Not respecting spacing of monospaced fonts

[BongoJim]

It may well be just me but it seems that both Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer don't seem to respect the spacing of monospaced fonts. What I mean by this is that if I create some text in a font such as Menlo I expect the letter 'A' and the letter 'I' to be the same width. Instead it behaves like a proportional font. I know this used to work as expected as I have several images created with Affinity Designer in the past.

 

I guess my question is: Is there a setting somewhere I have missed that is overriding the inherent characteristics of the font?

 

Note: Menlo spacing works as expected in other packages I have installed.

[R C-R]

As far as I can tell, I am not seeing any issue like this. Below are several Artistic Text blocks in Menlo plus guides set at regular intervals. Every character seems to have the same spacing.

[Bri-Toon]

Because of the longer baseline of the I in Menlo font, it seems to reach the same width as the A does. It seems to be the baseline that is making the overall letter look shorter in width, but it looks correct. If you'd still rather have the I be closer, you can adjust the kerning (character spacing) in the Character panel. 

[Fixx]

Seems that in my system Menlo works as expected. Typically above behaviour would happen is app has optical kerning available but I think AP/AD does not have it but follows kern tables of the font (thought there are auto and 0 % in kern fields available: what is the difference?)

[BongoJim]

Thanks all for the feedback... 

 

So it sounds like something weird going on in my set up. As I think I mentioned I have used monospaced fonts several times in the past and they worked as I expected and as you have very helpfully confirmed.

 

Consider the attached image which I think illustrates what I noticed. Look closely at the I and J. In the top line where J follows I the spacing looks weird to me compared to the line below it where I have deliberately transposed J and K.

 

I just tried this on my MacBook Pro and see the same thing...

 

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, BongoJim said:

Consider the attached image which I think illustrates what I noticed. Look closely at the I and J. In the top line where J follows I the spacing looks weird to me compared to the line below it where I have deliberately transposed J and K.

I see the same thing, but thanks to your attachment & description, I now know why & how to fix it:

 

As it is (a default, maybe?), Standard Ligatures are enabled in the Typography window (Text menu > Show Typography):

Uncheck that box & monospacing will be consistent.

[BongoJim]

Excellent R C-R  ... I would never have thunk to look there ... of course I'm just a coder  

 

Thanks again

[R C-R]

I never would have thought to check the ligatures setting if not for your screenshot showing the IJ ligature. For some reason I expected all monospaced fonts to default to not using -- or maybe not even including -- ligatures but I checked several monospaced fonts installed on my system (Courier, PT Mono, Andale Mono, & Menlo) & they all include some common ligatures.

 

Edit 2: On further checking, it seems that PT Mono does include one ligature for fl, but none for ij or IJ. Go figure. 

Edited December 20, 2017 by R C-R
more about PT Mono

[Bri-Toon]

Wow well spotted, R C-R. After the solution, I briefly looked up ligatures and how they're used in typography. I guess there are two kinds; standard and discretionary. The kind in BongoJim's issue was discretionary, a type of typography for the purpose to look for decorative. I just learned something new.

 

https://creativepro.com/typetalk-standard-vs-discretionary-ligatures/

[R C-R]

As mentioned in the Creative Pro article, it appears that in Affinity standard ligatures are enabled by default & discretionary ones are not. But at least for the monospaced ones I checked that are installed on my system, the ij & IJ ligatures are apparently standard ones, which is why they are used in (among others) the Monaco font. I also checked for the standard Th ligature & confusingly none of those I checked included that ligature at all. 

 

I understand the logic of enabling standard ligatures by default, but it seems to me that considering how monospaced fonts are usually used, I think they should have no standard ligatures at all & any that are included in the font should be discretionary ones.

[Bri-Toon]

Well I admit, I am new to this terminology, so it all goes beyond me. 

[R C-R]

13 minutes ago, Bri-Toon said:

Well I admit, I am new to this terminology, so it all goes beyond me. 

I admit that I am not a font of knowledge on this subject ... but I do get a little x-height-ed when I learn more about it.   

[MikeW]

The OpenType specification says that standard ligatures should be enabled by default (among other things). Discretionary ones should be off by default. Kerning is simply enabled, etc., etc.

 

The ij/IJ ligatures are language specific and should only be available to the OS/application if say Dutch language (there may be others) is either the OS language or the text is set to it.

 

The real question, to me, is why a mono-spaced fonts even has ligatures. Or at least ligatures that break the mono-spaced "grid" it should be using. And there shouldn't be a kern feature even in a mono-spaced font (I have no idea about the font(s) in question).

[Bri-Toon]

6 minutes ago, MikeW said:

The real question, to me, is why a mono-spaced fonts even has ligatures. Or at least ligatures that break the mono-spaced "grid" it should be using. And there shouldn't be a kern feature even in a mono-spaced font (I have no idea about the font(s) in question).

 

I guess it depends on small exceptions when it comes to a certain style the artist is going for. In some cases when the mono-spaced font is not aimed at being the main paragraph text, but maybe a heading or title, it might appear as fancy and visually pleasing. Just like drop caps, if every other letter was a different size, the reading would look sloppy, but with just being at the beginning, it looks pleasing. So I guess under certain exceptions, some art principles can be broken to draw viewers in a different way. That is my take on it.

[MikeW]

You're correct, of course. A mono-spaced font can achieve a certain effect. Used sparingly.

 

Larger font sizes (like for headings) in general shouldn't use ligatures and generally need more tracking than body text, etc.

 

I would argue that mono-spaced fonts shouldn't really be used for body text, either. Yep, they can convey a certain feel and there can be a use for them...but seeing how most any mono-spaced font design/style I have seen exists in a font that has ligatures, kerning, etc., why one would actually choose a mono-spaced for for anything other than effect on short runs (even full-page ads) is beyond me. Mono spacing is harder to read in larger bodies of text. It does make for great "code" fonts within bodies of text or in their own paragraphs, though.

[R C-R]

53 minutes ago, MikeW said:

The real question, to me, is why a mono-spaced fonts even has ligatures.

I could see them included in the discretionary ligatures group since there may be times when that is desired, but it makes no sense to me that these fonts, or at least the ones intended for typical uses where one would expect them to conform to a grid, would include any in the standard ligatures group.