CorelDRAW Help | Working with OpenType features

Quick links to procedures on this page:

•

To enable the onscreen OpenType feature indicator

Working with OpenType features

CorelDRAW supports OpenType fonts so you can take advantage of their advanced typographic features. OpenType features allow you to choose an alternate appearance for an individual character (also referred to as a glyph) or a sequence of characters. For example, you can choose alternate glyphs for numbers, fractions, or ligature sets.

You can access OpenType commands and options in the Character area of the Object properties docker. You can also let CorelDRAW prompt you which OpenType features you can apply by enabling the Interactive OpenType option. When you select text, an indicator arrow appears below the text if an OpenType feature is available. You can click the indicator to access a list of the most popular OpenType features that are available for the selected text.

Clicking the Interactive OpenType indicator arrow (1) expands a list of the most popular OpenType features that are available for the selected text.

The OpenType font specification was created jointly by Adobe and Microsoft. Based on Unicode, OpenType fonts extend the capabilities of older font technologies. The most notable advantages of OpenType are:

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cross-platform support (Windows and Mac OS)

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extended character sets that offer better language support and advanced typographic features

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coexistence with Type 1 (PostScript) and TrueType fonts

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support for a larger glyph limit (64k)

OpenType features

The following table describes the OpenType features that you can apply in CorelDRAW provided that the feature is included in the font.

In addition, CorelDRAW also provides synthesized versions of some Caps and Position OpenType features. For example, if a font does not support a feature, such as Small Caps, CorelDRAW produces its own version of the glyph by scaling the font.

OpenType feature	Description	Example
Caps	Changes the case of text, which is useful for inserting titles and acronyms	Small caps
Position	Displays characters as superscript or subscript, which is useful for inserting footnotes or mathematical symbols. If you select an OpenType font that does not support subscript and superscript, or a non-OpenType font, you can apply a synthesized glyph.	Superscript
Number styles	Includes features for controlling the appearance of numbers	See examples below
Number styles — Proportional lining	Displays numbers of varying width, which is best suited for inserting numbers in body text. However, the numbers have a fixed height, which generally matches the height of capital letters.
Number styles — Tabular lining	Displays numbers of equal width, spacing, and height, which is useful for aligning text and displaying text in a table
Number styles — Proportional Oldstyle	Displays numbers of varying width and height. The style is best suited for blending numbers with mixed text case.
Number styles — Tabular Oldstyle	Displays numbers of equal width, but varying height
Fraction	Displays numbers separated by a slash as fractions. The number of available fractions vary from font to font. Apply this feature only to the numbers that you want to display as a fraction.	See examples below
Fraction — Numerator	Displays a numerator, such as 456/, as a fraction glyph. This is useful for displaying a non-standard fraction, such as 456/789, as a fraction. Use the Numerator feature in conjunction with the Denominator feature to display non-standard fractions as fractions.
Fraction — Denominator	Displays a denominator, such as /789, as a fraction glyph. This is useful for displaying a non-standard fraction, such as 456/789, as a fraction. Use the Denominator feature in conjunction with the Numerator feature to display non-standard fractions as fractions.
Fraction — Fraction	Displays standard fractions as fraction glyphs
Fraction — Alternative fraction	Displays a fraction by using a horizontal dividing line instead of a slant or slash	Not available
Ordinals	Displays ordinals by using a number and a suffix in superscript. For example, you can display "first" as 1st or "second" as 2nd. Apply this feature only to the text that you want to display as an ordinal.
Slashed zero	Displays zeros with a diagonal slash, which makes them easy to distinguish from the letter O. This feature is useful for displaying numbers in financial reports.
Ornaments	Substitutes a character with an ornament that was created by the font designer to match the font’s motif	Not available
Stylistic alternates	Applies an alternate design to characters
Stylistic sets	Applies an alternate design to a text selection
Swash Variants	Inserts calligraphic-type decorative characters
Contextual alternates	Lets you fine-tune text by applying an alternate design to a single character, or a sequence of characters, based on its surrounding characters. For example, you can apply this feature to script-based text so that it flows more naturally.	Not available
Case-sensitive forms	Shifts the position of punctuation marks so they align with capitalized text or lining numbers	Not available
Standard Ligatures	Replaces a letter pair (or a sequence of letters) with one glyph, which is called a ligature. Many OpenType fonts include standard ligatures for fi, fl, ff, ffi, and ffl. Their purpose is to improve text readability.
Discretionary Ligatures	Replaces a non-standard letter combination with a ligature. Discretionary ligatures designed to be decorative and are not supported by the majority of OpenType fonts.
Contextual ligatures	Inserts a glyph that best suits the surrounding characters. Contextual ligatures are designed to increase readability by improving the joining behavior between the characters of a ligature.	Not available
Historical ligatures	Substitutes a letter pair, or a letter sequence, with a ligature that is based on historical usages. Historical ligatures are designed to be ornamental and are not supported by the majority of OpenType fonts. The most commonly-used historical ligatures are the letter s combined with another character, such as sh si sl ss, and st.	Not available
Historical forms	Substitutes modern characters with characters that were commonly used in historical documents. Historical forms are useful for recreating historical text.	Not available

To apply an OpenType feature to text

1 .

Using the Text tool

, a single character or a sequence of characters.

If the Object properties docker is not open, click Window

Dockers

Object properties.

2 .

In the Object properties docker, click the Character button

to display the character-related options.

3 .

In the Character area of the Object properties docker, click an OpenType feature button, and, if applicable, choose a feature from the list.

Some OpenType fonts may appear to support features that are not supported.

To enable the onscreen OpenType feature indicator

•

Click the Text tool

, and then click the Interactive OpenType button

on the property bar.

If an OpenType feature is available for the selected text, an arrow

appears below the text.

You can also
View a list of the most popular OpenType features onscreen	Click the down arrow below the text in the document window.
Apply an OpenType feature to a text selection	In the OpenType feature list, click a feature.

Not all suite components documented in this Help are available in our Trial, Academic, and OEM versions. Unavailable components may include Corel applications, product features, third-party utilities, and extra content files.

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