justification alternatives

[Rachel.b.Jackson]

I am building a Hebrew font that uses different gylphs for justification--horizontally elongated versions of letterforms.

Is there a way to have InDesign automatically select among these justification alternates? Or must this be done manually?

Someone suggested to me that I use the jalt typographic feature, but I am not technically knowledgable enough to know the ramifications of using it.

Thanks for any tips or pointers!

[rob day · Accepted solution]

Justification setttings are part of the Paragraph formatting, so you could define any number of alternates as Paragraph Styles

[Rachel.b.Jackson]

Hey everyone!

Back at it, 2 years later! Quick question about justification alternatives. I assumed that what a jalt was, was that they were used occasionally to to help with fully justified text. But when I have them turned on, InDesign automatically substitutes ALL the jalt glpyhs in. Am I misunderstanding this feature? Or is it not working properly?

Thanks!

[MW Design]

I don't know if the Middle Eastern version of ID supports jalt, but my version doesn't. I actually don't know if any application does for that matter.

Mike

[Rachel.b.Jackson]

thanks! if it did, where would i find it?

[MW Design]

Hi Rachel--I don't have a current sub and only have English CS6 at hand, sorry.

Often features that deal with ME text are on by default and have no UI to turn them on/off. However, for jalt, the spec says this can be on or off by default. So if there is not something obvious in the OpenType feature panel, then it would either be on by default without the abilit to turn it off, or, the capability isn't present.

Mike

[Jongware]

It looks like 'jalt' should get actived automatically:

If a font provides this feature (jalt) with corresponding alternate glyphs, InDesign will use them to attempt to fill the line. Rather than activating all available glyphs, the algorithm appears to calculate the available space in a line and only selects such variants where applicable. Furthermore it combines the use of these alternates with the variation of white space and Tatweel extension strokes, making it an appropriate justification algorithm for Arabic.

https://research.reading.ac.uk/typoarabic/on-arabic-justification-part-2-software-implementations/)

However, that entire article is about Arabic. The screenshots only show features related to Arabic typesetting. It seems this is still under development -- slowly:

> [...] applications such as InDesign pioneered support for the added functionality when competitors lagged behind. However, since the early 2000s this dynamic has changed, and advances slowed down.

(ibid.)

[Rachel.b.Jackson]

thank you so so much! that is extremely helpful!