Using OpenType features - InDesign Tutorial

- [Instructor] Let's take a look at InDesign support for OpenType features. Firstly, stylistic alternates. We can use stylistic alternates, where available, to give our type more personality. Here's one way to access them. You select the character that you want to change. A list of alternates appears below your selection. So long as in your Advanced Type Preferences, you have your Type Contextual Controls turned on. Another way is to use the Glyphs panel, and this is sometimes preferable because the characters that appear on the row beneath the selection could often be rather small. So if we go to the Glyphs panel, we just need to make sure that we are viewing alternates for selection and we can enter them in that way. Stylistic alternates are input on a case-by-case basis, but we also have stylistic sets where alternates are applied as a group. There aren't that many fonts that support stylistic sets, but there are a growing number, and the one that I'm using here, Hypatia Sans Pro, has very good support for stylistic sets. You can see here Stylistic Set 2, it is using a single story A and a single story G. Perhaps you are creating text for young readers who are learning to read, and you want to use simpler forms. That would be a good use case example. So here's how we access the stylistic sets. Select the text, OpenType, Stylistic Sets, and often they're just called Stylistic Set 1, 2, 3, et cetera. This particular font does actually name them. So I'm going to use this one, simple lowercase forms. And now we get single story A, single story G. Ligatures are turned on most of the time, and by ligatures, I'm referring to two or more characters that are fused together. Now, if I come to my Control Panel menu, you see that Ligatures are turned on, and common ligatures, fi, fl, these are in response to a stylistic problem. The stylistic problem being that without them, those two characters don't really fit in a sympathetic way. But with them, we get a much more graceful character. However, sometimes, you might not want them turned on. If the two characters don't collide, then you don't need the ligature. And indeed, turning the ligature on might look a little bit odd. Anyway, for you to decide. As well as your regular ligatures, there are also discretionary ligatures, which you can apply on a case-by-case basis if you select, and then you can use your Type Contextual Controls. Or if you want to apply to a range of text, select that text and then come to OpenType, turn on Discretionary Ligatures. Speaking of ligatures, just as an aside here, sometimes the solution to the problem can also create another problem of its own, and that is that the fi combination may appear a little bit too tight if you are choosing to space the characters out, in which case, you can replace a dotted I with a dotless I. Keyboard shortcut for that is Shift Option B. OpenType profiles come with different numbering styles. Lining, where the numerals are the height of the capital letters; and old style, where the numerals have descenders in the case of the 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9, and ascenders, in the case of the 6 and 8. And the height of the characters is set to the X height of the type. There's no right or wrong answer, it's just a question of using them appropriately. Now, as well as those two different styles, there are two different spacings. Tabular, which, as the name suggests, are intended to be used in tables so that they stack up; and proportional, where a number 1 is necessarily narrower than the number 8, for example. So old style numerals are, as I said, designed to be used in a passage of text so that they don't overwhelm the text, and they just blend in a lot better because they are set to the X height of the type. But don't get carried away with old style numerals 'cause they can occasionally look odd. They can look odd in addresses, for example, where you want the numerals set to the height of the capitals. So it really is a question of just using these numbers appropriately. On the topic of numbers, we also have slashed or dotted zeroes so that we can make sure there's no ambiguity between the zero and a capital O. Particularly important if you are working with code, for example. Then we come to fractions. Here's the anatomy of a fraction: a numerator, a denominator, and a solidus, the slash that separates the two. If you've just typed in the fraction, it will start out looking like this. And if you're working with a typeface that does not include OpenType fractions, you may be forced to use this approach. You may have no option but to use this approach. Superscript for the numerator, subscript for the denominator, and then replace this slash with a fractional slash or a solidus. So let's just do that again. Superscript, solidus, subscript. Now, that looks okay, but it's a lot of work on the one hand. And as you can see, the widths of the numerals is also reduced, as well as their size. So they look a bit feeble up against the full-size characters. So instead, much better than this would be to... Let me just undo that. Would be to use OpenType fractions if they are available. And if you find yourself working on a job that includes lots of fractions, then make sure you choose the typeface that has OpenType fractions. You can apply them through your Type Contextual Controls. Alternatively, you can apply them from the OpenType flyout menu. You can even create a character style for them, and you can automate the application of that character style through a grip style. Now, you might think, "Well why don't we... If we have text that has fractions, why don't we just turn that option on?" And that's the reason why. It will fractionalize everything, including the whole numbers. Lastly, I just want to mention typographic ornaments. There is a minority of typefaces that also come along with their own ornaments set, and you can maybe use these as bullet characters or just as pure decoration. You can access these on the Glyphs panel. If you choose a typeface that has ornaments, I know that Minion Pro does, and then I can come and show my ornaments.