bugFree UCS Outline Fonts - Bugs: bug #16253, Problems with Latin ligatures

 
 

bug #16253: Problems with Latin ligatures

Submitter:  None
Submitted:  Mon 03 Apr 2006 01:23:39 AM UTC
   
 
Category:  individual character(s) Severity:  3 - Normal
Item Group:  glyph(s) incorrect Status:  Fixed
Privacy:  Public Assigned to:  Stevan_White
Originator Email:  -email is unavailable- Open/Closed:  Closed
Release:  * 2006-01-26
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Thu 14 Feb 2008 08:16:59 PM UTC, comment #4: 

I can confirm that the funny st ligature isn't showing up any more, in FreeMono or anywhere else, since the application of the Debian patches, which include the attached patch.

I'll close this report, since that's mostly what it was about.

However, I don't understand a couple of things about ligatures.

1) What applications use the ligatures?  I tried OpenOffice and Kword.  Nothing.  Also no controls for ligatures that I could see.
Now, I remember that long ago MS Word didn't do ligatures, and this was given as the reason to use proper page layout programs instead, for professional printing.

2) In the TrueType fonts, I don't see how the ligatures are associated with a string, such as 'ffi'.

3) What is the intent of the distinction between discretionary vs mandatory ligatures?

Is it that some scripts are unreadable without ligatures?

Myself, I think the 'ffi' etc ligatures are important to good typesetting, because otherwise letters collide.  On the other hand one almost never sees the conjoined 'st' ligature.  Can that distinction be made in the font as well?

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Fri 14 Jul 2006 06:01:40 PM UTC, comment #3: 

The attached patch fixes all sfd files which currently make the "st" ligature mandatory which is pretty weird.

This patch applies to the current CVS

Christian Perrier <bubulle>
Group Member
Thu 04 May 2006 06:20:05 AM UTC, comment #2: 

I initially fixed Debian bug #358526 by uploading a CVS snapshot as of 20060501. However, the bug submitter finally reported that the "st" ligature problem is fixed in FreeSans but he mentions that it happens also in FreeSerif.

Therefore, he suggest that the ligature is made discretionary also in FreeSerif.

Christian Perrier <bubulle>
Group Member
Fri 07 Apr 2006 10:55:07 AM UTC, comment #1: 

I think it importan to fix the 'st' ligature in FreeMono since pango  >= 1.12 automagically replaces all 'st' occurences with the 'st' ligature and all what it is displayed is the t with a gap before the letter (as reported by the previous comment).

Pablo Rodríguez <ousia>
Mon 03 Apr 2006 01:23:39 AM UTC, original submission:  

A fix was recently put into CVS to make the Alef-Lamed ligature in Hebrew discretionary rather than mandatory. Another fix was recently made to remove the ij and IJ Latin ligatures altogether (shouldn't they have been made discretionary instead? Some people might want to combine them with ZWJ, which I guess is what "discretionary" means).

However, there still remain some problematic mandatory Latin ligatures. "st" for example ligates in FreeSerif and FreeMono (presumably because there's a Unicode codepoint for the ligature, U+FB06) even though the ligature is archaic and not used in modern printing. This is particularly problematic in FreeMono because the st glyph seems to be broken, so only a t with a slight gap on the left appears.

The ligatures ff, fi, fl, ffi, and ffl are also mandatory - this is okay for FreeSerif and FreeSans because it's standard modern typographical practice, but it should not be done in FreeMono too, because it breaks the monospace-ness to have ff and fi taking up only one cell (ffi and ffl don't seem to be in FreeMono yet, or it would be even worse).

There's also a ligature for long s and t in FreeSans; since modern typography doesn't use long s at all I guess there's no harm in leaving it in (but care should be taken not to introduce it in FreeMono later).

Anonymous

 

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Attach Files:
   
   
Comment:
   

Attached Files
file #10354:  010_st_ligature added by bubulle (2KiB - text/x-diff)

 

Depends on the following items: None found

Items that depend on this one: None found

 

Carbon-Copy List
  • -email is unavailable- added by Stevan_White (Updated the item)
  • -email is unavailable- added by bubulle (Add the relevant Debian bug to CC list)
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    Follow 11 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2008-02-14 Stevan_White StatusFix posted Fixed
        Open/ClosedOpen Closed
    2008-02-04 Stevan_White CategoryNone individual character(s)
        Item GroupNone glyph(s) incorrect
    2008-01-31 Stevan_White Assigned topeterlin Stevan_White
        ReleaseNone 2006-01-26
    2006-07-14 bubulle Attached File- Added 010_st_ligature, #10354
    2006-05-01 bubulle Carbon-Copy- Added -email is unavailable-
    2006-04-15 peterlin StatusProceeding Fix posted
    2006-04-15 peterlin StatusNone Proceeding
        Assigned toNone peterlin

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