen the f ligated to the left dot of diaeresis in some custom display
    typography, but even then it looked more confusing than elegant). Collision
    of any letter with an accent mark on a preceding or following letter is
    simply a mistake, and should be corrected by letterspacing (positive
    kerning). To ensure clarity and hence ease of reading, accent marks should
    be clearly obvious and not too close to and certainly not touching any
    parts of adjacent letters.

    John Hudson

    Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com
    Vancouver, BC tiro@tiro.com

    It is necessary that by all means and cunning,
    the cursed owners of books should be persuaded
    to make them available to us, either by argument
    or by force. - Michael Apostolis, 1467



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