3 ms·

I would love to find a list of which google fonts include ligatures

by plg 10y ago

CharlesW 10y ago
Unfortunately that's a pretty big matrix of possibilities, since different fonts have different support for ligatures, and the ligatures that will actually be seen are dependent on a combination of the page designer's intent and browser capabilities.[1] (And apologies if I've completely misunderstood the intent of your question!) [1] https://drafts.csswg.org/css-fonts-3/#font-variant-ligatures-prop https://drafts.csswg.org/css-fonts-3/#font-variant-ligatures...
ternaryoperator 10y ago
Be careful with ligatures in Web pages. They have downsides, which might not initially be apparent. Ligatures are their own font characters. That is, an s-t font ligature is not recognized as an s and a t except visually. So, some things break: 1) search of text. "step" become a font-dependent codepoint followed by "tep" 2) accessibility for handicapped users. Readers generally cannot correctly translate ligatures. 3) browsers do not guarantee to handle your ligature correctly, especially older versions of browsers. So, for the small increment in esthetics, you're creating a small pile of annoyances for readers and affecting the ability to find docs on your site via search engines. For these reasons, you don't frequently find ligatures in Web pages.
- glitch 10y ago
  The trick is to use a font that has ligatures, but not to use the ligature characters directly. Let the presentation choose the glyphs to display, and let the encoded characters remain separate as they should. CSS handles this with "font-variant-ligatures" (works in some browsers). I just did a test in Chrome on OS X; toggling between "font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures" and "font-variant-ligatures: none" changed the presentation, but it did not negatively impact the accessibility, searchability, etc. as the ligature characters would. Automatic glyph substitution in presentation yay; encoded character substitution nay.
Tempest1981 10y ago
Does Google fonts convert to ligatures on the fly? I was noticing missing dots on my i's with the Lato font. Drove me crazy. What is the advantage? http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/201604/latos_unfortunate_ligatures.html http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/201604/latos_unfortunate_ligat...

I would love to find a list of which google fonts include ligatures

by plg 10y ago

I would love to find a list of which google fonts include ligatures

Unfortunately that's a pretty big matrix of possibilities, since different fonts have different support for ligatures, and the ligatures that will actually be seen are dependent on a combination of the page designer's intent and browser capabilities.[1] (And apologies if I've completely misunderstood the intent of your question!) [1] https://drafts.csswg.org/css-fonts-3/#font-variant-ligatures-prop https://drafts.csswg.org/css-fonts-3/#font-variant-ligatures...

ternaryoperator 10y ago

Be careful with ligatures in Web pages. They have downsides, which might not initially be apparent. Ligatures are their own font characters. That is, an s-t font ligature is not recognized as an s and a t except visually. So, some things break: 1) search of text. "step" become a font-dependent codepoint followed by "tep" 2) accessibility for handicapped users. Readers generally cannot correctly translate ligatures. 3) browsers do not guarantee to handle your ligature correctly, especially older versions of browsers. So, for the small increment in esthetics, you're creating a small pile of annoyances for readers and affecting the ability to find docs on your site via search engines. For these reasons, you don't frequently find ligatures in Web pages.

glitch 10y ago
The trick is to use a font that has ligatures, but not to use the ligature characters directly. Let the presentation choose the glyphs to display, and let the encoded characters remain separate as they should. CSS handles this with "font-variant-ligatures" (works in some browsers). I just did a test in Chrome on OS X; toggling between "font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures" and "font-variant-ligatures: none" changed the presentation, but it did not negatively impact the accessibility, searchability, etc. as the ligature characters would. Automatic glyph substitution in presentation yay; encoded character substitution nay.

Tempest1981 10y ago

Does Google fonts convert to ligatures on the fly? I was noticing missing dots on my i's with the Lato font. Drove me crazy. What is the advantage? http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/201604/latos_unfortunate_ligatures.html http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/201604/latos_unfortunate_ligat...