Fonts & Character Sets ⇒ Small Caps don't work with the name "Nigel"

[petersfreeman]

Here is my problem. I am using the Garamond Libre font and have found that if the sequence "Nig" is being small capped as in "Nigel" but not "Anigelina" the "ig" is not small capped. Wierd!

Code: Select all

% !TEX TS-program = xelatex
% !TeX encoding = UTF-8
% !TeX spellcheck = en_CA

\documentclass[]{article}

\usepackage[]{fontspec}

\setmainfont[]{Garamond Libre}

\begin{document}
	\textsc{Nigel}
	
	\textsc{Migel}
	
	\textsc{Nagel}
	
	\textsc{Nizel}
	
	\textsc{Nigal}
	
	\textsc{Nigelina, here I come}
	
	\textsc{Anigelina}
\end{document}

[Ijon Tichy]

Seems to be a ligature problem with the font:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[]{article}

\usepackage[]{fontspec}

\setmainfont{Garamond Libre}

\begin{document}
	\textsc{Ni\/gel}
	
	\textsc{Migel}
	
	\textsc{Nagel}
	
	\textsc{Nizel}
	
	\textsc{Ni\/gal}
	
	\textsc{Ni\kern 0pt gelina, here I come}
	
	\textsc{Anigelina}
\end{document}

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Indeed,

Code: Select all

\setmainfont[]{Garamond Libre}[Ligatures=NoRequired]

also changes that. Just for testing, I would not do that globally just because there's an issue with some specific word in small caps. I would use what Ijon said, I guess I would make a macro \Nigel for this if it occures several times in the document.

Also, there's a way with the microtype package:

Code: Select all

\DisableLigatures{encoding = *, shape = sc*}

but that seems to work only with pdfLaTeX, not XeLaTeX.

Or how about this:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[]{article}
\usepackage[]{fontspec}
\setmainfont[]{Garamond Libre}[SmallCapsFeatures= {RawFeature={+smcp,-rlig,-clig,-dlig,-hlig,-liga}}]
\begin{document}
	\textsc{Nigel fi ff fl ffl}
	Nigel fi ff fl ffl
\end{document}

You can see that ligatures are removed for small caps, while they are still used in regular text.

Stefan

[Ijon Tichy]

To globally disable the ligatures for SmallCaps only use:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[]{article}

\usepackage[]{fontspec}

\setmainfont{Garamond Libre}[SmallCapsFeatures={Ligatures=NoRequired}]

\begin{document}
	\textsc{Nigel}
	
	\textsc{Migel}
	
	\textsc{Nagel}
	
	\textsc{Nizel}
	
	\textsc{Nigal}
	
	\textsc{Nigelina, here I come}
	
	\textsc{Anigelina}
\end{document}

See Section 3, »Different features for different font shapes«, of the fontspec manual for more information.

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Ijon's suggestion looks good, I would extend it a bit do prevent the other ligatures too, with small caps:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[]{article}
\usepackage[]{fontspec}
\setmainfont[]{Garamond Libre}[SmallCapsFeatures= {Ligatures={NoRequired,NoCommon,NoDiscretionary,NoHistoric,NoContextual}}]
\begin{document}
	\textsc{Nigel fi ff fl ffl}
	Nigel fi ff fl ffl
\end{document}

Stefan

[Ijon Tichy]

Yes, I've not tested, if the font provides any SmallCaps ligatures. If not, switching of all of them indeed would be a good idea.