[loren s]

I was reading that OpenType fonts have some niffty time savers that automaticly make swatches and interlinking text among other things... Does text edit and other osx apps support this kind of stuff ? I heard that Adobe Indesign does but I do not yet have access to indesign right now.

I know osx text edit has the glypths menu but I see no way to make stuff interact with each other

[TETENAL]

Use a font like Apple Chancery or Zapfino in TextEdit.

[loren s]

Oh dude ! Sweet! Is there anything else in this app should know ? I know it has kerning but you have to keep selceting it out of the two menu context menu witch is stupid..

And what other fonts are Opentype ? Or is there a place that has them for download or sale ??

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by loren s:
Oh dude ! Sweet! Is there anything else in this app should know ?

That's not really a TextEdit-specific feature. It's the standard behavior of the text system. As are all the goodies in the font panel. Just FYI.

Originally posted by loren s:
I know it has kerning but you have to keep selceting it out of the two menu context menu witch is stupid..

Unless you just give it a shortcut in the Keyboard prefpane.

[Rickster]

For more control over typographic features, pull open the Action menu (the one with the gear) on the standard Font panel (you may need to resize the panel to make it appear) and choose "Typography...". You'll get a new palette that lets you control the advanced features of OpenType and similar fonts. Most of the fonts that come preinstalled with OS X have at least some features controlled by this panel -- alternate letter and numeral forms, multiple sets of ligatures, small caps, et cetera.

[Millennium]

I believe that you need to be using an app which supports ATSUI for the OpenType table support to work, but most apps do nowadays. There's even versions of TeX and LaTeX that support it, though I've never gotten LaTeX to work quite right with it (I'm not exactly a LaTeX guru, of course, but the author of the LaTeX port failed to provide any documentation at all for how to select fonts).

[Rickster]

More specifically: a Carbon app that uses ATSUI (and/or MLTE) or a Cocoa app that uses the standard Cocoa text system (Cocoa apps that don't are pretty rare).

[tom@bluesky.org]

Originally posted by Millennium:
I believe that you need to be using an app which supports ATSUI for the OpenType table support to work, but most apps do nowadays.

OS X itself does not support OpenType layout tables. The advanced typography features you find in TextEdit and similar Cocoa apps and certain fonts supplied with OS X are created by another technology called AAT (Apple Advanced Typography). An app which uses its own text engine rather than Apple's can support OpenType tables -- Mellel is an example, and I think Adobe apps. But most OS X apps cannot make use of the special OpenType features found in numerous (Windows) fonts.

This is a problem, because virtually no one produces AAT fonts, and there are not even any good tools for doing so. I think it would be wise for Apple to move toward greater OpenType support, since this is clearly the dominant font technology.

[loren s]

Originally posted by tom@bluesky.org:
OS X itself does not support OpenType layout tables. The advanced typography features you find in TextEdit and similar Cocoa apps and certain fonts supplied with OS X are created by another technology called AAT (Apple Advanced Typography). An app which uses its own text engine rather than Apple's can support OpenType tables -- Mellel is an example, and I think Adobe apps. But most OS X apps cannot make use of the special OpenType features found in numerous (Windows) fonts.

This is a problem, because virtually no one produces AAT fonts, and there are not even any good tools for doing so. I think it would be wise for Apple to move toward greater OpenType support, since this is clearly the dominant font technology.

Drat.. The zapfino is soo cool. I wish there was a way to make faux interlinking fonts like those with all other fonts.. And so far I can not find any free oT fonts from the free font places. Oh well another technoligiy I have found that is still way to new