any news from the opentype-theater?

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Level 4

2,554 points

any news from the opentype-theater?

Hello

It is just moment after I finally got my brand-new, shiny, full featured set of corporate font that I realised Pages doesn't support opentype-features (like, all these great ligatures, variants and and and), which I was really looking forward to be able to finally use...

Is there anythng in the pipeline, are there any viable workarounds (except buying, and learning CS), or do I bluntly have to get myself a licence of this _other_ software?

Would be glad to further use iWork Pages etc.

thanks for any help

david

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion, 160 SSD

Posted on Aug 6, 2012 1:28 PM

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Answer 1

david braun Author

Level 4

2,554 points

Aug 7, 2012 6:23 AM in response to david braun

Me again

after sifting through the web and these fine forums, it seems like it will take some time to get a version of pages with full open-type support. this is sad news to me, because I really do like the workflow in pages.

compared to the only opentype-capable word-processor (mellel), pages is ages better, sleeker, nicer.

well. how to express it better than this:

http://youtu.be/-6cMQ6kBm0k

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Answer 2

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,910 points

Aug 7, 2012 6:40 AM in response to david braun

Unfortunately nobody knows if or when we will ever get a version of Pages with new features or old bug fixes.

But re OpenType support, I think there is some available via the Typography pane, no? Also try TextEdit.

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Answer 3

Aug 7, 2012 6:53 AM in response to david braun

Pages does have support for Open Type features.

What makes you say it doesn't?

Peter

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Answer 4

david braun Author

Level 4

2,554 points

Aug 7, 2012 7:41 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Hello Tom

Ok, I must admit I did not found the typography-pane (not in pages, not in help, and not in the discussions here). Yes, this quite helps, although not everything seems to be working - as a starter, capitals/small capitals aren't recognized...

Anyway, I'll see what gives with pages and my opentype-fonts...

And sorry to all for the second post (it generated your replys, though ;-) )

Thanks

david

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Answer 5

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,910 points

Aug 7, 2012 8:08 AM in response to david braun

david braun wrote:

not everything seems to be working - as a starter, capitals/small capitals aren't recognized...

The typography pane is how this feature (traditionally AAT and now some OpenType as well) has always been accessed in OS X, but documentation is indeed scarce. Performance in Pages has also been known to be flakey.

My Minion Pro seems to do the small caps ok

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Answer 6

Aug 7, 2012 10:11 AM in response to david braun

I suspect you have ALL CAPS text and want to make it lower case or small caps.

That isn't how it works in Unicode/Pages. The original text has to be in U&lc to be able to differentiate what should be Caps and small caps.

Are you really asking how to convert ALL Caps to Sentence caps, LC or Small Caps?

Peter

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Answer 7

mijägo

Level 1

21 points

Aug 21, 2012 8:34 AM in response to david braun

Opentype features functioned under MAC OSX < 10.8. Mountain Lion with iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote).

Unter Mountain Lion with Pages 4.2., Numbers 2.2., and Keynote 5.2. there are serious bugs in accessing the opentype features which are usually activated via the typography panel (cmd+T). For instance in all three programm its utter impossible to activate true small caps via the typo panel. Also all three programmes have serious kerning issues. All these problems didn't exist before Mountain Lion and under Pages 4.1., Numbers 2.1., and Keynote 5.1.

I have reported these problems to Apple's bug reporter but no reply so far.

Its also impossible to run Pages 4.1. under Mountain Lion to get around this problem.

Its interesting to note that TextEdit (1.8) under Mountain Lion does not have any problem to activate the opentype small caps feature or to do the kerning.

The screenshot shows Fakt font from Ourtype in Pages 4.2. (no small caps possible via typo panel) and TextEdit 1.8. where it functions. The same problem is true also for other opentype fonts like FF Ernestine Pro or Adobe's Minion Pro. All of this worked excellent under MAC OSX Leopard and Lion.

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Answer 8

mijägo

Level 1

21 points

Aug 21, 2012 8:36 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

I assume your screenshot is not made under Mountain Lion 10.8. and Pages 4.2., is it?

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Answer 9

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,910 points

Aug 21, 2012 11:15 AM in response to mijägo

mijägo wrote:

I assume your screenshot is not made under Mountain Lion 10.8. and Pages 4.2., is it?

No, you are correct, I was working in 10.7. Trying it in 10.8 I see, as you say, Pages is totally broken in this area.

I seem to remember a similar thing happening with OpenType support when 10.5 first came out...

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Answer 10

david braun Author

Level 4

2,554 points

Aug 21, 2012 12:56 PM in response to mijägo

the same is happening here, I guess:

Since this is easaly reproduced, I'm looking forward to see a fix one day or another.

The sooner, the better.

(In the meantime, the good folks at emigre provided me a ttf-workaround, thanks very much!)

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Answer 11

mijägo

Level 1

21 points

Aug 21, 2012 1:32 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Its saddening for me to experience that Apple gets worse with each new operating system or release with respect to typpgraphy. Mac Lion 10.7 lost the ability Leopard and former MAC OS had, that one could insert via the typo panel (cmd+T) (or via the character pane)l every special character or glyph from any font into Pages, TextEdit etc. Since Lion 10.7 the OS offers only selected special characters and its not possible to insert any more any special character or glyph from a specific font.

I wonder also why no tech or mac blog has picked up so far this issue that there is this serious typo bug under Mountain Lion 10.8 and iWork.

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Answer 12

mijägo

Level 1

21 points

Aug 21, 2012 1:33 PM in response to david braun

"(In the meantime, the good folks at emigre provided me a ttf-workaround, thanks very much!)"

Could you kindly share this workaround with us, please?

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Answer 13

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,910 points

Aug 21, 2012 2:30 PM in response to mijägo

mijägo wrote:

I wonder also why no tech or mac blog has picked up so far this issue that there is this serious typo bug under Mountain Lion 10.8 and iWork.

Good point! Perhaps because with no update since 2009, iWork is not taken very seriously and expectations are low. It cannot even display Apple's Color Emoji font.

The loss of View = Glyph from Character Viewer is indeed annoying, but it is always better not to input typographical features that way, because doing so messes up the encoding of the underlying digital text and makes it unsearchable.

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Answer 14

Sep 11, 2012 8:52 AM in response to mijägo

... In the meantime, I got a refund from the Mac App Store of the 15,99 € I spent on Pages 4.2.

I didn't expect they would reply so quickly.

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Answer 15

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,910 points

Sep 11, 2012 10:09 AM in response to mijägo

mijägo wrote:

Since Lion 10.7 the OS offers only selected special characters and its not possible to insert any more any special character or glyph from a specific font.

A fix for that one:

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2012/09/new-character-map-app.html

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