http://fortes.disqus.com/enSun, 17 Apr 2005 20:29:20 -0000http://fortes.com/2005/04/fractions/#comment-1207670<p>John: You're correct that the new fonts (except Consolas) do in fact support arbitrary fractions. The font I used in my example (Segoe Script), does not though.</p>FortesSun, 17 Apr 2005 20:29:20 -0000http://fortes.com/2005/04/fractions/#comment-1207673<p>John: You're correct that the new fonts (except Consolas) do in fact support arbitrary fractions. The font I used in my example (Segoe Script), does not though.</p>FortesSun, 17 Apr 2005 20:29:20 -0000http://fortes.com/2005/04/fractions/#comment-1207672<p>Although most fonts only contain pre-built fraction glyphs for ¼½ and ¾, newer OpenType fonts can build arbitrary fractions using contextual substitution and sets of numerator and denominator numerals. It works like this:</p><p>Enter an arbitrary fraction, e.g. 7253735/89362529 and apply the Typography.Fractions property. If a font supports arbitrary fractions, the lookups will<br>a) change all numerals in the string to numerator glyphs,<br>b) change the slash glyph to a fraction bar,<br>c) contextually change the numerator glyph that follows the fraction bar into a denominator glyph,<br>d) contextually change any numerator glyph preceded by a denominator glyph to a denominator glyph.</p><p>Et voila: one arbitrary fraction. Filipe, you can try this with any of the new ClearType collection fonts (Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Constantia, Corbel -- I'm can't remember if the monospaced Consolas font supports this layout feature or not).</p><p>In reference to the preceding comment, I heard a rumour that MS and Adobe had come to an agreement re. CFF PostScript support in Avalon. Perhaps this is something that can now be officially confirmed or denied?</p>John HudsonWed, 13 Apr 2005 22:58:28 -0000http://fortes.com/2005/04/fractions/#comment-1207669<p>Although most fonts only contain pre-built fraction glyphs for ¼½ and ¾, newer OpenType fonts can build arbitrary fractions using contextual substitution and sets of numerator and denominator numerals. It works like this:</p><p>Enter an arbitrary fraction, e.g. 7253735/89362529 and apply the Typography.Fractions property. If a font supports arbitrary fractions, the lookups will<br>a) change all numerals in the string to numerator glyphs,<br>b) change the slash glyph to a fraction bar,<br>c) contextually change the numerator glyph that follows the fraction bar into a denominator glyph,<br>d) contextually change any numerator glyph preceded by a denominator glyph to a denominator glyph.</p><p>Et voila: one arbitrary fraction. Filipe, you can try this with any of the new ClearType collection fonts (Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Constantia, Corbel -- I'm can't remember if the monospaced Consolas font supports this layout feature or not).</p><p>In reference to the preceding comment, I heard a rumour that MS and Adobe had come to an agreement re. CFF PostScript support in Avalon. Perhaps this is something that can now be officially confirmed or denied?</p>John HudsonWed, 13 Apr 2005 22:58:28 -0000http://fortes.com/2005/04/fractions/#comment-1207671<p>Unfortunately, most fonts not commissioned by Microsoft are PostScript based (including most OpenType fonts). And the current docs say you're not supporting these. So eventhough this is a really cool feature, I don't think this is going be very useful unless you're actually going to implement OpenType fully (that is, including CFF/PostScript support). Linotype Zapfino Extra would be an excellent showcase for OpenType features.</p>rubenWed, 13 Apr 2005 17:34:59 -0000http://fortes.com/2005/04/fractions/#comment-1207668<p>Unfortunately, most fonts not commissioned by Microsoft are PostScript based (including most OpenType fonts). And the current docs say you're not supporting these. So eventhough this is a really cool feature, I don't think this is going be very useful unless you're actually going to implement OpenType fully (that is, including CFF/PostScript support). Linotype Zapfino Extra would be an excellent showcase for OpenType features.</p>rubenWed, 13 Apr 2005 17:34:59 -0000