Ligatures not working?

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Dan Kreider
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Ligatures not working?

Post by Dan Kreider »

I'm testing this new font, MusAnalysis, on a number of music notation programs. Only one major program, Finale, is not recognizing ligatures in this font, and only on Windows (it works correctly on Mac).

However, this other font I created, MusGlyphs, does display correctly in Finale for Windows - ligatures work as expected.

I see there are some differences between the two fonts, obviously, but I don't know which differences are pertinent to this mystery. I know you don't know how Finale is interpreting the font, of course, but could you suggest what I might need to change here? Thanks!
Dan Kreider
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Erwin Denissen
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Re: Ligatures not working?

Post by Erwin Denissen »

Do see if you have more success if you export through FC14.
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Re: Ligatures not working?

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Remember to save your project as a new file from FontCreator 14. They won't open in FontCreator 13.

I create a new folder for each new FontCreator version.
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
Dan Kreider
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Re: Ligatures not working?

Post by Dan Kreider »

Unfortunately exporting from FC14 did not fix the problem.
Dan Kreider
Music engraving and hymnal publishing
dankreider.com
hymnworks.com
Dan Kreider
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Re: Ligatures not working?

Post by Dan Kreider »

Sorry to ask again, but can you give any suggestion about what might be the difference between the two fonts? I'm unable to figure it out why it does not work on Windows. I'm a bit desperate, since we have rolled it out already. Thanks.
Dan Kreider
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dankreider.com
hymnworks.com
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Re: Ligatures not working?

Post by Erwin Denissen »

Do remove language ARI from the Latin script and see if that helps.

Otherwise you will have to try to remove other features or lookups to maybe discover the conflict.
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Dan Kreider
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Re: Ligatures not working?

Post by Dan Kreider »

Thanks, I tried removing ARI (not sure how it got there), but it didn't solve it. I'm still stuck.
Dan Kreider
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hymnworks.com
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Re: Ligatures not working?

Post by Erwin Denissen »

There is nothing wrong with the font, so better ask the people at Finale why their software fails to display it correctly.
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Re: Ligatures not working?

Post by Dan Kreider »

Thanks, I have a support request in to them.
Dan Kreider
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Re: Ligatures not working?

Post by Erwin Denissen »

Perfect. Keep us posted here!
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Dan Kreider
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Re: Ligatures not working?

Post by Dan Kreider »

Finale support has no idea what the problem could be. I have tried a couple things:

- Deleted all contextual alternates, no success
- Deleted half of the font glyphs to reduce the size, no success
- Exported as true type, no success
- Deleted all of the glyphs that were extremely large, no success
- Deleted all glyphs except for the ligature, success

I am very willing to try deleting individual features by brute force, but do you have any suggestions about ones that might be a particular problem?
Dan Kreider
Music engraving and hymnal publishing
dankreider.com
hymnworks.com
Dan Kreider
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Re: Ligatures not working?

Post by Dan Kreider »

Hi everybody, I’m very sorry for the bump, but several days of testing with some colleagues have gotten us nowhere. Can anyone suggest where we might look in the font to start identifying an issue?

To clarify, I know there’s nothing wrong with the font itself, but rather with how Finale is reading it in Windows. But other fonts with GSUB work fine...

Thanks in advance.
Dan Kreider
Music engraving and hymnal publishing
dankreider.com
hymnworks.com
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Re: Ligatures not working?

Post by Erwin Denissen »

The only thing I can do is to repeat this:

Please use FC14 to export the font. That way you know for sure it is not related to bugs in FC13. Hope this helps.
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Dan Kreider
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Re: Ligatures not working?

Post by Dan Kreider »

I tried exporting the font using the most recent beta of FC14, but it still didn't work in Finale.

UPDATE: after hours of testing, I have discovered that deleting the capital M glyph makes it work. Sort of. Most of the ligatures now appear. Kerning and contextual alternates seem to work. But strange things break it. The dollar sign and the equals sign both make it go haywire, converting it to some sort of large sans.

And every ligature advances the cursor too far to the right, adding extra space.

Any ideas on where I should look next? I'm glad to make progress, but I'm still totally baffled as to why this is happening. Thanks.
Dan Kreider
Music engraving and hymnal publishing
dankreider.com
hymnworks.com
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Re: Ligatures not working?

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Can you share the latest project file for FontCreator 13?

There are no contextual ligatures in the MusGlyphs.otf linked to in the first post.
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
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