How to "turn off" final forms in Hoefler Text?

ycherem13 February 2012 · 06:56

I'd like to use Hoefler Text for setting text but one annoying feature I can't turn off is the final form of some italic letters (n, m, t). I'm using a Mac and, no matter what I do, if the text is in italic and that letter is not followed by a word or a point, it turns out with the "fancy" final form, which can't be changed even using the typography options. Even if I de-select glyph variants, and chose the variant form I want, it is not changed in the text (see image).
Is this a feature of the specific font, its version, or the OS?

In that case, should I just move on and use another font?

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Joshua Langman13 February 2012 · 08:07

What software are you using?

David Yoon13 February 2012 · 09:11

In TextEdit 1.5 on OS X 10.5.8 I can turn off the final swashes in Hoefler Text using the Smart Swashes part of the Typography panel. Did you make sure "Word Final Swashes" (or equivalent in your language) is unchecked?

Typography.Guru13 February 2012 · 09:20

I can confirm the problem.
TextEdit 1.7 on 10.7.3. The Smart Swashes settings don’t have an effect.
And the Glyph Variants options works for the small caps version, the superscript and subscript version, but choosing the base glyph doesn't work. I guess this should be reported as a bug to Apple.

ycherem13 February 2012 · 11:53

TextEdit, Pages, Keynote, and even LibreOffice have the same problem. But I've found that Word doesn't. Buggy font features in the one and only system font that offers those "advanced" features... I guess I'll just change the font, then.

Jan Żurawski13 February 2012 · 12:05

did you try to off/on "overlapping characters"?

Joshua Langman13 February 2012 · 12:05

You could always download a free trial of InDesign and try it.

ycherem13 February 2012 · 15:09

"Overlapping characters" does nothing. There must be something automatic with Apple software -- if I put a dot after the character, it goes back to "normal". There is a trick I've found out that can result in the desired effect, though: if I press "tab" within italics, or if I place a character at the end of the text after a lot of tabs (no "enter", though), glyph variants don't appear. I guess that can be done with headings, but with running, long text it's too much work.

ycherem28 July 2012 · 11:33

The Mountain Lion version of Hoefler Text somehow fixes the problem. Still wish there was a bold version instead of black shipped with the OS, though.

Captured from web.archive.org on 21 Oct 2013. view this capture