Does anyone know of any free word processing/layout software that has support for Opentype features like true small caps and ligatures?
I have a friend who is trying to layout their poems but doesn’t have InDesign or Quark. Both Word and sWriter have fake small caps and those just won’t do!
Thanks for yr help.
http://typography.com/ask/recentTopic.php?rtID=86
H&FJ have a handy chart if you scroll down. As you can see, Adobe CS and Quark are pretty much it, at least for advanced features. If your friend wanted to use Word, they could cheat by going to insert>character, and finding each SC or whatever glyph they wanted, and inserting them one by one. Unless their poetry is Icelandic saga length, this might be a usable workaround.
Not Open Source but you could hand edit XAML - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms745109.aspx
Might just have to do it old-school, with a separate SC&osf font.
Actually, it’s easier to access small caps that way than via the OpenType menus in Quark and InDesign, so your friend with Word should be just fine.
I don’t have any idea how OpenOffice.org deals with OpenType, but I suppose we could lobby their development community to make full support a priority. Might as well poke at the Scribus, GIMP, and Inkscape folks as well.
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