Working with special OpenType glyphs

An extension of TrueType, OpenType can also accommodate PostScript data, allowing fonts created in both formats to be converted. It also adds new features, notably vastly expanded character tables, allowing variants such as oldstyle numerals, small caps and even complete foreign alphabets to be included in a single font file, and automatic alternates, so a different letter shape or ‘glyph’ will be selected for a character depending on which characters come before and after it.

Adobe, one of the creators of the OpenType format (now an open standard in the form of OFF), converted its entire type library from Type 1 as early as 2002, and the fonts bundled with the Creative Suite are supplied as OpenType – so these files, with their .otf extension, are familiar to Mac users. However, the fonts themselves vary from straight conversions of Type 1 faces to extravagant new cuts with hundreds of special characters.

Here we’ll take a look at how to access the extra features of OpenType fonts in InDesign (similar functions are available in QuarkXPress 8, controlled mainly from the Character Attributes dialog). Older software can also use these fonts, but without the clever glyph replacements.

Read the full article in MacUser Vol 26 No 9, on sale now.

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