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SIL Unicode Roman Fonts: Additional capabilities available via font features

Lorna A. Priest, 2009-04-24; 6272 reads

Additional capabilities available via font features

When our Unicode Roman fonts (including Charis SIL, Doulos SIL, Gentium Basic, and Andika) are used in applications that support Graphite and that provide an appropriate user interface, various user-controllable font features are available that allow access to certain alternately-designed glyphs that would be appropriate for use in certain contexts. Some of these font features are also available in AAT applications on Mac OS X. A glyph palette is available for accessing the alternate glyphs in some applications such as Adobe InDesign. In the Graphite version of OpenOffice 3.01 the font features can be turned on by choosing the font (ie Charis SIL), followed by a colon, followed by the feature ID, and then followed by the feature setting. So, for example, if the Uppercase eng alternate “Capital N with tail” is desired, the font selection would be “Charis SIL:1024=2”. If you wish to apply two (or more) features, you can separate them with an “&”. Thus, “Charis SIL:1024=2&1058=2” would apply “Capital N with tail” plus the “Small capitals” feature. Ideally the selection of these font features is done in application programs, but many applications do not yet support this functionality. In response to this lack of support for features, a program called SIL TypeTuner allows users to create derivative fonts with their own feature settings based on the needs of a local project or region.

The following font features1 are available in SIL's Unicode Roman fonts:

