[XeTeX] Problem getting ffi ligature

[Peter Baker]

This is a font design issue. The OpenType feature set in TeX Gyre Termes 
orders the "f f"-->f_f lookup before the "f f i"-->f_f_i lookup, with 
the result that the latter never gets invoked. It should be the other 
way around, or it should look for "f_f i" instead of "f f i". You could 
report this to the developer(s) as a bug and hope for a fix, or you 
could get a copy of FontForge and fix it yourself.

Peter

Dr J.D. Billett wrote:
> I've been trying to use TeX Gyre Termes as a Times New Roman 
> substitute in typesetting a book with XeLaTeX (I've finally got the 
> darned thing to compile after wading through a lot of errors that 
> weren't a problem under pdflatex).  I am having trouble persuading 
> XeLaTeX to give me the "ffi" ligature.  I am certain that it exists in 
> Termes (at least, it's visible in Font Book).  But in its place I get 
> an ff ligature followed by a regular i, as in the following minimal 
> example:
>
> \documentclass[11pt]{memoir}
> \usepackage{fontspec}
> \setmainfont[Mapping=tex-text,Ligatures={Common}]{TeX Gyre Termes}
>
> \begin{document}
>
> \noindent fi fl ff ffi \\
> \textit{fi fl ff ffi}
>
> \end{document}
>
> Suggestions for how to fix this would be most welcome.  My book makes 
> constant reference to the "divine oFFIce", so this is important!
>
> Jesse Billett