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Ligatures commonly found in dlig

dlig can hold any ligature at all. This page collects, script by script, what is recommended and what is done in practice, as a rough guide.

Latin

Section titled “Latin”

ct st

Section titled “ct st”
  • c + t → ct
  • s + t → st

ct is the Example given for dlig in the OpenType specification. st does not appear there, but fonts carry it alongside ct.

Others

Section titled “Others”
  • ck sp rt Th
  • Long s ligatures (ſi ſt ſh and others)
  • oo LL TT www and other play on the part of the typeface

Some fonts put Th in liga instead. Adobe’s Minion Pro had it there; its successor Minion 3 moved it to dlig.

Japanese

Section titled “Japanese”
  • Unit composites — キロ → ㌔, リットル → ㍑, mm → ㎜
  • Abbreviation composites — No → №, Tel → ℡, FAX → ℻
  • Corporate composites — 株式会社 → ㍿
  • Era names — 明治 → ㍾, 平成 → ㍻, 令和 → ㋿
  • Kana ligatures — より → ゟ, コト → ヿ, ます → 〼
  • Word composites — 温泉 → ♨, 野球 → ⚾

Latin input comes in three forms — halfwidth, fullwidth and proportional — so both Ｎｏ and No yield №.

The recommended GSUB for Adobe-Japan1-7 holds 446 rules, far more than the 40 in liga. Adobe-Japan1-3 had 154.

They accumulated supplement by supplement. ㍾ ㍽ ㍼ come from Supplement 0, ㍻ from Supplement 1, ‼ ⁉ and the corporate composites from Supplement 4, ⁇ ⁈ and ヿ 〼 from Supplement 5, and ㋿ from Supplement 7.

Korean

Section titled “Korean”
  • Unit composites — Hz → ㎐, MHz → ㎒, GPa → ㎬, C/kg → ㏆, about 90 of them
  • Punctuation ligatures — !! → ‼, !? → ⁉, ?! → ⁈, ?? → ⁇
  • KS → ㉿ (the Korean Industrial Standards mark)

The recommended GSUB for Adobe-KR-9 holds 95 rules. It has no Hangul ligatures.

Chinese

Section titled “Chinese”

For simplified Chinese, Adobe-GB1-6 has only two rules.

  • Ｎｏ． → №
  • ＴＭ → ™

For traditional Chinese, Adobe-CNS1-7 has 26, adding unit composites.

  • log → ㏒, ln → ㏑, mil → ㏕
  • mm → ㎜, cm → ㎝, km → ㎞, m2 → ㎡, mg → ㎎, kg → ㎏

Hebrew

Section titled “Hebrew”
  • א (alef) + ל (lamed) → ﭏ

Microsoft’s Hebrew script development specification gives this as the example for dlig. Its feature list has no liga, so dlig is where optional ligatures go.

Arabic

Section titled “Arabic”
  • ب (beh) + ج (jeem) → a decorative ligature

From the figure in the same specification.

Sources

Section titled “Sources”