Feature Name and ID	Description of Feature		Glyphs	TypeTuner Notes (see TT legend below)
Features which are in all SIL Unicode Roman fonts (Charis SIL, Doulos SIL, Gentium Basic, and Andika)
Uppercase Eng alternates (ID=1024)	Four forms of U+014A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER ENG are available:			R
		Large eng with descender: a taller form of the lowercase eng, with a curved tail that hangs below the baseline. This is the default rendering. (Value = 0)
		Large eng on baseline: a taller form of the lowercase eng, with the right vertical stroke curving to the left above the baseline. (Value = 1)
		Capital N with tail: resembles the uppercase N, with a curved tail hanging from the right vertical stroke. (Value = 2)
		Large eng with short stem: a taller form of the lowercase eng, with the right vertical stroke curving to the left above the baseline and a shorter left stem. (Value = 3)
Vietnamese-style diacritics (ID=1029)	Turning this feature on causes some pairs of diacritics to be rendered side-by-side as is appropriate for Vietnamese. When the feature is off, the result is standard stacking diacritics. (0=Normal diacritic placement; 1=Vietnamese-style diacritic placement)			R, O
Literacy alternates (ID=1032)	Provides alternates for literacy forms: U+0061 LATIN SMALL LETTER A, U+0067 LATIN SMALL LETTER G, U+01E5 LATIN SMALL LETTER G WITH STROKE (0=Normal; 1=Literacy form)			R
Capital Y-hook alternate (ID=1034)	Provides an alternate for U+01B3 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH HOOK. (0=Left hook, 1=Right hook)			R
Capital N-left-hook alternate (ID=1035)	Provides an alternate for U+019D LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N WITH LEFT HOOK. (0=Uppercase style, 1=Lowercase style)			R
Modifier apostrophe alternates (ID=1044)	Provides large alternates for: U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE, U+A78C (or U+F21D) LATIN SMALL LETTER SALTILLO and U+A78B (or U+F26A) LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SALTILLO (0=Small, 1=Large)			R
Modifier colon alternate (ID=1047)	Provides an alternate (wider) for U+A789 (or U+F1E9) MODIFIER LETTER COLON. (0=Tight, 1=Expanded)			R
Diacritic selection (ID=1051)	Allows independent selection of diacritics. (0=False; 1=True)			G
Open o alternate (ID=1059)	Turning this feature on will change from a bottom serifed open o to a top serif. Characters affected by this feature: U+0254 LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN O, U+0186 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OPEN O, U+1D10 LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL OPEN O, U+1D53 MODIFIER LETTER SMALL OPEN O, U+1D97 LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN O WITH RETROFLEX HOOK. (0=bottom serif; 1=top serif)			R
Charis SIL and Doulos SIL only features (currently)
Rams horn alternates (ID=1025)	Three forms of U+0264 LATIN SMALL LETTER RAMS HORN are available:			R
		Small bowl (Value = 0)
		Large bowl (Value = 1)
		Small gamma (Value = 2)
Tone numbers (ID=1026)	Modifies appearance of U+02E5 through U+02E9, the modifier letter tone bars, and of ligatures formed from sequences of these characters. Possible settings are:			G
		Characters: characters are represented by tone bars. This is the default rendering. (Value = 0)
		Numbers: characters are represented using superscript numerals. (Value = 1)
Cyrillic E alternates (ID=1027)	Provides alternates for Cyrillic letters U+042D and U+044D with the central horizontal stroke slightly curved, as is appropriate for Mongolian. (0=Normal; 1=Mongolian style)			R
Combining breve Cyrillic form (ID=1028)	Provides alternates for U+0306 COMBINING BREVE that is appropriate for Cyrillic script. (0=Normal breve; 1=Cyrillic-style breve)			R (may have no effect if data is NFC)
Show invisible characters (ID=1030)	Provides visible alternates for invisible characters. (U+00AD, U+034F, U+200B..U+200F, U+202A..U+202E, U+2060..U+2063, U+FE00..U+FE0F, U+FEFF) (0=Normal; 1=Show invisible)			R
Barred-bowl forms (ID=1031)	Provides alternates for variants of characters that are needed for phonetic transcriptions conforming to Americanist linguistic traditions: U+0180 LATIN SMALL LETTER B WITH STROKE, U+0111 LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH STROKE, U+01E5 LATIN SMALL LETTER G WITH STROKE (0=Bar on stroke; 1=Bar through bowl)			R
V-hook alternates (ID=1033)	Provides alternates for U+028B LATIN SMALL LETTER V WITH HOOK, U+01B2 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER V WITH HOOK. (0=Curved, 1=Straight with low hook, 2=Straight with high hook)			R
Small ezh-curl alternate (ID=1036)	Provides an alternate for U+0293 LATIN SMALL LETTER EZH WITH CURL. (0=Small bowl, 1=Large bowl)			R
Capital T-hook alternate (ID=1037)	Provides an alternate for U+01AC LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T WITH HOOK. (0=Left hook, 1=Right hook)			R
Capital H-stroke alternate (ID=1038)	Provides an alternate for U+0126 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H WITH STROKE. (0=Horizontal stroke, 1=Vertical stroke)			R
Capital R-tail alternate (ID=1039)	Provides an alternate for U+2C64 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R WITH TAIL. (0=Uppercase style, 1=Lowercase style)			R
Small p-hook alternate (ID=1040)	Provides an alternate for U+01A5 LATIN SMALL LETTER P WITH HOOK. (0=Left hook, 1=Right hook)			R
Romanian-style diacritics (ID=1041)	Provides alternates for Romanian-style variants: U+015E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH CEDILLA, U+015F LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH CEDILLA, U+0162 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T WITH CEDILLA, U+0163 LATIN SMALL LETTER T WITH CEDILLA (0=cedilla-style; 1=comma-style)			R, O
Capital Ezh alternates (ID=1042)	Provides alternates for: U+01B7 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER EZH and U+04E0 CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER ABKHASIAN DZE			R
Ogonek alternates (ID=1043)	Provides straight form alternates for characters using the ogonek (U+0328) rather than curved forms. (0=Curved; 1=Straight)			R
OU alternates (ID=1045)	Provides open top alternates for: U+0222 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OU and U+0223 LATIN SMALL LETTER OU (0=Closed, 1=Open)			R
Empty set alternates (ID=1046)	Provides an alternate for U+2205 EMPTY SET. (0=Circle, 1=Zero)			R
J stroke hook alternate (ID=1049)	Provides a top serifed alternate for U+0284 LATIN SMALL LETTER DOTLESS J WITH STROKE AND HOOK. (0=no top serif, 1=top serif)			R
Hide tone contour staves (ID=1050)	Provides alternates without the staff. (0=with staves; 1=without staves)			G
Bridging diacritics (ID=1052)	Diacritic specials for Naso and Konai languages. (0=Normal diacritic behavior; 1=Bridging diacritic behavior)			G
