disappearing character pair in InDesign

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elak
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disappearing character pair in InDesign

Post by elak »

I am having a really weird problem with my latest font. Adobe InDesign refuses to display a specific pair of letters. They simply disappear. The letters in question are not kerned, which was my first guess. I've added kerning and messed about a bit with the glyphs, but nothing interesting happened. Neither Word, Photoshop nor Illustrator has the same problem.

Has anyone else experienced this?
Dick Pape
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No I haven't

Post by Dick Pape »

Luckily for us you have found something specific to Adobe InDesign and not to High-Logic or Microsoft. You might go to the Adobe web site user forums and ask the same question. Since the letters work correctly in Photoshop they should work correctly in Indesign I would think.
Erwin Denissen
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Post by Erwin Denissen »

And the letters are...
Erwin Denissen
High-Logic
Proven Font Technology
William
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Post by William »

Are the letters by any chance f and i or f and lowercase l?

If so, it could possibly be the same problem as was discussed in this thread?

viewtopic.php?t=1266

William Overington
aslyn3
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Post by aslyn3 »

I had the same exact problem in InDesign. This is how I fixed it.

Open your document. Click on the text tool and in the tool bar at the top of the screen, click on the little arrow in a circle all the way on the right. When you click, it opens a drop down box. One of the items listed there is "Ligatures" and it will have a check mark next to it. Simply click to remove the check mark and that should fix it!

This worked for me, I hope it fixs your problem! :D
Bhikkhu Pesala
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Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Aslm3, you have hit the nail on the head. The font used by elak obviously doesn't contain any ligatures: fffiflffiffl

You can easily add the ligatures to any font in FontCreator Professional edition using the Insert Characters and Complete Composites features.

First, insert characters, and enter these numbers into the dialogue box:

64256-64260

That will insert the mapping for the ligatures. Select them and use Complete Composites. That will compose the glyphs assuming that you have f, l, and dotless ı in you font. Then you will need to add the correct advance width and spacing, and in some fonts you should decompose the composites and combine the contours to create proper Alphabetic Presentation forms.

(Having said this made me realise that it would be better to compose ligature fi from f+i, as some fonts may not contain dotless ı. Also, ligatures in some fonts should retain the dot over the i. I have made the change to CompositeData.xml already, and will upload an update later.)

If you're using the Home Edition, you will need to manually insert the glyphs and add the mappings, then copy f+i, etc., in the overview and paste them into the appropriate Glyph Edit Window. (fi and fl ligatures with mappings will already exist if you created a new font in FontCreator).
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bewildered wanderer
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ASLYN!!!

Post by bewildered wanderer »

Thank you so much... 2 hours of wasted time trying to figure that out on my own.
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