# Ligatures on Kindle



## Tuttle (Jun 10, 2010)

I was reading a book, and I noticed that it looked like there was the fl ligature, but not the fi ligature. Does anyone know if the kindle automatically creates ligatures, or if the author (or whatever program they're using) does? Also, does the font hack do anything when it comes to ligatures? If I am reading for content then I am someone who actually notices the lack of ligatures.


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## NiLuJe (Jun 23, 2010)

The publisher (or author, or ..., depending on exactly who handled the eBook conversion/formatting) handles that.

AFAIK, the Kindle software does handle ligatures, and the default font supports at least some of them.

So, yes, depending on the font you're using with the font hack, that may have an effect on this.

(I didn't test this extensively, since I use calibre with the strip ligatures option enabled for anything non-Amazon).


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Well. . . . .I would guess the font used would be the deciding factor. . . .frankly, it's not something I've ever paid attention to.

That said, some books are in an alternate format, commonly called Topaz. . . books in this format can use a defined font separate from the Kindle default font.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I'm not aware of anything in the Amazon publishing API that allows control of this from the publisher standpoint. Topaz formats (ugh), however, may allow control of this. Otherwise I think it's pretty much font-driven, as NiLuJe stated.


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## Tuttle (Jun 10, 2010)

Seeing "fi" actually causes me to for a fraction of a second, lose my concentration before regaining it. It is like I mentally jump because the letters do not seems as smooth as normally. When I'm reading fiction I've found I generally don't notice it unless I have a background process thinking about ligatures, but proofreading, or sometimes reading something deeply enough to truly grok it, I notice the shape of individual characters as well as words. 

Probably if I end up doing a bunch of proofreading on the kindle I'll want to use the font hack. Most of what I've done so far for proofreading was using pdfs, which definitely had ligatures as any pdf I produce does, but I'm not sure that will remain true in the future.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

I thought typographical ligatures were only used for diphthongs like ae. I don't recall ever seeing it used on fl or fi - if I have I must have not realised it was deliberate. What is the reason for it being used in those cases?


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## Tuttle (Jun 10, 2010)

A lot of it is that its how professionally printed text has looked for centuries, so at this point it looks less professional to not have the ligatures. They also seem to speed up comprehension a bit because of making it easier to parse two letters at the same time. Personally, when I look at fl as two letters in a non monospaced font, the very small bit of space between the top of the f and the top of the l catches my attention, causing it to detract from my comprehension.

They are called stylist ligatures


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I suspect, however, that as so many of us are reading so much in the way of computerized text sources, that we're generally being weaned away from such things.


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## Tuttle (Jun 10, 2010)

NogDog said:


> I suspect, however, that as so many of us are reading so much in the way of computerized text sources, that we're generally being weaned away from such things.


Heh, personally I am fine with console monospace, or expect whatever I read to have been produced with a typesetter, not a word processor .

The amusing part of that is that I think ligatures are at the same time coming back into use more heavily. I'm pretty sure it was one of the two latest versions of word which supported auto replacement for ligatures.

I think the basic solution is that if I am to edit anything that isn't a pdf on my kindle I need to use the font hack because of being so used to typeset documents.


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## sem (Oct 27, 2008)

Humph - lived to be 60 something and didn't know anything about ligatures (except in surgery). I know that I have never noticed these in my reading. If they were there, I ignored them. Tuttle - thanks for the wiki link!


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## NiLuJe (Jun 23, 2010)

Note that the font hack won't magically make fl/fi & co use the ligatures if the font supports it. It has to be explicitely used in the original document (via UTF-8/HTML entity).

And Caecilia (the default Serif font used on the Kindle) seems to only support the fi/fl ligatures. (At least the current version bundled with fw 2.5).

(And I have to say the fi ligature looks pretty awful).


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I feel like I have lived in a cave  , well overseas  

Never really heard of this before. After looking at the wiki I am still not really sure if the letter are suppose to swallow each other or not. Am I going to obsessively look for f's in my books from now on? 

Should I never have read this thread?


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## NiLuJe (Jun 23, 2010)

If the font used on the forum by your browser supports ligature, here's a few examples:

ﬁ vs. fi
ﬂ vs. fl
ﬀ vs. ff
ﬃ vs. ffi
ﬄ vs. ffl

Æ vs. AE
æ vs. ae

Ĳ vs. IJ
ĳ vs. ij

Œ vs. OE
œ vs. oe

ﬅ vs. ſt

ﬆ vs. st

‼ vs. !!
⁇ vs. ??
⁈ vs. ?!
⁉ vs. !?


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## DailyLunatic (Aug 4, 2009)

sem said:


> Humph - lived to be 60 something and didn't know anything about ligatures (except in surgery). I know that I have never noticed these in my reading. If they were there, I ignored them. Tuttle - thanks for the wiki link!


I'm with you, except I knew the word only as the dohickey that holds the reed on the clarinet's mouthpiece.

I've seen the ...uh ..."letters" in my computer's Character Map, but always figured they were for other languages, along with all the ones with the weird accent marks. To my knowledge I have never seen them anywhere else.

Sterling
92.5% Pure


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## Indy (Jun 7, 2010)

You know, I read the title of this thread and thought "it better not be a new fad to strangle one's kindle."


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## jason10mm (Apr 7, 2009)

Why do I think that the same folks that know and worry over things like ligatures (and here I thought they were just funny british spellings of american words  are the same folks who scream in rage at the subtitle font used for "Avatar" and other graphical design anomalies?


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