I'm a bored geek. But, I have an Illustrator file created with a character map that I can load a typeface and play instantly with the glyphs. However, the new glyph palette and the superopentypeyummy typefaces make it all that much more fun.

This is random. But playing with the glyph palette gives me some sense of what it is like to set type by hand.

I just found the new glyph palette, but how do I create those glyphs?

Edit: Nevermind...doubleclick...duh. But what about if I'm interested in using these glyphs in body copy...say in Quark. What then?

Keyboard Viewer. Perhaps you're forgetting Opt-Shift.

For fonts with larger character sets (unicode, OT) it's a different story.

For fonts with larger character sets (unicode, OT) it’s a different story.
Am I asking too broad of a question? If so just point me in the right direction! :) I just got really curious about this but didn't know where to go, heh.

> But what about if I’m interested in using these glyphs in body copy…say in Quark. What then?

In Quark? Basically your @$ is grass. You don't want to use Quark. No, you really don't. Trust me. :^D

We licensed PopChar X for the whole studio. Does the trick.

The problem with OpenType fonts whose character sets exceed the 256 positions that were available with ASCII-encoding, is that there simply are not enough key combinations to access them all. So there is no "easy" way apart from selecting them through the aforementionned methods.

You can type a lot of accented characters which are not normally accessible in OS X. Just enable the U.S. Extended keyboard layout using the International control panel in System Preferences. Instead of bullets, math symbols and such, it turns most of the option-key combinations into "dead" accent keys so you can enter, for example, opt-m followed by e to get ę (e with an ogonek). It helps to have the Keyboard Viewer open so you can see which keys to type to get different accents. (Note: It doesn't work for every possible accent/character combo--they have to be combinations that exist in Unicode. Also, not all (or even mosts) fonts have all those characters.)

You can also use Unicode Hex Input. You just hold down the option key while typing the four Unicode hex digits. Here's the four playing card suits entered using this method: ♣♦♥♠

Windows has something similar to this and it's the only way to enter some characters we take for granted being able to type on the Mac (like proper quote marks). The drawback is that you have to know or look up the codes.

More about all this stuff here:

   http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/keyboards/mackey.html

Good info! Thanks Mark!

But Unicode hex input presumably doesn't work with QuarkXPress - they currently only support single-byte codepages, right?

T

Right, I meant to mention that. I think they do in the page I linked (or at least imply it).

Actually, if you're using Font Explorer X, get "Information" on a font or family, then under "Characters" you can select a glyph and it will tell you the key code, if there is one. If not, you'll be stuck using the Glyphs palate.

If you are stuck with Quark and you need to use the extended glyphs, you can use a font editor to create a copy of the font you need with the glyphs moved to keyboard-accessible positions.

I've used TypeTool to make greek upper and lower case versions of fonts I use.

(Perhaps I should add that I do not distribute the resultant fonts; printers get a PDF with subset embedding only.)

Good idea. Keep in mind, even if you don't redistribute, modification will violate some cruelly strict EULAs.

I have to say I haven't checked the EULAs.