InDesigning.net

There are many reasons to start replacing your old font archive with OpenType alternatives. I mentioned one of the reasons earlier in the GREP style small caps post, and I will mention another reason today: Stylistic sets.

Normally, the different stylistic sets available for a font is mentioned in the font specimen. In this example I will use the font Hypatia Sans Pro, that shipped with the CS3 packages, and here is a link to the stylistic set descriptions.

Stylistic sets is used in OpenType to give you options of what you want the font to look like, offer you alternative letters etc. In Hypatia you have nothing less than 14 different stylistic sets to choose from, enabling you to decide whether you want serifs or not, alternative e's, J's, y's etc.

Another way to find out which stylistic sets you want to apply, instead of looking in the specimen, you can use InDesign's glyph palette. If you see field with a small arrow in the bottom right corner, it shows there are alternatives available for this letter. In this case I click and hold the "b"-glyph and I notice two alternatives – a small caps variant and a sans serif variant. Hovering the glyph a little you will notice a line containing "ss01 (ss01)". That line tells you how to achieve this look, by applying "stylistic set 01". In other cases the line could have looked like "Small Capitals (smcp) + ss10 (ss10)", which means you have to apply both small capitals and stylistic set 10.

Using InDesign's glyph palette to find stylistic sets.

You can also choose to see each individual stylistic set from the glyph palettes drop down menu, where you can see the entire contents of the set.

Using InDesign's glyph palette to see contents of a stylistic set.

How to apply the stylistic set

You find most of the OpenType related things in the OpenType Features section of of your paragraph style, other things like OpenType Superior/Superscript and OpenType All Small Caps are located in the Basic Character Formats section under Case and Position.

You can apply the stylistic sets in the OpenType Features section.

Specifically to apply a stylistic set, you want to look in the OpenType Features section where you can choose from a list of 20 possible stylistic sets. InDesign always shows 20 sets, even though the font used may feature none at all. As you notice, the selected drop down items are checked, which enables you to apply multiple stylistic sets.