EB Garamond: Context Alternatives, but no swashy Q.long

Question

In a book xetex document, I am using EB Garamond in the older version of Georg Duffner (see egregs answer here: Accessing the short-arched f in EB Garamond).

It has the calt feature (contextual alternatives) which substitutes the long version of lower case 'f' with a shorter form when e.g. an 'ä' follows, to prevent collision of the upper arch with the dots of 'ä'.

I like this feature, but unfortunately, the calt option also comes bundled with the upper case Q with the swashy cauda, called Q.long (see: A Big fancy "Q").

How can I have calt in EB Garamond, but leave upper case Qs as they are, that is: do not substitute the normal Q with Q.long? Do I have to fiddle with the font itself or are there tex/xetex commands to control it?

Answer 1

I don’t know whether there’s a solution for xetex (which doesn’t mean that there isn’t one), but the reasons which led you to xetex may be satisfied by luatex, in which case you can add a feature, like this:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\directlua{
  fonts.handlers.otf.addfeature{
    name = "qalt",
    type = "alternate",
    data =
    {
      ["Q.long"] = "Q",
    },
  }
}
\setmainfont{EB Garamond}[
  Contextuals=Alternate,
  ItalicFeatures={Ligatures=Contextual},
  RawFeature=+qalt]
\begin{document}
\textit{Quaint} Questions
\end{document}