A few weeks ago, I had reason to record one of my sort of standard demos of OpenType features, for internal use. Today's post is about why and how I did it, using Captivate.
I'm cross-posting this with the OpenType mailing list to try to get a wider cross-section of views.
As has been mentioned here and elsewhere, in new fonts Adobe is moving away from using Unicode Private Use Area (PUA) encodings for glyphs that are alternates or variants of another glyph that is encoded as the default form for a character. About the only thing we'd use PUA for in new fonts would be ornaments or dingbats that really don't have their own codepoints.
We're working on a general tune-up of our whole type library, and one of the questions which arose is, should we make such a change in revising already shipping fonts?
This is one of those topics that just makes me feel like Sisyphus: I keep on pushing the boulder of truth back up the hill, and a zillion other folks just roll it back down again. The problem with this myth is that it's almost true - except when the exact opposite is the case. I just read the popular wisdom on this topic again tonight, in an online column from another type foundry. Worse, it was written by an outstanding type designer who is also a great person. Oh well - at least I have a topic for tonight's blog posting. [update 12 May 2006: an esteemed colleague at "other type foundry" points out that some of the linked material, and a bit buried below from an asterisk in the main text, correctly clarifies the initial blanket advice. I still don't get the need to give misleading advice up front, but at least it's clear that they know the full truth, even if they present it oddly.]
