2

With the font I am using, the f touches a following closing quotation mark. I am præventing that from happening by periodically replacing all instances of f' with f\,'. Is there a better way to do this? I am already using XeTeX character classes for automatic language switching.

Improve this question
6
  • One could over limited domains of text make f active to behave automatically in the way desired. But active f would break any macro invocation containing an f and possibly other things, too. If this idea is appealing, I would create \kernfON and \kernfOFF to make f active and normal, respectively. Then you could turn it on before a text block, and turn it off afterwards. If you want to see an answer to this effect, please let me know.
    – Steven B. Segletes
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 16:41
  • @StevenB.Segletes, I think having to do this all the time would be more cumbersome than automatic replacements, which could also be done with a script together with compilation (or built into a saving command in vim).
    – Toothrot
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 17:30
  • Are you using an OpenType font? Then you could take care of this in a feature file.
    – Mark van Atten
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 18:25
  • Forget my comment -- you say you are using XeTeX, which does not have feature files. Is it an option for you to use LuaLaTeX?
    – Mark van Atten
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 18:54
  • @MarkvanAtten, I don’t know anything about LuaLaTeX, and at the moment I don’t have time for big rearrangements. Anyway, this is not a huge problem, just wanted to see if anyone had a more elegant solution than mine. (I suppose I could always modify the otf with Fontforge.)
    – Toothrot
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 18:59

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
6

As explained in this answer you could use the XeTeX interchar classes to add custom kerning between f and '. I didn't find a font where f and ' touch, but the spacing between f and ' is fairly tight in Adobe Garamond Pro, and for a word ending in ff they do touch.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX]{Adobe Garamond Pro}
\newXeTeXintercharclass\charclassf
\newXeTeXintercharclass\charclassprime
\XeTeXcharclass`\f\charclassf
\XeTeXcharclass`\'\charclassprime
\XeTeXinterchartoks\charclassf\charclassprime={\kern.15em}
\begin{document}
`bluff' `surf'

\XeTeXinterchartokenstate=1
`bluff' `surf'
\end{document}

enter image description here

Remark for people using Garamond: While looking for a font where the f touches the ' (and while previously search for a font where f and b touch) I found that EB Garamond has ligatures for all these combinations, which are a pain to kern by hand in other fonts. EB Garamond is great!

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .