any news from the opentype-theater?

Dear Tom, thank you. I bought the programme – its not too expensive. Sadly it does not really solve the problem but finds a solution that is 50% ok:

The access to any character, symbol or glyph and inserting it into documents – like Pages documents – is only possible because the programm creates an image of the respective glyph which is copied into the clip board. So one won't have inserted really the specific glyph one is looking for but an image of the glyph.

I think, such a limitation should be stated clearly in the programme description. Due to this preocedere the copied and pasted glyph is not treated as a character any more but as an image. Hence, one cannot give it a colour or treat it like a character.

Nevertheless, better than nothing but not really that which solves the problem really.

mijägo wrote:

The access to any character, symbol or glyph and inserting it into documents – like Pages documents – is only possible because the programm creates an image of the respective glyph which is copied into the clip board. So one won't have inserted really the specific glyph one is looking for but an image of the glyph.

Thank you for pointing this out. Glyphs without Unicode codepoints can indeed only be input as images. I had not used the app enough to notice that issue.

Thank you for pointing this out. Glyphs without Unicode codepoints can indeed only be input as images. I had not used the app enough to notice that issue.

Thank you Tom.

But why is it possible that e.g. FontExplorer can insert (e.g. the glyph 490 of FF Meta) into TextEdit as a character but not in Pages? Also in the past before MAC OSX 10.7. the character palette directly inserted the glyph into pages as a character and not as an image. So it appears to me there must be a way to insert glyphs as characters.

However, the programm does a better job here than PopChar 6.0.1. So its better than nothing. Thank you for your hint.

mijägo wrote:

But why is it possible that e.g. FontExplorer can insert (e.g. the glyph 490 of FF Meta) into TextEdit as a character but not in Pages? Also in the past before MAC OSX 10.7. the character palette directly inserted the glyph into pages as a character and not as an image. So it appears to me there must be a way to insert glyphs as characters.

Using the latest version of Pages in 10.7.4 and Character Viewer from 10.6, I find that Pages will not display glyphs without Unicode codepoints as characters when you try to input them directly. Only TextEdit will do it. So I guess it is something to do with code of the app.

The "proper" way to get such stuff into text is by activating opentype or aat features of the particular font, but unfortunately these don't always cover what you want.

It worked with MAC OSX Leopard nicely. Since Snow Leopard this feature is lost … There is still the possibility to use InDesign or Mellel to get proper access to the opentype featres but I prefer to work with Pages. I heard Microsoft wants to include opentype functions in his Office 2013 system. If there will be a version for Mac, lets see if they found a neat solution. From a typo forum I learned that the glyph issue is quite tricky.

mijägo wrote:

I heard Microsoft wants to include opentype functions in his Office 2013 system.

They are already present in Word for Mac 2011.

Also with iWorks 4.3. there is still the small cup bug which Apple is either incapable, unwilling or negelcts to correct. Quite annoying.

A couple of points about the small caps "bug".

1. The issue here is only with third-party fonts - true small-caps work properly with the fonts distributed by Apple (like Hoefler Text for example). Hence, this seems to be an issue with OTF vs AAT.
2. Apple seems not to consider it a "bug" since Pages and Keynote work with the fonts provided by Apple: hence they call it a problem with the OTF fonts, never mind that TextEdit does the right thing. I have filed a bug report and feature request (and encourage you to do so... the more people that do this, the more likely they will fix the issue) but have not heard any official word back. (This "not a bug" stance comes from various upper levels of tech support.)
3. Pages and Keynote still know how to deal with small-caps. If you open a presentation created with an old version that used proper small-caps etc., then you can copy those to a new presentation and, voila: they work. Unfortunately, copying from TextEdit does not work so you better hope you have access to an old system or an old presentation with smallcaps in the fonts you want to use.
4. Given that Keynote and Pages can display the smallcaps properly, it seems to be a UI issue with the way the tyopography panel communicates with the applications.

As a workaround, you can install a version of FontForge from macports (sudo port install fontforge), then open the offending OTF font and generate a new version supporting AAT (following the instructions here: http://fontforge.org/faq.html#OT2AAT). This is simply a matter of ensuring that the "Apple" radio box is checked under the Options pane during font generation. Uninstall/remove the original OTF font and install/activate the newly generated version. You should then be able to use the resulting fonts with true smallcaps etc.

