Glyphs can automatically generate a number of OpenType features if it finds glyphs with certain names in the font.
To get the automatic feature generator to work, use the following name suffixes.
Feature
Glyph name
aalt All Alternatives
Glyphs automatically builds the aalt feature based on all features that substitute glyphs.
liga Ligature
Join the glyph names of the components with an underscore (‘_’). The common ligatures with f, i and l are placed in the liga feature, all others go into dlig. If you want to force a ligature into the liga feature, you can add a ‘.liga’ suffix, e.g. ‘f_b.liga’ or ‘yi_yi-cy’.
dlig Discretionary Ligatures
Join the glyph names of the components with an underscore (‘_’), e.g. ‘f_odieresis’.
c2sc Small Capitals from Capitals
Add ‘.sc’, ‘.c2sc’ or ‘.smcp’ to the glyph name.
If you have separate sets for c2sc and smcp, you can use ‘.c2sc’ for uppercase glyph names and ‘.smcp’ for lowercase glyph names.
smcp Small Capitals
Add ‘.sc’, ‘.c2sc’ or ‘.smcp’ to the glyph name.
sups Superscript
Add ‘.sups’ to the glyph name. Or extend figure names with ‘superior’, without the period, e.g. ‘onesuperior’.
subs Subscript
Add ‘.subs’ to the glyph name.
sinf Scientific Inferiors
Add ‘.sinf’ or ‘.subs’ to the glyph name.
dnom Denominators
Add ".dnom" to the glyph name.
numr Numerators
Add ".numr" to the glyph name.
frac Fractions
The frac feature is generated from the .numr, .dnom and fraction glyphs. Pre-built fractions are also added: onehalf, onequarter, threequarters, oneeighth, threeeighths, fiveeighths and seveneighths.
onum Oldstyle Figures
Add ‘.osf’ (for proportional oldstyle figures) or ‘.tosf’ (for tabular oldstyle figures) to the glyph name. Can be applied to other characters as well, e.g. currency signs.
tnum Tabular Figures
Add ‘.tf’ (for tabular figures) or ‘.tosf’ (for tabular oldstyle figures) to the glyph name. Can be applied to other characters as well, e.g. currency signs.
pnum Proportional Figures
Add ‘.osf’ (for proportional oldstyle figures) or ‘.lf’ (for proportional lining figures) to the glyph name. Can be applied to other characters as well, e.g. currency signs.
lnum Lining Figures
Add ‘.lf’ (for proportional lining figures) or ‘.tf’ (for tabular figures) to the glyph name. Can be applied to other characters as well, e.g. currency signs.
ordn Ordinals
Automatically built if ‘ordfeminine’ and ‘ordmasculine’ are found in the font.
hist Historical Forms
Add ‘.hist’ to the glyph name.
case Uppercase Forms
Add ‘.case’ to the glyph name or ‘.lf’ to the name of a figure.
cpsp Capital Spacing
Add uppercase letters to your font.
locl Localized Forms
Add ‘.loclXXX’ to the glyph name, where XXX represents the three letter language tag, e.g. ‘.loclENG’ for English. There also is a built-in list of glyphs which are added automatically to the feature, e.g. idotaccent, scommaaccent and tcommaaccent will trigger locl substitutions for Turkish, Romanian and a range of related languages.
For a complete list of language tags, see: microsoft.com/typography/otspec/languagetags.htm
ssXX Stylistic Set XX
Add ‘.ssXX’ to the glyph name, where XX is a double-digit number between 1 and 20, e.g. ‘.ss01’ or ‘.ss02’. Add ‘Name:’ plus the feature’s descriptive name to the feature note at the bottom. This will generate the feature name entries for stylistic set names. Alternatively, you can add the whole featureNames definition to the note.
salt Stylistic Alternate
By default, Glyphs will duplicate the ss01 feature in salt. Adobe Illustrator makes use of this feature in its OpenType palette.
vert Vertical Alternates
Add .vertical to the glyph name.