[Scribus] different width spaces in Scribus

Karsten Luecke kl
Wed Aug 2 17:12:58 CEST 2006


Hello!

I'm new to Scribus and when googling for information on support of
OpenType fonts and typographic features, I came across this Scribus
Wiki entry ...

http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Adding_typographic_spaces_to_fonts_with_FontForge
("Adding typographic spaces to fonts with FontForge")

... and think I have a first suggestion:

If I understand the how-to right, Scribus requires that fonts supply
these space glyphs. Which they normally don't.

It's not even necessary that fonts have these spaces, because Scribus
could calculate these en-, em-, 1/4-, 1/8- &c spaces from the font's 
UPM (= em-space width), which automatically gives en-space (= 1/2 UPM),
1/4-space (= 1/4 UPM), &c.
I think this would be a good addition.

An aside: Some foundries do NOT allow the modification of their fonts.
E.g. Linotype -- whose Caecilia is used as an example in this how-to --
strictly forbit it. So, a very dangerous recommendation.
Moreover, it's a lot of work for larger families, and also most likely that
things, esp. OpenType features, get broken when opening and
re-generating OpenType fonts. As Mr Auclair indicates in the update
to his Wiki how-to: "Some people have said they were having problems
with their converted fonts."  ;-)

I'm very keen to see how Scribus will develop!

Is my understanding correct that there is no support of typographic
OpenType features yet?

Best wishes,
Karsten





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