OpenType Typography Features
With the spreading of web fonts another shortcoming of common browsers
concerning text layout came into focus − there՚s no support of OpenType
typographic features that have been offered by high-end desktop
publishing programs such as InDesign or QuarkXPress since version 7.
OpenType functions add several smart font options that enhance the font՚s
typographic and language support capabilities. If the application supports
these options, characters can be replaced by additional features
automatically. For Latin-based script these mainly concern ligatures,
fractions or small capitals.
Computer generated small caps (grey lettering on top) and true small caps (blue
lettering below) in the beta version of Firefox 4.
Some fonts can only be put to use by OpenType functions in the first place.
Take joint Latin handwriting or Arabic writing for example, in which the
shape of a character depends on its position in the word and the adjacent
characters. Comprehensive OpenType fonts may, therefore, contain various
alternative glyphs for the respective character. With the methods of
OpenType functions, the basic version of a character is replaced by a
version with matching connections context-based as the following screen
shot illustrates.