Ligature love?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by shalym

Since I only read using sans serif fonts, I wouldn't see any ligatures even if the book was formatted to use them. I wonder if this is also true on the Kobo? Of course, on the Kobo, I only read in Kepub format, so I wouldn't see them there, either.

Depends on the font you use. There are quite a few sans serif fonts that come with ligatures and more seem to be added to the list each year. One of the few that I like is Gilmer.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Depends on the font you use. There are quite a few sans serif fonts that come with ligatures and more seem to be added to the list each year. One of the few that I like is Gilmer.

Is it supposed to be that fuzzy?

Shari

[shalym]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Depends on the font you use. There are quite a few sans serif fonts that come with ligatures and more seem to be added to the list each year. One of the few that I like is Gilmer.

Yeah...even if it wasn't fuzzy, I don't like it. It just looks sloppy...like someone was writing too fast and didn't bother dotting the i or the j. I'm sorry to be so contrary, but I really just don't like the looks of it.

Shari

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by shalym

Is it supposed to be that fuzzy?

Viewed at the image's natural size, I don't notice it looking fuzzy. I'm attaching another image just to see if it looks any better to you. Try to remember that it is not a printout, just part of a screen capture so you could see what the ligatures in one sans serif font looked like.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by shalym

Yeah...even if it wasn't fuzzy, I don't like it. It just looks sloppy...like someone was writing too fast and didn't bother dotting the i or the j. I'm sorry to be so contrary, but I really just don't like the looks of it.

No one said you had to like it. And yet, that is what you see in most dead tree books where ligatures and kerning are simply a fact of life.

[pdurrant]

If you view MobileRead from a Mac using Safari and the default fonts, you'll see fi and fl ligatures whenever those letters occur.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Yeah, the 'st' or 'ct' with the swooshes are a bit much.

Really, I only notice the 'fi' 'ff' and 'fl' ones and the only one I really care about is the 'fi' as I mentioned earlier.

Has anyone ever seen a non-standard ligature that's more than 2 characters?

I guess they qualify as ligatures: the only ones that I've seen are in that programming monospace font that Microsoft I think did; turns things like === into an equals sign with 3 strokes, => into a single right arrow glyph, etc. That font doesn't really count for what I'm wondering about since it's doing it with non-alpha characters.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by DNSB

No one said you had to like it. And yet, that is what you see in most dead tree books where ligatures and kerning are simply a fact of life.

Hmmm...maybe not the paper books I read? I just checked one, and looking at the words "find" and "first", there is a distinct dot over the i in both words. The letters are definitely closer together, but I can still see all elements of all of the letters.

Shari

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by shalym

Hmmm...maybe not the paper books I read? I just checked one, and looking at the words "find" and "first", there is a distinct dot over the i in both words. The letters are definitely closer together, but I can still see all elements of all of the letters.

Is it supposed to be that fuzzy?

[shalym]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Is it supposed to be that fuzzy?

Well, since it's a close up of a page in a 39 year old book, then yes, I would expect it to be. Screenshots, on the other hand, are usually much clearer than the first image you posted.

I notice that you didn't address the fact that the book is clearly *not* showing anything like what you (or anyone else) posted in terms of what the "fi" ligature should look.

Shari

[pdurrant]

I'm surprised to find that some books on my shelf don't use ligatures either. Although many do.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by shalym

Well, since it's a close up of a page in a 39 year old book, then yes, I would expect it to be. Screenshots, on the other hand, are usually much clearer than the first image you posted.

I notice that you didn't address the fact that the book is clearly *not* showing anything like what you (or anyone else) posted in terms of what the "fi" ligature should look.

Shari

Shari, the image you posted was hard to look at which is why I quoted your it's fuzzy comment. As near as I can tell, you are right and a ligature is not being used for fi pair. OTOH, the i is moved under the f and it appears that the tittle on the i is colliding with the stroke of the f.

OTOH, do you feel comfortable posting the image of a page and reading books by an author accused by her children and others of child sexual abuse and rape? Who knew of and did not report her husband's sexual abuse of children?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Those two ligatures with the flourishes are not in most fonts. And not in Georgia. Just the ones that start with f such as fi, fl, ff, etc. So you don't have to worry about getting any annoying ligatures with Georgia.

And if you're using Georgia on a Kobo, you don't have to worry about getting any ligatures at all, since as discussed, they aren't included.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

And if you're using Georgia on a Kobo, you don't have to worry about getting any ligatures at all, since as discussed, they aren't included.

I wasn't talking about the Kobo version of Georgia. I was talking the Microsoft version of Georgia that comes with Windows.

[Gardenman]

I have read everything here about ligatures. I still cannot see any use for them.