12 comments

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  Mike B.

  4 years ago

  Not to be a pain, but are connected F's a good thing for readability in today's type-driven world? On a lower cognition level it seems that recognizing that the single character created by joining two F's represents two seperate characters adds computation time (for our minds). I've always thought that connecting written characters, such as cursive and this example, were _writing_ shortcuts - not _reading_ shortcuts? But then, I am no expert :)
• 

  Mike B.

  4 years ago

  Not to be a pain, but are connected F's a good thing for readability in today's type-driven world? On a lower cognition level it seems that recognizing that the single character created by joining two F's represents two seperate characters adds computation time (for our minds). I've always thought that connecting written characters, such as cursive and this example, were _writing_ shortcuts - not _reading_ shortcuts? But then, I am no expert :)
• 

  Fortes

  4 years ago

  The effect is a bit easier to understand when you consider the f-i ligature. When you try properly type-set and space those adjacent letters, they will collide. Ligatures were created to deal with this problem.
  
  Also: Pretty much any book, newspaper, and magazine use ligatures in their printing, so you grow up reading (and recognizing) those letter and word shapes.
• 

  Fortes

  4 years ago

  The effect is a bit easier to understand when you consider the f-i ligature. When you try properly type-set and space those adjacent letters, they will collide. Ligatures were created to deal with this problem.
  
  Also: Pretty much any book, newspaper, and magazine use ligatures in their printing, so you grow up reading (and recognizing) those letter and word shapes.
• 

  tphinney

  4 years ago

  fil is right. Using Palatino for this example is kind of funny, because it was created so that the tops of the f's are very short, to avoid collisions (in the Linotype hot metal typesetting it was designed for). So it really doesn't matter so much for Palatino. But in many typefaces this is an important/useful feature.
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  tphinney

  4 years ago

  fil is right. Using Palatino for this example is kind of funny, because it was created so that the tops of the f's are very short, to avoid collisions (in the Linotype hot metal typesetting it was designed for). So it really doesn't matter so much for Palatino. But in many typefaces this is an important/useful feature.
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  Fortes

  4 years ago

  Correct TPhinney -- I only used Palatino in this example because it is one of the few fonts currently included with Windows that actually supports ligatures.
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  Fortes

  4 years ago

  Correct TPhinney -- I only used Palatino in this example because it is one of the few fonts currently included with Windows that actually supports ligatures.
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  Kenny

  4 years ago

  What other fonts are supporting ligatures?
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  Kenny

  4 years ago

  What other fonts are supporting ligatures?
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  Fortes

  4 years ago

  Kenny: Of the fonts that currently ship with Windows, only Palatino Linotype supports Ligatures. Most quality OpenType fonts today support ligatures, since they are an important factor in quality text.
• 

  Fortes

  4 years ago

  Kenny: Of the fonts that currently ship with Windows, only Palatino Linotype supports Ligatures. Most quality OpenType fonts today support ligatures, since they are an important factor in quality text.