Advanced Type Setting / Opentype / Fonts / Small Caps

[Jeremy]

Hello,

I am using Word 2007 on XP.

I have a number of fonts installed on my system. When using Word I would
like to write titles in Small Caps. I do not want to use "scaled" small caps
I want to use the "true" small caps embedded in the character set for the
font. However, I find that I am not able to use true small caps in Word, only
scaled small caps.

Studying the problem I have noticed that true small caps (i.e. small caps
that have been specifically drawn and hinted as part of a character set) seem
to be embedded in some OpenType fonts, for example Adobe Garamond Pro or
Sabon LT Pro. Selecting one of these fonts and applying small caps in a
program like InDesign leads to true small caps being used. However, this is
not the case in Word.

Is there a problem with Word's ability to deal with OpenType fonts or
extended character sets? Or is there a way of turning on a special mode in
Word so that i can use the true small caps embedded in some of the font files?

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

OpenType isn't supported in Word.

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

Sure -- I have lots of OpenType fonts. But they don't do me any good
in Word! They provide hundreds of glyph variants in InDesign.

Do Windows 7 and Word2010 accommodate the additions to Unicode since
Vista and W2007?

MS was the initial developer of OpenType. Most of the fonts in my Windows
folder are OpenType.  And I did see at least one small caps variation in the
list.   Perhaps you mean that  MS does not currently support  some of the
typographic niceties, like ligatures, and such.  Though such support that may
be coming in O2010.

Pam

OpenType isn't supported in Word.
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]

extended character sets? Or is there a way of turning on a special mode in
Word so that i can use the true small caps embedded in some of the font files?

 

[Beth Melton]

Do Windows 7 and Word2010 accommodate the additions to Unicode since
Vista and W2007?

If you provide some specifics on what to look for to determine the answer to
your question I'd be happy to take a look.

~Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

For instance, if you install a font for hPags pa, does it work?

.... that's probably not a terribly helpful question ...

The problem is that the folks over at Unicode keep adding new language
capabilities, but MS doesn't update for them. For instance, Windows XP
and Word2003 couldn't handle typing in Syriac (which is a little less
obscure than hPags pa), but Vista/W2007 can.

The additions tend to do special things like combining letters, going
right-to-left, etc., and apparently special algorithms need to be
provided for every new case.

If there's any way to discover which Unicode ranges can be handled
within any version, I haven't found it. Notepad has no problem dealing
with the innovations, even the ones introduced since Vista, so it is
at some level fairly simple to do.

 

[Beth Melton]

I Googled hPags font and I found a lot of documentation and such on the font
(some written by you ;-)) but I didn't find a download for it.

~Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

Just yesterday I noticed a link to it (it's by the creator of
BabelMap, whose name escapes me), probably within the site Omniglot. I
think his site is babelmap.org. BabelMap is a freeware that shows you
every code point in Unicode and tells you (among many other things)
which fonts on your system cover those particular code points.