Re: logos, symbols, and ligatures

Werner Lemberg wrote,

>> Yes, Adam is right, of course.  It is the compound word boundaries
>> which stop ligature formation in German, and not the syllable
>> boundaries which I'd mentioned in an earlier post.
>
> This is not correct.  In German, the syllable boundary stops
> ligature formation.

I'm not an expert on German typesetting.  Adam knows much more
about this than I do.

Quoting from this page, "Typesetting Old German",
http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb12-1/tb31hara.pdf

"The essential points are the following: 1) don't use ligatures
in Latin Antiqua words, use them in French Antiqua and in
French Fraktur: 2) in a composite word, do not use ligatures
between adjacent letters of two components ..."

>> And, getting back to German, it's my understanding that the ligature
>> formation conventions are quite different even in the same language
>> when the text is set in Fraktur.  Indeed, ligature formation in
>> Fraktur appears to be more of an art than an exact science.
>
> Why do you think so?  Are you talking about `ſ' vs. `s'?

Well, since I'm not an expert on German typesetting, I must have
read about it someplace.  (smile)  This topic has come up on this list
in the past, and, if I recall correctly, Asmus Freytag and other
experts have expressed views on the differences between ligature
formation in Fraktur and Antiqua.

This page,
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/developers/fdsspec/lowercase.aspx
...talks about (among other things) the difference between the 'c-h' and
'c-k', which form ligatures in Fraktur, but are often only kerned closer
in Antiqua.

Also, it should be noted that typesetting in Fraktur is not
limited to the German language.  Conventions for typesetting
Fraktur in French or Norwegian may well be quite different
than those for German.

Best regards,

James Kass