Many of the Prints Charming™ individual character designs are based on script letters which were originally created by assorted New York typographers during the 1940s and 50s and 60s, with some flourish variations added. Some of the best aspects of numerous different scripts were combined to create these extraordinary character sets. These character sets are original in their arrangement, having NEVER before been released in this configuration, and all of the alternate flourishes are completely unique to this font family.
REFERENCE NUMBERS
The reference numbers in this document refer to the companion PDF document which you can view and print using Adobe Acrobat Reader. Because all characters in that document were first converted into outlines before the file was generated, they will appear both on screen and in printouts to be ever-so-slightly thicker than they would be if you had the actual fonts installed on your system.
VERY IMPORTANT TIP
When this font is released in OpenType format, many of the essential ligature and special character substitutions will be set up to happen automatically. BUT until such a release, the ONLY way for you to take advantage of the special script characters which have been designed for this family is to READ this file, and learn which special characters are available, so that you will know when a simple character subsitution can improve the look of your design. The numbers enclosed in square brackets, below, [*e.g.*] refer you to actual samples of the characters in a file called “charming.pdf” which you can print out for your convenience.
EXTRA FLOURISHES
Beginning and ending flourishes are available for occasions where a little extra pizzazz is required for lowercase letters at the beginning or end of a line of text. These flourishes are found in ALL of the Prints Charming™ fonts, but are slightly different in each one.
• Beginning Flourish. Found in the vertical bar slot (particularly good for: c,i,m,n,r,s,u,v,w,y). [*1a, 1b*]
• Ending Flourish. Found in the backslash slot (especially good for last word in a line of text). [*2a, 2b*]
NOTE: The vertical bar and backslash characters are both found on the key which is below the “delete” key on most keyboards.
IMPORTANT TIP: You will get pleasing results if you use the beginning flourish when a word begins with the lowercase letter “r” or “s”, especially when they are the first word in a line of text. Also note that beginning flourishes can also look nice in front of the second letter in a word, following a non-joining capital letter. [*3a, 3b*] The beginning flourish has been kerned with all uppercase letters to best allow for this typesetting technique.
IMPORTANT LIGATURES
All of these special characters are ONLY found in the Prints Charming™ Version fonts, except where noted, but can be substituted into text set in the Prints Charming™ Regular fonts by using the search and replace features in your page layout software. NOTE that Mac users can achieve each of these ligatures by simple holding down the option key while typing the desired double letter:
• “ff” ligature is found in the Florin character slot (Mac: option-f, PC: Alt-0131). [*4*]
• “gg” ligature is found in the Copyright character slot (Mac: option-g, PC: Alt-0169). [*5*]
• “ll” ligature is found in the Logicalnot character slot, in ALL 4 fonts (Mac: option-l, PC: Alt-0172). [*6a, 6b*]
• “ss” ligature is found in the German double-s symbol slot (Mac: option-s, PC: Alt-0223). [*7*]
• “tt” ligature does NOT exist by itself, but can be created by using the non-joining “t” which is found in the “dagger” character slot (Mac: option-t, PC: Alt-0134). Simply type a “t” followed by the “dagger” to create a tighter fitting “tt”. [*8*]
The following ligatures exists in all Prints Charming™ fonts, but are slightly different in each of the Regular and Version fonts.
• “fi” ligature is found in the usual character slot (Mac: shift-option-5, PC: not available). [*9a, 9b*]
• “fl” ligature is found in the usual character slot (Mac: shift-option-6, PC: not available). [*10a, 10b*]
• “Th” ligature is found in the “OE” character slot (Mac: shift-option-q, PC: Alt-0140). [*11a, 11b*]
NON-JOINING LETTERS
All of these special characters are ONLY found in the Prints Charming™ Version fonts , and are intended to be used in cases where a word begins with these lowercase letters, or when these lowercase letters follow a non-joining capital letter:
• “i” alternate is found in dotless-i & one-superior character slots (Mac: shift-option-b, PC: Alt-0185). [*12*]
• “l” alternate (i.e. lowercase “L” alternate) is found in the “ASCII circumflex” character slot. (Mac & PC: shift-6). [*13*]
• “t” alternate is found in the “dagger” character slot (Mac: option-t, PC: Alt-0134). It is also essential for combination with the “t” when setting a double “tt”, as mentioned in the ligature section above. [*14, 8*]
• “u” alternate is found in the “section” character slot (Mac: option-6, PC: Alt-0167). [*15*]
ALTERNATE JOINING VOWELS
All of these special characters are ONLY found in the Prints Charming™ Version fonts:
• “e” alternate is found in the e-deiresis (ë) character slot. (Mac: option-u•e, PC: Alt-0235). [*16*] This different character joint which works best when following these characters: c,e,f,i,j,l,n,r,t,v. When using this version of the e, you must mask the deiresis by either deleting the outlines when working in an illustration program, or simply mask the accent by placing a solid white box over it in your page layout software.
• “i” alternate is found in the i-circumflex (î) character slot and has a wider character joint. (Mac: option-i•i, PC: Alt-0238). [*17*]
OTHER IMPORTANT SPECIAL CHARACTERS
• All Prints Charming™ fonts have capital “i” alternates, which are found in the “AE” slot, and are slightly different in each. (Mac: Shift-option-‘, PC: Alt-0198). These are intended to be used in sentences which use a capital “i”, either within the sentence, or at the beginning of a sentence within a block of text where the cap should not be too flourishy:
