I have a question dealing with one of the advanced features of today's
fonts: superscripts.
Using LO, one can automatically get ordinal numbers using the
Autocorrect feature. Type 1st and the "st" is automatically converted to
a superscript. However, the superscript is an artificially created
superscript where the "st" is shrunken and raised. The stroke weight is
correspondingly reduced resulting in a superscript that looks
disproportionately light when compared to other letters.
Today's modern fonts have better technology. Many fonts have built in
superscript glyphs that are properly sized and weighted. LO can access
these features graphically through the "features" option in the Format >
Character dialog (or "Font" tab in paragraph or character style
dialogs). If I click on the "features" option, and select "superscript,"
LO will insert an additional code in the font name that will call the
properly designed glyphs. Thus, for example, "Sitka Text" becomes "Sitka
Text:sups" and the superscript inserted is properly sized and weighted.
I can get the same effect by typing the appropriate code in the font
name box rather than selecting from the graphical menu of optional
"features" in the character style dialog.
The typographic benefit is that, by selecting the advanced superscript
of the font, one gets a true superscript that is not just shrunken
letters with reduced stroke weight. The stroke weight remains consistent
with the weight of the normally sized font. As an OCD challenged font
freak, I prefer using the true superscripts rather than the artificially
produced shrunken superscripts, which brings me to my question.
As far as I can tell, LO's automatic insertion of ordinal superscripts
using the Autocorrect function always inserts artificially generated and
shrunken superscripts rather than the true properly proportioned
superscripts contained within advanced fonts. Is there a way of
directing the Autocorrect function to use proper superscripts if they
are available rather than always creating artificially shrunken ordinal
superscripts?
It's a bit of a pain to have to manually reformat each ordinal number to
use the proper superscript. Even if I use character styles, that is
still more labor intensive than simply typing "1st" and spacebar and
getting the desired effect. If I could direct the Autocorrect function
to select true superscripts rather than artificially generated
superscripts, that would be great.
For what it's worth, I'm using LO 6.3.4.2 on Windows 10.
Thanks.
Virgil
--
To unsubscribe e-mail to: [email protected]
Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/
Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
