Why is my typing getting re formatted to something i don’t want?

[dave_bass5]

Its just taken me almost 20mins to make a post, as every time I tried to type a speaker confirguitstion like 2x10, the ‘x’ jumps off the base line. I don’t want this and it shouldn’t be happening. 

Im on an ipad using the latest IOS, and it’s happening on 3 different browsers. I have all the auto correction stuff to unread off on my ipad, which i should stay need to do just for one website. 

This never happened in the past and not happening on any other website that ive visited (I've actually just tried a few to prove this). 

 

 

 

[LukeFRC]

1 minute ago, BigRedX said:

@dave_bass5 It seems strange that you are so keen to change something that has finally been made typographically correct back to the old way when it was wrong.

 

Consider this: I'm mildly dyslexic (you can probably spot from my posts) and proper typography helps me, as I've learnt to recognise patterns of letters, symbols and punctuation from professionally produced books that recognise all the rules of typography. As soon as those rules start to be broken, it makes reading for me much more difficult. There are several people on my Basschat ignore list, not because I don't agree with what they say, but simply because they type it in such a way that makes my brain hurt trying to read and make sense of it.

 

Admittedly I can live either way with the instance that appears to be causing you such a problem (for me it's a very mild aberration), but others, like the insertion of a space before a punctuation symbol (something I think comes from posting from a phone), make reading what has been posted for me much, much harder. I always look at these posts and think "have these people never seen a properly printed book or newspaper before? Surely it is obvious that they are wrong?"...

I agree - by correcting it to 2x10 using the contextual alternative it makes it far more legible. 

@BigRedX - as a tangent, years back I worked on a load of booklets for a government department using FS Me typeface - it's really a lovely and nice legible font and really lovely to read. Also I didn't tire of it spending 4 months staring at it every day. 

[dave_bass5]

9 hours ago, BigRedX said:

@dave_bass5 It seems strange that you are so keen to change something that has finally been made typographically correct back to the old way when it was wrong.

 

 

Don’t worry about me. You seem happy so thats great. 

 

For what its worth, part of my job (or was) is design, so im well aware of type faces and the way they work. 

If you look at the title of this thread, its worded as a question. I have my answer, and we have already discussed my reason for asking it. 

[Stub Mandrel]

2x10

 

It's the website doing this. Other sites don't do it.

[Woodinblack]

44 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

2x10

 

It's the website doing this. Other sites don't do it.

 

Its not the website, it is the font. Which is crazy really - I guess this is because it is a google font, but it shouldn't be the job of a font to decide whether to change the baseline of a character, it should be the job of the software putting that font somewhere. OK, in this case I don't mind what it is doing, but it seems very bad that it does it!

[BigRedX]

10 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Its not the website, it is the font. Which is crazy really - I guess this is because it is a google font, but it shouldn't be the job of a font to decide whether to change the baseline of a character, it should be the job of the software putting that font somewhere. OK, in this case I don't mind what it is doing, but it seems very bad that it does it!

I think it’s a combination of both. The typeface supports an extended glyph set which differentiates between “x” and when it is used as a multiplier symbol. I’d have to download the typeface and check it in the glyphs palette of InDesign to se if there are actually two separate glyphs or it’s simply a positioning algorithm.

 

Now if typeface designers can just do away with typewriter quotes and implement proper feet inch/minutes seconds glyphs then we’ll be on our way to typographical perfection.

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

I think it’s a combination of both.

 

No, it isn't. I downloaded the font and tried it in textedit on my mac. You type 2x2 and it looks like it does here. In this case the underlying software is making no desisions about that at all and as a result there is nothing the underlying software could do about it if the user didn't want that behaviour and that is plain dumb.

 

It shouldn't be down to the font to make those sort of desicions, whether it is what you want or not, it is still stupid.

 

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

 

No, it isn't. I downloaded the font and tried it in textedit on my mac. You type 2x2 and it looks like it does here. In this case the underlying software is making no desisions about that at all and as a result there is nothing the underlying software could do about it if the user didn't want that behaviour and that is plain dumb.

 

It shouldn't be down to the font to make those sort of desicions, whether it is what you want or not, it is still stupid.

 

 

No the font can't change one character to another, it's just a repository of what each character looks like AND information on what characters are available.

 

It will have a 'multiply' symbol available and programs able to detect when one has been used will therefore use the substitution if allowed.

 

Word uses \times rather than detecting numbers either side of an 'x', here's where you tune them:

 

[BigRedX]

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

 

No, it isn't. I downloaded the font and tried it in textedit on my mac. You type 2x2 and it looks like it does here. In this case the underlying software is making no desisions about that at all and as a result there is nothing the underlying software could do about it if the user didn't want that behaviour and that is plain dumb.

 

It shouldn't be down to the font to make those sort of desicions, whether it is what you want or not, it is still stupid.

 

 

Which typeface is it? I'll have a look as well. I suspect given what you have reported is that it's an extra glyph in OTF set and most modern applications will recognise when "x" is being used as a multiplier symbol and when it's simply a lower case x.

 

Just as a test will it replace * with the multiplier glyph if I type 2*10?

 

Edit - that's interesting it keeps the glyph but moves it's position.

 

Now I need to do some more investigation with the actual typeface.

Edited September 22, 2021 by BigRedX

[Cliff Edge]

contextual alternatives is the default for this Open Type font, as used on this website.

But it can be over ridden with a css property control by the web developer if he/she wants to.

font-feature-settings: "calt" 0; would probably do it.

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

 

Which typeface is it?

 

Inter.  Tried it with a few other type faces, none of them did that.