I'm using the Hoefler Text
font in xelatex
with long s:
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont[Contextuals=Inner]{Hoefler Text}
But I want to use the ct
ligature (it's from the Rare
set):
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont[Contextuals=Inner, Ligatures={Rare}]{Hoefler Text}
Oh no! fontspec
has also replaced all of Hoefler's longst ligatures with st ligatures when loading ct ligatures from the Rare
ligature set.
Is there a way to enable the (Rare
) ct ligature from Hoefler Text
without also enabling the (Rare
) st ligature? I tried to use the selnolig
package to selective disable the st ligature (\nolig{st}{s|t}
) but that also stops the longst ligature from being used. I'm trying to produce text how people of the early 19th century were able to:
-
Example #1: Encyclopædia Britannia (5th edition), 1817.
-
Example #2: The Minion Pro font correctly uses the longst and ct ligatures.
Note: People of the early 19th century didn't buy Minion Pro for US $199 (which is like us paying US $4.1 million), so I'd also rather not =)
Best Answer
@tohecz: Thomas's Q is closely related to the questions I referred to, but it seems he's suffering from a problem that's not addressed in these.
If I understand correctly, you're expecting
selnolig
to differentiate between ans
andſ
. You're not providing an MWE, but I'm assuming that in your caseselnolig
just can't differentiate between the two because you don't -- I guess your text only hass
ands
, so there's nothingselnolig
could do for you.Educated guess: entering your
s
s correctly is going to produce decent results.selnolig
disabled. Minion Pro, all availableſ_
ligatures as well asc_t
and (inappropriate?)s_t
are present.selnolig
enabled. As above, onlys_t
is gone.code:
How about the
ſ_t
? -- I don't have Hoefler Text, and Minion Pro doesn't have anſ_t
(technically, it does, it's just indistinguishable from unligatedſ
t
). But, for example, EB Garamond does, and it's not affected by\nolig{st}{s|t}
(q.e.d.).PS: if you're planning to reproduce early 19th century style, Hoefler Text (as well as Minion) will be a bad choice. It's off by at least two centuries, as is obvious from the two Encyclopædia Britannia pages (from the second one even more drastically so than the first). Have a look at a Hoefler's Didot instead, maybe Old Standard or -- inexpensive and most appropriate -- Miller from Font Bureau.
update
Looking at your own answer and your insisting on the idea that a mere
Contextuals=Inner
is going to suffice to produce correct results -- what needs to be stressed is that correctſ
usage is not as simple as »replace all non-finals
byſ
«. I suggest you have a look at how theſ
was handled in the period/the culture whose style you're trying to reproduce. In what contexts was it used? When was as
used instead? Think compound-word word boundaries. Whatſ_
ligatures were available? Think, among others,ſ_s
. In what contexts were whichſ_
ligatures appropriate/inappropriate? Again, think compound-word word boundaries. What was considered a compound word in the first place? etc.Further reading: http://babelstone.blogspot.ca/2006/06/rules-for-long-s.html