[XeTeX] Strangeness with Minion Pro Opticals Small Caps

[Jonathan Kew]

On 20 Aug 2006, at 10:09 pm, Ralf Stubner wrote:

> Herbert Schulz <herbs at wideopenwest.com> writes:
>
>> I'm using the Reader-Provided (Adobe Reader 7.0.8 on Mac) Minion Pro
>> fonts and do not see the problem when I compile your source.
>
> Same here on Linux. I am positive that the fonts provided with AR are
> fine. However, AR comes with Minion Pro v2.000, while Peter  
> probably got
> v1.001 together with 'Type classics for learners'.

But Peter has confirmed that he sees the problem with his AR fonts,  
and not with his TCL ones. Is is possible that AR used to come with  
older versions, and has been updated at some point?

> These different
> versions have different glyph sets, different GSUB and GPOS tables  
> etc.
> Could it be that XeTeX gets confused when it sees different fonts
> related by their size feature with different OT tables?

No.... it chooses one specific physical font for a given \font  
definition, and then uses it completely independently of any other  
fonts.

It's true that the process of selecting a font from a family (optical  
size and style choices) could be affected in odd ways if you have a  
mixture of fonts that share a family name, but where other  
information (e.g., the optical size feature, or the weight, width and  
slant values) is not suitably co-ordinated across the family members.  
But once a font has been chosen (rightly or wrongly), its behavior  
will not be affected by anything in other fonts.

JK