The apostrophe with Adobe Caslon Pro

Question

I'm writing an article with Adobe Caslon Pro and Xelatex and I found that this mark punctuation ’, an apostrophe, which is ordinary used in French, has not the required interval when used, for instance, in the following words : "L'écriture". This issue is probably similar to this one described here : [https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/218415/french-spacing-with-xelatex-and-minion-pro][1] In this post, a solution consists in doing something I can't replicate. Could anyone help me to do that? This is the MWE:

    \documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[french]{babel}
\usepackage{filecontents,fontspec,microtype}
\begin{filecontents*}{minion.fea}
languagesystem DFLT dflt;
languagesystem latn dflt;
feature kern {
  pos \quoteright \a 10;
  pos \quoteright \eacute 10;
  pos \quoteright \o 10;
} kern;
\end{filecontents*}
\setmainfont{Minion Pro}[
  FeatureFile={minion.fea}]
\frenchspacing
\begin{document}
l’étranger
d’accord
d’ores et déjà
\end{document}

It seems Libre Caslon (open type name Libre Caslon Text) has a better spacing for the apostrophe. — Bernard, Jun 03 '21 at 18:38
I agree that Libre Caslon isn’t as attractive. But have you tried the solution by jch in the linked question about Minion? This is a problem with Adobe fonts generally, and the same approaches should apply. — Thérèse, Jun 03 '21 at 20:12

Thérèse · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-03T20:43:15.477

4

I don’t have Caslon, but this is a problem with many Adobe fonts, so I’ll illustrate an approach with Minion. Updating French spacing with xelatex and Minion Pro in view of How to adjust font features in LuaTeX?, we get something like this (iff you’re willing to change your compiler to luatex):

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[french]{babel}
\usepackage{fontspec,microtype}
\directlua{fonts.handlers.otf.addfeature
  {
    name = "kern",
    type = "kern",
    data = {
      ["quoteright"] = { ["a"] = 150 , ["eacute"] = 150 , ["o"] = 150 },
    },
  }
}
\setmainfont{Minion Pro}
\frenchspacing
\begin{document}
l’étranger
d’accord
d’ores et déjà
\end{document}

Adjust 150 to taste.

edited Jun 03 '21 at 20:43

answered Jun 03 '21 at 15:44

Thérèse

12,679

Thanks! It works very well, but it means that I have to adjust an entire book on a case-by-case basis! For instance, these are my adjustments: ["quoteright"] = { ["a"] = 50 , ["eacute"] = 150 , ["o"] = 90 , ["h"] = 90 , ["e"] = 90 , ["u"] = 50} – domi Jun 03 '21 at 21:08
Yes, it’s painful — a sample of what type designers must go through when they kern a whole font family. – Thérèse Jun 03 '21 at 23:07
I can't manage to adjust ["ecirc"]. The space does not change. Any idea? – domi Jun 05 '21 at 17:36
1

Did you mean ["ecircumflex"]? Fontforge is useful for finding glyph names (and for many other things). – Thérèse Jun 05 '21 at 17:52
I'd like to add a space before "?". How to do that? – domi Jun 20 '21 at 17:43
Besides the space added by babel? – Thérèse Jun 20 '21 at 17:48
Yes. I mean: I didn't find the right code to add it. – domi Jun 21 '21 at 08:02
If you’re not using babel, you can do this with lines like ["r"] = { ["question"] = 9000 }, and ["d"] = { ["question"] = 900 }, and ["agrave"] = { ["question"] = 450 }, (the values are exaggerated to make the effect obvious), but that takes patience. And if you do use babel, it controls the spacing. – Thérèse Jun 21 '21 at 16:09
I don’t have time to inspect the innards of babel, but you may want to study, say, .../texlive/2021/texmf-dist/tex/generic/babel-french/frenchb.lua. And I always prefer using fonts by French designers for French texts; the results are better. – Thérèse Jun 21 '21 at 19:43
It seems that you know your job perfectly. I'm searching for a font which would be equivalent to Sabon or Bembo, but designed for French language. Could you please give me some suggestions? In this way, I wouldn't have to modify the fonts I use. – domi Jun 21 '21 at 20:00
I love Henry and Louize from 205TF and Le Monde Livre Classic from Typofonderie. I don’t have Sabon Next, but it’s the work of Jean François Porchez, of Typofonderie. Note that I’m not a mathematician; I can recognize a great text font but don’t know what would be needed if your article involves math. – Thérèse Jun 21 '21 at 20:36
Thank you! And what about Adobe Garamond Pro? Will I have to adjust font features? – domi Jun 22 '21 at 08:48
Garamond Premier Pro has the same tight spacing as other Adobe fonts. – Thérèse Jun 22 '21 at 10:56
I finally choosed Adobe Garamond Pro and it works perfectly. Merci ! – domi Jun 24 '21 at 08:59

The apostrophe with Adobe Caslon Pro

1 Answers1

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