Ligatures and Kerning Incompatibility

[Nicholas]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

I recently discovered that Word for Mac 2008 cannot cope with ligatures and kerning turned on together.

If using the Times font for example (Times New Roman doesn't support automatic ligatures at all), and I type the words "Tuesday" and "file", then the T and the u in Tuesday will be closer together with kerning turned on, as expected.

However, the moment I turn on ligatures, while the f and the i in "find" join together appropriately, the kerning between the T and u disappears. This is despite the fact that in the Font options it still says that kerning and ligatures and enabled (but clearly the kerning is not working).

Microsoft needs to address this issue.

 

[John McGhie]

If you have a message for Microsoft, use Help>Send Feedback to send it to
Microsoft. They don't read this forum.

That said, Kerning and Ligatures do not work in Office 2008. They were
supposed to be turned off, but the Operating System shipped with them "on by
default" which caught Microsoft by surprise.

It will probably be some time before this issue is fixed. The advanced
typesetting features are "coming" but they're not ready yet.

That said, the new Cambria and Calibri fonts are designed with automatic
ligatures and a kerning table that supports them. So they may give better
results, in applications that support them.

Hope this helps

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

I recently discovered that Word for Mac 2008 cannot cope with ligatures and
kerning turned on together.

If using the Times font for example (Times New Roman doesn't support automatic
ligatures at all), and I type the words "Tuesday" and "file", then the T and
the u in Tuesday will be closer together with kerning turned on, as expected.

However, the moment I turn on ligatures, while the f and the i in "find" join
together appropriately, the kerning between the T and u disappears. This is
despite the fact that in the Font options it still says that kerning and
ligatures and enabled (but clearly the kerning is not working).

Microsoft needs to address this issue.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Nicholas]

You say that kerning and ligatures "do not work in Office 2008". However, if you had actually read my post properly, you would have deduced that they DO indeed work, if you use the correct fonts. Moreover, there is a specific option to turn ligatures and kerning on or off IN Word itself. You go to Format > Font and there is a checkbox which allows you to turn ligatures on and off. A similar checkbox kerning can be accessed under the "Spacing" tab.

By the way, I wasn't posting here for Microsoft's benefit; rather I was hoping that someone may have come up with a way to overcome the issue.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Nicholas:

Oh, I read your post. And I also know that neither kerning nor ligatures
are working properly in Office 2008 currently. It's a confirmed bug.

That's the explanation for the problem you are having, and there is no
work-around, currently.

We're waiting on a fix.

Cheers

You say that kerning and ligatures "do not work in Office 2008". However, if
you had actually read my post properly, you would have deduced that they DO
indeed work, if you use the correct fonts. Moreover, there is a specific
option to turn ligatures and kerning on or off IN Word itself. You go to
Format > Font and there is a checkbox which allows you to turn ligatures on
and off. A similar checkbox kerning can be accessed under the "Spacing" tab.

By the way, I wasn't posting here for Microsoft's benefit; rather I was hoping
that someone may have come up with a way to overcome the issue.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[ShadyNookstah]

Nicholas,

You're quite right that both ligatures and kerning DO work in Word 2008, just not together. Turning on ligatures overrides kerning (even, as your experiments with TNR prove) when the font you're using doesn't support automatic ligature substitution.

See my previous post on this issue to this form, and the official response from a Microsoft test engineer at <http://www.officeformac.com/.ee8a6ca&gt <http://www.officeformac.com/.ee8a6ca&gt>;

Best wishes,

Shady.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

fixed link:
http://www.officeformac.com/ProductForums/Word/891