nisus.com

Hi,
I'm having a problem with Hoefler text font, the system version. I'm using Mac OS 10.6.8.

What happens is actually two things:
a) the soft hyphen doesn't insert as often as with other fonts -- I often have to add it manually. That's no big deal. But...
b) This is more problematic: when the soft hyphen falls within a line (ie, not at the end) -- then the soft hyphen is usually visible as a space between the letters. See png I'm uploading. See the word 'attempting' -- but it looks like 'attempt ing' because it has a soft hyphen between the t and the i.

More evidence of what's happening: the space varies exactly as the spacing in the rest of the line does... that is, if the line has a hard return at the end, or is a tightly packed line of text that needs no automatic kerning, then the soft hyphen isn't visible.

In other words, Nisus (or Hoefler, or a combination, or the OS... ?) is treating this soft hyphen as a letter in its own right, and adding space around it like the other letters on the line. If they're spaced wider, so is the soft hyphen.

This doesn't happen with other fonts AFAIK.

Any ideas, workarounds?

All I can think of is to do a search for the soft hyphen throughout the whole document as a last step, and find any that are within lines and delete them. A pain though, because I'll have to look at all the ones at the end of the lines also -- I can't just auto-delete the character, I have to examine each one.

WF

withoutFeathers wrote:[...]when the soft hyphen falls within a line (ie, not at the end) -- then the soft hyphen is usually visible as a space between the letters.

I cannot reproduce this particular problem on the latest Mac OS X with any of the hyphenation settings in NWP; Hoefler text font version I have is 8.0d2e1.
However, here is something weird with this font:
When the hyphenation setting in NWP is Manual, I get attemptin[next line]g (without any visible hyphen); when the setting is Automatic Normal or Automatic More Often, I get at-[next line]tempting
Only with the setting Disabled do I get: attept-[next line]ing

Hamid wrote:

withoutFeathers wrote:[...]when the soft hyphen falls within a line (ie, not at the end) -- then the soft hyphen is usually visible as a space between the letters.

I cannot reproduce this particular problem on the latest Mac OS X with any of the hyphenation settings in NWP; Hoefler text font version I have is 8.0d2e1.
However, here is something weird with this font:
When the hyphenation setting in NWP is Manual, I get attemptin[next line]g (without any visible hyphen); when the setting is Automatic Normal or Automatic More Often, I get at-[next line]tempting
Only with the setting Disabled do I get: attept-[next line]ing

Short form:
Thank you for trying that Hamid. My tests have been with two earlier versions of the font.
Your problem sounds slightly better than mine, so it makes me wonder I wonder if there's any place to get a more recent version of the Hoefler system font, that I could try. I'll look for this. And a question: does your version 8 have alternate glyphs? My earlier Apple (version 3.7d1) doesn't.

Longer form:
Unfortunately it gets complicated, but I can report that I now realize my Hoefler was/is TTF version 6.1d7e1, which is in fact not an Apple system font. (I don't know where it came from; I've had it for several years; probably downloaded from a 'free font' site somewhere years ago, without realizing that Apple supplied them also.)

I went back and found my Apple one (which was not installed), which is a version 3.7d1 created in 2001. I re-did the tests and the spacing problem of soft-hyphens disappeared, but new spacing problems appeared -- some the same as I described and some slightly different.

So, I'm with you: there's something weird about this font, relative to spacing, at least in Nisus.

In the version 6 (non-Apple) there's also the problem of the default glyphs being capital sized for dashes and hyphens, which I asked about in another thread, but I might as well ask here: Hamid, does your version 8 have alternate glyphs? My version 3 (Apple) has none; the alternates are in my version 6 (the non-Apple). If your version 8 has them, is there any way you know of to change the default of which glyph gets used? (I know I can change single and even multiple uses, but this is cumbersome; I'm hoping for some way to just make it default to the one I want to use).

Thanks...

WF

withoutFeathers wrote:[...]does your version 8 have alternate glyphs?

Yes, it does: One thing I noticed is that Hoefler does not have the soft hyphen character; when a soft hyphen is used, it is substituted by Times.

Hamid wrote: One thing I noticed is that Hoefler does not have the soft hyphen character; when a soft hyphen is used, it is substituted by Times.

Right, mine did that and substituted Lucida Bright, I noticed.

Thanks Hamid.

I've also noticed that Hoefler letter-spaces in justified lines more than my other fonts -- spreading the letters instead of just the words. Personally I find this distracting when reading if it's spaced too far, and there's no control of how far.

All in all, I think I'm going to give up the idea of moving to Hoefler for this book. Linux Libertine is looking better for my purposes. Or staying with Georgia, which is what I have now. It more or less does the job.

WF