Community Expert

Question

What is the method for using character styles and GREP to apply glyph substitutions?

Forum|Forum|2 days ago
August 16, 2026
7 replies
48 views

I’ve done this before, but now I can’t get it to work (Windows 11 Pro; InDesign: 21.5.1). The font is Aviano Flare. I want to always substitute a specific “A” glyph. None of the Open Type Stylistic Sets work. How do I set up a new one? Also, do I need a style for both upper- and lowercase “As”? What am I forgetting or doing wrong? Many thanks for your help!

Peter Kahrel

Community Expert

\x{0061} is the Unicode value of the lower-case ‘a’. Any/all variants (smallcaps, the variant that JEL is after, etc.) have the same Unicode value.

@J E L -- You’d have to use the Glyph panel and replace the As by their GID. Problem with that is that you can constrain the replacement only by font (not by style).

rob day

Community Expert

Hi @J E L , I don’t know the exact Grep code for your Paragraph Style, but the A you want has a unicode number \x{0061}:

J E L

Author

Community Expert

Thank you, @Peter Kahrel and @rob day. That’s not the exact A that I want to swap out, but I think I’ll have to use the find/replace method that you show.

Does anyone know what (salt) means?

These are the two glyph "A" characters I want to use:

Capital letter A - Aviano Flare Thin
GID: 473
Unicode: 0041
Stylistic Alternates (salt)

Small letter A
GID: 441
Unicode: 0061
Stylistic Alternates (salt)

Also, I’m not using small caps as a case style. For the chapter number line, CHAPTER is in All Caps. For the chapter title, I use Normal case.

Peter Kahrel

Community Expert

salt stands for ‘stylistic alternatives’. It’s the name of a so-called Open Type table defined in the font.

jmlevy

Community Expert

I’ve tried, without any success. It seems that this alternate A is not part of a stylistic set.

J E L

Author

Community Expert

Ah, it's the font. And no way to make it part of a stylistic set, I guess. Thank you so much for trying, @jmlevy. If anyone knows of a workaround, I would be very grateful. Otherwise, it means a manual application, or maybe a script to find and replace?

J E L

Author

Community Expert

Also, I tried to set up a New Glyph Set, but it didn’t show up in the drop-down menu in character styles.

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