I thought this was the graphics system's task, not the
application's. I mean, am I not supposes to be able to simply write
DrawString('olijfhofje') in my program and have QuickDraw do what it
takes to ligaturize it all?
I should have written system or application. Some applications, e.g. Adobe's contain their own layout and graphics engines, other applications make use of system resources. From your comments, I take it you are a Mac user, so your situation is more complicated still: some apps, like Adobe's, are centered on OpenType technology, others make use of system resources centered on AAT (Apple's font technology, formerly GX). The former is, currently, limited to Adobe apps on the Mac, but there are lots of OT fonts now available; the latter is system wide, but there are almost no AAT fonts available.
And in that case, it doesn't really matter if the font contains PUA codepoints or not. Provided the font's ligature tables are OK, it's just as legal to have an fj at, say, U+E70B, as it is to have an fi at U+FB01. As long as you don't actually put a 0xE70B character in your text.
If you don't intend to use the PUA codepoint in text, there really is no point in having it at all.
John Hudson
Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com Vancouver, BC [EMAIL PROTECTED]
It is necessary that by all means and cunning, the cursed owners of books should be persuaded to make them available to us, either by argument or by force. - Michael Apostolis, 1467
