Ligature love?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by hobnail

What can be weird or interesting is how some font designers will create ligatures that aren't the usual suspects. E.g., a swash thing at the top connecting s and t; I think I saw that in a font by Goudy. I find those rather distracting.

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.

[DNSB]

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.

Who couldn't love a ligature with a swash? Barbarians!

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Who couldn't love a ligature with a swash? Barbarians!

I do appreciate a little flair

The reason I like the 'f' ligatures is because the 'f' intrudes in other letter's space and the ligatures look clean and don't draw attention to themselves.

[Gardenman]

I have read all of these posts and I still do not know what everyone is talking about.

[gmw]

I came here to read about bondage! Huh! The closest we got were f-words.



On topic: I almost never notice a lack of ligatures - far too much time staring at screens without such careful formatting choices. I sometimes notice ligatures.

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by Gardenman

I have read all of these posts and I still do not know what everyone is talking about.

You are not alone. I have never heard about these things. At least not that I can remember. I was not educated in english though, so who knows. Been a while I was in school.

So I needed to see a "fi". Took me longer than it should have to think of a word. I searched the word "fine" on my kindle. I am looking at the word and it looks like the word "fine". So I am still baffled what I am looking at. I have a dot on the "i" and its not part of the "f". Is that the good thing or the bad thing? I don't even know. It looks "fine" to me.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Atunah

I searched the word "fine" on my kindle. I am looking at the word and it looks like the word "fine". So I am still baffled what I am looking at.

On e-ink Kindles ligatures are used in books that have Enhanced Typesetting. Here is an example from my Kindle Oasis with the Bookerly font.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by jhowell

On e-ink Kindles ligatures are used in books that have Enhanced Typesetting. Here is an example from my Kindle Oasis with the Bookerly font.

I think I just figured out why I'm having such a hard time with this. I checked all three of the sans serif fonts on my Kindle in a book with enhanced formatting. *none* of them use ligatures, as far as I can tell--in the words "fine" "fields" and "file" there is a definite dot over the i. When I look at the same book using a serif font, the dot over the i disappears.

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.

Shari

[shalym]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

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

That's just horrifying. I would *definitely* notice that, and change fonts immediately. If I couldn't change fonts, the book would have to be *really* good in order to distract from that abomination.

Shari

[4691mls]

This is the first thing I think of when I see the word ligature (having had friends in school who played wind instruments):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_(instrument)
"A ligature is a device which holds a reed onto the mouthpiece of a single-reed instrument such as a saxophone or clarinet."

I didn't hear about the kind being discussed in this thread until I joined Mobileread.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

This is the first thing I think of when I see the word ligature (having had friends in school who played wind instruments):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_(instrument)
"A ligature is a device which holds a reed onto the mouthpiece of a single-reed instrument such as a saxophone or clarinet."

I didn't hear about the kind being discussed in this thread until I joined Mobileread.

Or one friend of mine who thought of tying people up. 30 years as a police officer has had a effect on his mind and vocabulary.

[ZodWallop]

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.

It's not the book that is formatted to use ligatures (well, maybe it is on the Kindle. They do weird things there). Ligatures is a combination of the layout engine and the font being used.

The font needs to include ligatures and the engine has to be able to display them.

So on Kobo, kepubs have ligatures turned off by default. You can turn on ligatures using a patch.

Even if you enable ligatures, the font you use needs to include them. Georgia on my Nook includes ligatures. Georgia on the Kobo is a smaller subset and it does not include ligatures.

Literata Book and Bookerly both include various ligatures.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by gmw

I came here to read about bondage! Huh! The closest we got were f-words.

That would have been a more interesting thread!

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by jhowell

On e-ink Kindles ligatures are used in books that have Enhanced Typesetting. Here is an example from my Kindle Oasis with the Bookerly font.

Thank you for that example. That looks horrific to me. Now that its pointed out like that. I use bookerly on my Oasis3 and I have an actual dot on my "i" as I would expect. I don't know about enhanced, but I am not sure I remember any missing dots on my "i's". That is just wrong.

I don't want a missing dot, what the heck.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Atunah

Thank you for that example. That looks horrific to me. Now that its pointed out like that. I use bookerly on my Oasis3 and I have an actual dot on my "i" as I would expect. I don't know about enhanced, but I am not sure I remember any missing dots on my "i's". That is just wrong.

I don't want a missing dot, what the heck.

The dot is there, right on the end of the downward curving part of the 'f'. But that's just for that font. Others make the dot separate. It's up to the font creator how it looks.