Get the most out of OpenType fonts

Adobe® Illustrator® CS ships with 83 OpenType fonts (in 24 font families). These OpenType fonts include expanded character sets that allow you to substitute one version of a letter form for another. Depending on the font, alternate characters can include ligatures, fractions, titling characters, swashes, ornaments, ordinals, contextual and stylistic alternatives, superior and inferior characters, and old-style figures. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to view and apply several kinds of alternate characters.

1. Select an OpenType font.

Select the text you want to work with, and choose an OpenType font from the Type > Font menu. OpenType fonts are indicated by a green and black “O” icon.

Illustrator provides a preview of fonts in the Type > Font menu, which makes it easy to choose just the right font for your project. To change the size of the font previews, or to turn the font preview off, choose Edit > Preferences > Type & Auto Tracing (Windows) or Illustrator > Preferences > Type & Auto Tracing (Mac OS). Turn the preview off by deselecting the Font Preview Size option. Change the size of the preview by choosing Small, Medium, or Large from the Font Preview Size menu.

2. Use swashes to add flair to your text.

Choose Window > Type > OpenType to open the OpenType palette. With the desired text selected, click the Swash button at the bottom of the palette to apply the swash alternatives. To revert to the standard typeface, select the text and click the Swash button again.

Not all fonts have swash alternatives and some are only available in the italic style. If a font does not have swash alternatives, the Swash button in the OpenType palette is dimmed.

3. Select a specific swash alternative.

Select the character you want to change, and choose Type > Glyphs. In the Show pop-up menu, choose Alternates for Current Selection and double-click the swash alternative you want to apply.

If your design calls for a typeface with flair and flourish, you can use the Glyphs palette to determine which OpenType font offers the most options. Start by opening the Glyphs palette and choosing a font from the font family menu at the bottom of the palette. Then choose Entire Font from the Show pop-up menu. To view the alternate glyphs available for a character, click the triangle in the lower right corner of the character box. If there are no triangles in any of the character boxes, the font has no alternate selections available.

4. Format a fraction.

In the past, formatting fractions was a time-consuming process. With Illustrator CS, formatting fraction is quick and easy. Simply select a type object or range of characters, and click the Fractions button at the bottom of the OpenType palette.

The Fractions option affects only numbers that have a slash between them. When working on a document with multiple fractions, turn the fractions option on before typing, and all the fractions are convert automatically.

5. Create a decorative glyph.

Adding an ornament to your text is a snap with the Glyphs palette. Select the Type tool and insert the cursor where you want the ornament to appear. In the Glyphs palette, click the Show pop-up menu, choose Ornaments, and double-click the ornament you want to apply.

Some font families don’t include ornaments. To determine if a font includes ornaments, select the font from the font family menu at the bottom of the Glyphs palette. When you choose Ornaments from the Show pop-up menu, the Glyphs palette displays all of the ornaments available for that font.

6. Replace characters with ligatures.

Ligatures are typographic replacement characters for certain letter pairs. There are two ways to apply ligatures. To apply ligatures to all of the text in your document, select the text and click the Discretionary Ligatures button at the bottom of the OpenType palette. Anything you type after that will use discretionary ligatures. You can also select a character pair, choose Discretionary Ligatures from the pop-up menu in the Glyphs palette, and double-click the ligature you want to replace the characters.

Most OpenType fonts include ligatures for standard letter pairs such as fi, fl, ff, ffi, and ffl. In addition, some fonts include optional ligatures for letter pairs such as ct, st and ft. The ct and st ligatures are more pronounced that the other character sets, so you may prefer to set those ligatures individually using the Glyphs palette.

7. Working with legacy files.

Illustrator CS introduces advanced unicode-based type technology that makes it easier than ever to produce polished typography with new paragraph and character styles, optical kerning, and full OpenType font support. Please note that this new technology is not compatible with previous versions of Illustrator. However, new options have been created to help you minimize disruptions when working with legacy files.

Upon opening legacy files, you may either leave text as is or you may choose to edit it, in which case you must update the text (potentially causing the type to reflow). Options for saving files in legacy file formats are now found in the Export dialog box (where you can choose among previous Illustrator or .EPS formats). Upon export, text will be broken up into point type (by default) or converted to outlines, as determined by the preferences in the Document Setup dialog box.