Re: Using Microsoft VOLT for OTF Design
Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:25 pm
This reply refers to Khikkhu and William in reverse order.
Pcursive.ttf font is not a cursive font, William. It is a sanserif geometric typofont therefore not suitable for this exercise.
Regarding Bhikkhu's comment on Contextual Ligatures and Stylistic Alternates, as well as the useful attachment, I have to confess my ignorance on the current typographic definitions. However, let me explain with the following example what I mean then you tell me which classification applies.
This a high quality cursive script I have developed. The first line shows disjunctions between the first letter o and the first following letter r, plus you can see another disjunction between the final letter o and the third r.
The line below shows that by inserting an alternative or substitute glyph of the letter r which has a short stem rather than a long one, then the disjunction goes away. This implies that my font contains two different glyphs for the letter r and two different codepoints.
Now tell me what is the correct definition for this type of operation which in a cursive script becomes dominant. The word cursive must be understood as a calligraphic term, a book-hand script. Normal handwriting is also generally cursive but it is largely free of the ductus rules of calligraphy, i.e. informal.
As a rule of thumb a calligraphic cursive script requires a font set where the minuscule letters are at least two sets: one set is used mostly and the other set is used whenever the previous letter is an "o", a "v" and a "w". As well as the letter "b", actually.
By stylistic alternatives I refer to letters which follow the same shape of the normal letters but in addition present flourishes and tails. Also there are several ways of writing some capital letters. For example capita; "A" can be written in at least three common styles, and each style is a different glyph. Likewise the minuscule letter can e written in four different styles, hence four different glyphs. Tell me how you would categorise these options.
Pcursive.ttf font is not a cursive font, William. It is a sanserif geometric typofont therefore not suitable for this exercise.
Regarding Bhikkhu's comment on Contextual Ligatures and Stylistic Alternates, as well as the useful attachment, I have to confess my ignorance on the current typographic definitions. However, let me explain with the following example what I mean then you tell me which classification applies.
- The Horror Video.JPG (38.14 KiB) Viewed 6355 times
The line below shows that by inserting an alternative or substitute glyph of the letter r which has a short stem rather than a long one, then the disjunction goes away. This implies that my font contains two different glyphs for the letter r and two different codepoints.
Now tell me what is the correct definition for this type of operation which in a cursive script becomes dominant. The word cursive must be understood as a calligraphic term, a book-hand script. Normal handwriting is also generally cursive but it is largely free of the ductus rules of calligraphy, i.e. informal.
As a rule of thumb a calligraphic cursive script requires a font set where the minuscule letters are at least two sets: one set is used mostly and the other set is used whenever the previous letter is an "o", a "v" and a "w". As well as the letter "b", actually.
By stylistic alternatives I refer to letters which follow the same shape of the normal letters but in addition present flourishes and tails. Also there are several ways of writing some capital letters. For example capita; "A" can be written in at least three common styles, and each style is a different glyph. Likewise the minuscule letter can e written in four different styles, hence four different glyphs. Tell me how you would categorise these options.