2

By default, the humanist font joins "st" into a single ligature.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{humanist}
\begin{document}
\hminfamily Compare: straight versus s{}traight
\end{document}

I've tried to use the microtype package to remove this, but it doesn't seem to work with this particular one. Any ideas how to change this throughout a document rather than doing it one instance at a time?

Joseph Wright
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Martyn Quick
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1 Answers1

3

The selnolig package, which requires that documents be compiled under LuaLaTeX, may be your friend. It lets users define non-ligation rules via \nolig commands.

The package's main purpose is to set up rules to suppress ligatures selectively. However, it is easy to devise rules that suppress ligatures globally. For instance, to disable the long_s-t ligature globally, one just has to issue the instruction

\nolig{st}{s|t}

in the preamble of the document.

The package also provides a command called \uselig to override the action of a \nolig rule on a case-by-case basis.

enter image description here

% !TEX TS-program = lualatex
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{humanist}
\usepackage{selnolig}
\nolig{st}{s|t}        % suppress "st" ligature globally
\begin{document}
\hminfamily 
Compare: \uselig{straight} versus straight
\end{document}
Mico
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  • \uselig doesn't seem to work for me - perhaps the version of the package I've got installed isn't the newest. I'd prefer to use pdflatex rather than LuaLaTeX if possible, but otherwise this solution seems to work. Thanks for the help. – Martyn Quick Aug 25 '13 at 19:09
  • @MartynQuick - The latest version of selnolig on the CTAN is 0.254. Which version of selnolig is installed on your system? I added the \uselig macro only quite recently, in the last couple of months or so. Incidentally, what makes you prefer pdfLaTeX over LuaLaTeX? I'm curious. (For the sake of full disclosure: I'm the main author of the selnolig package. I'm curious to know what keeps people from using it, or LuaLaTeX in general.) – Mico Aug 25 '13 at 19:13
  • The version of selnolig in TeXLive 2013 (recently installed on my Mac) is 0.218. I'm used to using LaTeX (2e) and have done since shortly after its official release (1994-ish, I guess). I've never used LuaLaTeX and don't really know what it is or why we need it - that's why I prefer pdfLaTeX. (i.e., ignorance :-) ) – Martyn Quick Aug 25 '13 at 20:23
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    @MartynQuick - I have a Mac as well. :-) Version 0.218 of selnolig is definitely several months old and thus predates the addition of the \uselig functionality. If you run sudo tlmgr update --self --all from a Terminal window, lots of LaTeX packages (including selnolig) will get updated. LuaLaTeX is, from a user's perspective, usually not very different from pdfLaTeX, even though the innards of the two underlying engines are indeed quite different. The user guide of the selnolig package gives an overview of the (hopefully few) things you may need to change in order to use LuaLaTeX. – Mico Aug 25 '13 at 21:29