		Naso: L + U+0308 + L
		Konai: O + U+0311 + U and O + U+0311 + U+035F + U or O + U+0361 + U and O + U+0361 + U+035F + U
Slant italic specials2 (ID=1053)	Provides special italic versions of U+0061 LATIN SMALL LETTER A, U+00E3 LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH TILDE, U+1EA1 LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH DOT BELOW, U+0250 LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED A, U+00E6 LATIN SMALL LETTER AE, U+0066 LATIN SMALL LETTER F, U+0069 LATIN SMALL LETTER I, U+0131 LATIN SMALL LETTER DOTLESS I, U+0269 LATIN SMALL LETTER IOTA, U+006C LATIN SMALL LETTER L, U+0076 LATIN SMALL LETTER V, U+007A LATIN SMALL LETTER Z, U+0493 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER GHE WITH STROKE, U+F327 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER GHE WITH STROKE AND DESCENDER and U+04FB CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER GHE WITH STROKE AND HOOK) (0=Normal italics; 1=Slanted)			R
Cyrillic shha alternate (ID=1056)	Provides an alternate for U+04BB CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER SHHA. (0=Normal; 1=Smaller version of uppercase)			R
Chinantec tones (ID=1057) 3	Turning this feature on modifies the appearance of U+02C8 MODIFIER LETTER VERTICAL LINE, U+02C9 MODIFIER LETTER MACRON, U+02CA MODIFIER LETTER ACUTE ACCENT and U+02CB MODIFIER LETTER GRAVE ACCENT. The size of the Chinantec tones has been slightly increased and some of the sidebearings are modified. These orthographic tones are used in some Chinantec languages. (0=Normal; 1=Square-style modifiers)			R
9-level pitches (ID=1062)	Turning this feature allows for use of tramlines with the 9-pitch contours. Ligation can be turned on or off. Characters affected by this feature: U+F1F1, U+F1F2, U+F1F3, U+F1F4, U+F1F5, U+F1F6, U+F1F7, U+F1F8, U+F1F9, U+0020 SPACE.			G
		Ligated (Value=0)
		Show tramlines (Value=1)
		Non-ligated (Value=2)
		Show tramlines, non-ligated (Value=3)
Small capitals (ID=1058)	Provides true Small Capitals for all lowercase characters that have an uppercase equivalent. (0=Lowercase, 1=Small Capitals)			R, O
Non-European caron alternates (ID=1063)	Provides alternates for U+0165 LATIN SMALL LETTER T WITH CARON, U+010F LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH CARON, U+013E LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH CARON and U+013D LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L WITH CARON. (0=European style comma, 1=Caron style)			R
Capital B-hook alternate (ID=1064)	Provides an alternate for U+0181 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B WITH HOOK. (0=Uppercase style, 1=Lowercase style)			R
Show deprecated PUA (ID=1077)	This feature allows for selection of deprecated PUA characters, by version of the Unicode Standard.			R
		All deprecated glyphs are displayed normally. This is the default rendering. (Value = 0)
		All deprecated glyphs through Unicode 5.1 are displayed in an inverted box. (Value = 4)
		All deprecated glyphs through Unicode 5.0 are displayed in an inverted box. Glyphs which were deprecated with Unicode 5.1 are displayed normally. (Value = 3)
		All deprecated glyphs through Unicode 4.1 are displayed in an inverted box. Glyphs which were deprecated with Unicode 5.0 or greater are displayed normally. (Value = 2)
		All deprecated glyphs through Unicode 4.0 are displayed in an inverted box. Glyphs which were deprecated with Unicode 4.1 or greater are displayed normally. (Value = 1)
Andika-only features
Digit Zero with slash (ID=1065)	Provides an alternate form of the digit zero (0=no slash, 1=slash)			R
Digit One without base (ID=1066)	Provides an alternate form of the digit one (0=base, 1=no base)			R
Digit Four with open top (ID=1067)	Provides an alternate form of the digit four (0=Closed, 1=Open)			R
Digit Six and Nine alternates (ID=1068)	Provides alternate forms of the digits six and nine (0=curved stem, 1=diagonal stem)			R
Digit Seven with bar (ID=1069)	Provides an alternate form of the digit seven (0=no bar, 1=bar)			R
Small i-tail alternate (ID=1070)	Provides a tailed alternate for characters based on, and including, the lowercase i (0=straight, 1=curved tail)			R
Small j-serif alternate (ID=1071)	Provides a serifed alternate for the lowercase j (0=no top serif, 1=top serif)			R
Small l-tail alternate (ID=1072)	Provides tailed alternates for U+006C LATIN SMALL LETTER L, U+019A LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH BAR, U+026B LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH MIDDLE TILDE, U+0142 LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH STROKE, U+2C61 LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH DOUBLE BAR (0=straight, 1=curved tail)			R
Small q-tail alternate (ID=1073)	Provides alternate forms for U+0071 LATIN SMALL LETTER Q and for U+02A0 LATIN SMALL LETTER Q WITH HOOK (0=straight, 1=point)			R
Small t-tail alternate (ID=1074)	Provides straight-tailed alternate to the lowercase t (0=curved tail, 1=straight)			R
Small y-tail alternate (ID=1075)	Provides straight-tailed alternates for U+0079 LATIN SMALL LETTER Y and U+01B4 LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH HOOK. (0=curved tail, 1=straight)			R
Capital Q alternate (ID=1076)	Provides an alternate form of the uppercase Q (0=tail, 1=tail across)			R
No longer available in current versions of our fonts
Orthographic glottal alternate4 (ID=1048)	Provides an x-height alternate for U+0294 LATIN LETTER GLOTTAL STOP. (0=Cap-height, 1=x-height)			R

Font features

TypeTuner legend: R=glyphs are Reencoded (will work with dumb rendering); O=OpenType rules are activated; G=Graphite-only feature (All features are available for Graphite applications.)

Page History

2009-04-24 LP: updated for version 4.106

2008-05-02 LP: Rearranged table and added Andika features.

2007-04-24 LP: Added footnote for feature 1048. Added TypeTuner Notes column.

2007-02-05 LP: Added features 1057, 1059, 1062.

2006-01-31 LP: Added feature 1056.

2005-12-08 LP: Updated feature 1053 info and graphic.

1	Most of the glyphs in this chart are from Charis SIL or Andika. However, many of the features are available in all fonts, except as listed. See also “How do I use a feature?”.
2	Not available in Doulos SIL since this feature is related to italic only.
3	Because U+F195..U+F197 were deemed by UTC to be the same as U+02CB, U+02C8 and U+02CA. they now have a different appearance because of the double-encoding. To use the Chinantec glyphs, the feature Chinantec tones must be used.
4	This feature is no longer available in current versions of our fonts. Unicode 5.0 introduced U+0242 LATIN SMALL LETTER GLOTTAL STOP making this alternate unnecessary. Users who needed this feature may want to consider converting U+0294 in their data to U+0242.