how do you get ligatures to show up?

brentonstrine26 January 2012 · 21:54

I just downloaded a font that supports ligatures (http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/characters/insider/) but much to my chagrin, when I type with the font, the ligatures don't show up.

Do I need to use a special program? I have tried scrolling through charmap (Windows 7) in the font to see if there are special ligature characters, but it doesn't seem so.

I am using an old version of Paint Shop Pro, but I tried it in Photoshop as well and no ligatures. :( I feel like I'm missing something obvious, what is it?

Craig Eliason26 January 2012 · 22:16

The discretionary ligatures are an OpenType feature that require support by the application. Graphics programs like the ones you mention may not have that support.
One possibility for accessing these features/glyphs in such a graphics program would be to type the text and trigger the features in another program that does support OpenType more fully, then cut the text from there and paste it into the graphics program. (For example, cutting from Illustrator and pasting into Photoshop.)