Join Nigel French for an in-depth discussion in this video Contextual alternates, part of InDesign: Typography Part 1.
- [Voiceover] If you have the opportunity to use them,…then contextual alternates can really give…you a lot of options for customizing your type.…I'm gonna start out with the example…of swash characters.…I'll zoom in on this portion of the page.…Command, space bar, click and drag.…Certain typefaces, Minion Pro italic being one of them,…may have swash characters designed to be used only…for the initial letter of the word.…And I can apply swash characters…by coming to my open type options and choosing swash.…
And if you come to this option…and you see that its surrounded by square brackets,…that means there aren't any swash characters…for the type face that you're using.…Zooming back out now,…command, option or control alt zero.…And now talking about contextual alternates,…which are somewhat different from swash characters,…but very much related to them.…In this open-type pro font, Bickham Script,…many of the characters have alternate forms.…I can turn them on in several different ways.…
I could select the type,…come to my open type menu,…
Author
Nigel French
Released
6/17/2016- Creating a typographic workspace
- Understanding the anatomy and terminology of type
- Choosing typefaces
- Sizing and scaling type
- Formatting characters
- Adjusting leading (aka line spacing)
- Tracking and kerning
- Using the Glyphs panel
- Adding special characters: dashes, quotes, ellipses, and more
- Using OpenType features like ligatures and fractions
Skill Level Intermediate
Duration
Views
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Introduction
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Welcome1m 4s
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Exercise files1m 21s
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1. Choosing and Combining Typefaces
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Type anatomy and terminology2m 34s
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Type naming conventions1m 25s
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Using Typekit3m 37s
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Choosing typefaces2m 48s
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2. Character Formatting
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Sizing and scaling type4m 20s
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Casing2m 33s
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Small caps4m 43s
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Superscript and subscript3m 22s
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Baseline shift4m 32s
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Italic and oblique type3m 7s
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Condensed and extended type2m 34s
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3. Leading (Line Spacing)
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Definition3m 5s
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Considerations for leading4m 30s
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4. Letter Spacing, Tracking, and Kerning
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Defining7m 23s
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Letter spacing3m 20s
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Tracking3m 49s
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Adjusting word spacing3m 17s
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Kerning5m 46s
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5. Small and Important Details
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Using the Glyphs panel6m 9s
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Em dashes and en dashes3m 58s
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Spacing characters6m 8s
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Ellipsis3m 2s
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Optical sizing2m 43s
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6. OpenType features
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Ligatures3m 47s
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Fractions4m 54s
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Numerals2m 41s
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Contextual alternates5m 35s
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Conclusion
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Goodbye28s
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Video: Contextual alternates