Note: Check your font license carefully to ensure that you have legal permission to modify the fonts in this way. Also, while this worked for me, there may be issues with incomplete AAT support, so your milage may vary.

Apple: PLEASE FIX THIS!

Again: please submit bug reports and feature requests to show Apple that people care about typography.

• https://bugreport.apple.com
• http://www.apple.com/feedback/keynote.html
• http://www.apple.com/feedback/pages.html

mforbes wrote:

Apple seems not to consider it a "bug" since Pages and Keynote work with the fonts provided by Apple: hence they call it a problem with the OTF fonts, never mind that TextEdit does the right thing.

Of course Pages and Keynote do the right thing in 10.7 as well. It's only in 10.8 that this breaks.

It is a bug because Apple offers for all three programs, Pages, Keynote & Numbers the option to activate the small caps feature of Opentype fonts and in all three programms this function doesn't work at all in the latest relases of all three programms or since OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion - which is now more than a year. I wrote also to Apple, reported it on Apples bug reporter: nothing happend.

In the last days I also realized that the auto-hyphenation of Pages 4.03 doesn't work. Its all quite annyoing what was once Apples stength is now not really functioning and poor. I am looking forward for Office 2013 for Mac by Microsoft in blind hope they have similar opentype / office functions but without such bugs.

Did any body experience that also the auto-hyphenation of Pages 4.03 doesn't work? I checked it with Englisch and German language, the auto-hyphenation of Pages 4.03 at Mountain Lion 10.8.3. doesn't work.

The issue here is only with third-party fonts - true small-caps work properly with the fonts distributed by Apple (like Hoefler Text for example). Hence, this seems to be an issue with OTF vs AAT.

True, I checked, Hoefler works, the small caps feature can be activated. I also checked if the auto-hyphanation under 18.8.3 Pages 4.3. works when using Hoefler fontface but it does not. So the auto-hyphanation doesn't function no matter what font. (Howver, before I say this is another bug I would like to know if others can approve that auto-hyphanation under 10.8.3 Pages 4.3. doesn't work.)

I wrote again to Apple and also reported about the auto-hyphanation issue:

Dear Apple Team,

I am somewhat frustrated because since the release of Mountain Lion Mac OSX 10.8. and the required update of Pages, Numbers and Keynote the Opentype activation of the small caps feature of Opentype fonts (via cmd+T typographic panel) doesn't function - except for Apple's system delivered font faces such as Hoefler.

Now I recognized that not only this bug hasn't been fixed so far but also that under Mountain Lion 10.8.3. and Pages 4.3. (1048) also the auto-hyphenate function does not function any more.

I would be very happy and grateful if the Apple team could fix both bugs which are contrary to former Apple policies to offer well functioning typographer friendly programs. Apple was once the pioneer and this is the reason why I changed my system from Microsoft to Apple - and it was a good decision in past times.

But now I am looking forward for the release of Office 2013 for Mac in vague hope that Microsoft's Office program won't have such bugs and offers the same typo-functions.

Thanks a lot for your kindness to read my report and far more if you could really fix it.

Thanks a lot

BTW, I also sent some notes to some techno blogs who highly praised Mountain Lion to report about this Pages/Keynote/Numbers small-caps-OTF bug but they didn't pick it up.

mijägo wrote:

I am looking forward for Office 2013 for Mac

I understand the Office 2011 does have OpenType ligature support. Is that correct in your experience?

I understand that Office 2013 for Windows still does not have OpenType support for small caps.

mijägo wrote:

I also checked if the auto-hyphanation under 18.8.3 Pages 4.3. works

It works ok for me.

I understand that Office 2013 for Windows still does not have OpenType support for small caps.

Thank you. Then I have to stay with Apple and hope they see the need to fix it - though in my experience after the quite stable system I bought with MacBook Pro Mid 2009 every release by Apple had unwelcome bugs. There was also another major font issue but I think Apple was able to fix it in 3 months or so and here someone on the forum offered a solution too that worked for me.