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S
Sami Artur
Inspiring
February 22, 2022
Answered

Is it possible to disable required ligatures and Glyph Composition/Decomposition features?

  • February 22, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 1709 views

Is it possible to disable required ligatures and Glyph Composition/Decomposition OpenType features?
I couldn't find any script or any way to edit an idml file.

These features are on by default.
Please, any answer would be great.
Sami

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Joel Cherney

Are you talking about some way to e.g. break up Arabic into isolated forms? My cursory reading on the matter causes me to guess that this is what you're trying do to. I can think of a few ways to do that, but if my guess is incorrect, I'd rather not waste your time (or mine!) with my suggestions. The rlig OT feature isn't something you're supposed to be able to turn off at all, is my understanding. If you needed to decompose glyphs, you'd need to use a different tool. (I'm imagining it'd be something like a font editor, not a page layout app, for what it's worth.)

 

If what you want is to decompose Arabic into isolate forms within InDesign, I actually think that a GREP query where you replace each character by itself, followed by a ZWNJ, might get you a string of Arabic isolate forms. But is that actually going to help you? I have no idea whatsoever. Can you give us a bit more detail? 

2 replies

L
Community Expert
LaubenderCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 23, 2022

Hi Sami,

don't know if that will help you, but there is a free script by Roland Dreger that is showing all available OpenType features of selected text. You can enable or disable features easily.

 

openTypeFeatures.jsx is now available in version 2.1:

https://github.com/RolandDreger/open-type-features#script-usage

 

Some videos showing basic functionality:

 

OpenType Features Dialog
by Roland Dreger showing the version 1 feature set of the script
https://vimeo.com/606686469

 

OpenType Features Dialog V2.0
by Roland Dreger
https://vimeo.com/666012220

 

OpenType Features Dialog V2.0 (Part 2)
by Roland Dreger
https://vimeo.com/667300122

 

Note: Depending on the applied paragraph composer of the typed text there may be different OpenType features available for an applied font. E.g. the Japanese Paragraph Composer vs the Adobe Paragraph Composer.

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

 

    S
    Sami ArturAuthor
    Inspiring
    February 23, 2022

    Thank You all for your answers.

    @Laubender I know the Roland Opentype Features Script, it's a fantastic script!
    The problem is rlig and ccmp features are always on and they aren't in the basic Opentype features.

    The basic opentype features in Indesign stay inside the character style when You open the idml file.

    Indesign understand rlig and ccmp but doesn't show them in any place
    The extended features (opentype features that aren't in the Indesign UI) when You apply them, they stay in another place in the idml file.

    This is the reason I can't disable these features, they are independent of each other.

    Probably @Joel Cherney is right, You must put manually a ZWNJ character to disable the feature.

    There is no way to disable them.
    It's not only arabic fonts that use rlig and ccmp, some latin fonts use too.

    Regards
    Sami

      L
      Community Expert
      LaubenderCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      February 23, 2022

      Hi Sami,

      are you aware of the new 2.1 features in Roland's script?

       

      I could filter the two tags, ccmp and rlig, and see what installed fonts will support them:

       

       

      The basic value for both is 1.

      If I double-click in this other tab to one of the tags it seems that I am able to change the basic value.

      But I'm not proficient enough to tell what value would change what and if the change will make it to the selected text or to a new character style that can be added with the script:

       

       

      Regards,
      Uwe Laubender

      ( ACP )

        Peter Kahrel
        Community Expert
        Peter KahrelCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        February 22, 2022

        For ligatures, go to your paragraph style(s), Basic Character Formats, disable Ligatures:

        Glyph Composition/Decomposition aren't options in InDesign I don't think.

         

          S
          Sami ArturAuthor
          Inspiring
          February 22, 2022

          Thank You @Peter Kahrel ,
          but thiese are Standard Ligatures (liga) I would like to know about Required Ligatures (rlig).

          Regards
          Sami

          Steve Werner
          Community Expert
          Steve WernerCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          February 22, 2022

          From my reading of the InDesign Help files, the only ligatures that are supported are standard ligatures (as Peter Kahrel pointed out) and Discretionary Ligatures:

          Discretionary ligatures can be chosen from the OpenType menu on the Control Panel, or included in a Paragraph Style.

           

           

           

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