On 04/26/2013 09:41 AM, Keith J. Schultz wrote:
I use XeLaTeX and ConText for it control. I have not touched Word in decades, if possible or any other WYSIWYG- system! That being said, take a look at the books printed in this day and age. You will find that the use ligatures are not that common. For me the fi-ligature, is estranging, as well as other while reading. Others I find very pleasing. I do not want to discuss esthetics. I was just expressing my opinion. If the engross of ConText users want ligatures as default that is fine with me. On the other side, I believe, ligatures of off by default in LaTeX, et al. or at least are feature is set when the font is loaded.
Hi Keith, if you look at the books of decent publishers, you will see that most of them still use ligatures (most American university presses, Oxford and Cambridge, German publishers such as Reclam etc.) However, many smaller publishers don't give a rat's ass about esthetics, and that's where Word comes into play: they have their authors deliver their manuscripts as Word files and simply typeset from that, more often than not by employing some underpaid and untrained "contractors" in India. Cuts costs and makes authors do all the work that publishers used to do in the olden days... Taking this as the norm is not a good idea. As to LaTeX: you're wrong, LaTeX is part of the TeX family as is ConTeXt and has ligatures. If you set up your fonts correctly in XeLaTeX, you get them. Thomas