a problem with ligatures

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gguthrie
Got the auto-title mojo working
Posts: 16
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 10:38 pm

a problem with ligatures

Post by gguthrie »

I have a very long manuscript (1100 pages) and several months ago started having a problem that seems to be related to ligatures. I am using a number of technical symbols, and my primary font is Times New Roman. These symbols are at times being replaced with the vertical rectangular box. If I simply edit the style (the Primary Character style), checking and then unchecking ligatures, the document saves and then my correct technical symbols appear again.

Is this related to Times New Roman being Open Type? Is there anything I can do about this. I used GentiumAlt on this manuscript and did not seem to have a problem with it, but I am having the problem now no matter which font I choose and the primary one for the document.

Could someone tell me what is going on and what I can do about it? Thanks for your help.

George
jannuss
Knows everything, can prove it
Posts: 843
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2005 5:35 am
Location: Israel

Re: a problem with ligatures

Post by jannuss »

Times New Roman is a problematic font -- it depends a lot on which version you have -- I generally recommend that people totally avoid using TNR.

Janet
shades
Knows everything, can prove it
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Joined: Fri Oct 21, 2005 12:12 am

Re: a problem with ligatures

Post by shades »

I tend to agree with Janet. I haven’t used TNR in many years.

I recently have been using Libertine. It is free and has been great for publishing. I have converted all our seminary students to use the fonts.

Libertine fonts

Just a thought
Rich
old, slow, and confused...but at least I’m inconsistent!

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jtranter
New to all this
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon May 11, 2009 3:24 am

Re: a problem with ligatures

Post by jtranter »

Libertine looks good to me.

Time New Roman was designed for The Times newspaper in London specifically for legibility and wear resistance on high-speed newsprint presses in the 1930s. It wasn’t designed to be beautiful. And even Stanley Morison, who supervised the design and punchcutting of the face, grew to dislike it. In 1953 he said, spraining his infinitives in his annoyance: “As a new face it should, by the grace of God and the art of man, have been broad and open, generous and ample; instead, by the vice of Mammon and the misery of the machine, it is bigoted and narrow, mean and puritan.”

Go for Libertine. :D I like Adobe Warnock, but that took a while to grow on me.
gguthrie
Got the auto-title mojo working
Posts: 16
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 10:38 pm

Re: a problem with ligatures

Post by gguthrie »

I will take a look at Libertine. I have started using Cardo with success. That seems to stabilize things a bit. Thanks.

George
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