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So does Nisus support all the OpenType features of a font?

I am looking at things like thhe rear set of fonts that have specific "small caps" versions of the font... if available, would Nisus use that automagically instead of an algorithmic scaling like I believe it does normally? I know you can turn ligatures on and off. What about things like numbers and lining versus oldstyle--apparently there are several ways to display numbers and some fonts choose to provide all of those ways. How would we access such features?

Can we attach kerning to styles somehow--Like I want my heading or caption style to be kerned differently.

I guess what I'm asking is that when it comes to professional fonts, they offer lots of features. How well does Nisus automatically use some of these features versus having to manually apply them. If a font has an italic face, will Nisus automatically use that face when "italics" is applied? Same for bold, or even bold italic. Or do we have to manually apply the separate font face?

Also: Can you apply multiple character styles? Let's say I want to kern text consistently, so I set up a kerning character style. Can I also have Emphatic text, or Strong? Or do I have to caveman format it and just hit "italic" or "Bold" whenever I have my kerning character style active?

I guess: do we have cascading character style sheets? Likely not.

Vanceone wrote: ↑2022-02-02 11:10:55 So does Nisus support all the OpenType features of a font?

Generally speaking Nisus Writer supports whatever OpenType features are supported by macOS. You can access them via the menu Format > Font > Show Typography Panel where you'll see options for ligatures, glyph variants, etc, depending on what the font provides.

I am looking at things like thhe rear set of fonts that have specific "small caps" versions of the font... if available, would Nisus use that automagically instead of an algorithmic scaling like I believe it does normally?

Nisus Writer will indeed automagically use typographic small caps if your font supports it. Here's a blog post about Nisus Writer letter case changes that also describes some details of the small caps process.

What about things like numbers and lining versus oldstyle--apparently there are several ways to display numbers and some fonts choose to provide all of those ways. How would we access such features?

That's done via the Typography Panel if your font supports it.

Can we attach kerning to styles somehow--Like I want my heading or caption style to be kerned differently.

Yes, you can do this in your document's style sheet the same way you modify other formatting: select the style and apply the kerning you want. You can do that using the menu Format > Kern. The Character palette in Nisus Writer's palette dock will also show kerning options, if the selected text/style already has kerning applied or you turn on the "Always Show Option" for kerning.

If a font has an italic face, will Nisus automatically use that face when "italics" is applied? Same for bold, or even bold italic. Or do we have to manually apply the separate font face?

Nisus Writer should also handle this automatically. The proper bold and/or italic typefaces will be used for display if available. Faux italic/bold will only be used if your font lacks proper typefaces.

Also: Can you apply multiple character styles? Let's say I want to kern text consistently, so I set up a kerning character style. Can I also have Emphatic text, or Strong? Or do I have to caveman format it and just hit "italic" or "Bold" whenever I have my kerning character style active?

A particular piece of text can only have single character style applied at once, sorry.

It's unfortunate that we cannot apply multiple character styles. I had rather hoped for a CSS like system where you just apply character styles as need be and conflicts are resolved in some well laid out algorithm. Still, good to know the other answers, so thank you Martin!