I understand why legacy marks are important.
But is it possible to use only those ones, and not the comb versions, just to simplify the glyphset?
What is the point of having comb marks?
I understand why legacy marks are important.
But is it possible to use only those ones, and not the comb versions, just to simplify the glyphset?
What is the point of having comb marks?
The combining marks use anchor points. This allows the font user to attach marks to glyphs and to other marks without you the font designer having to design every possible combination of letters and marks.
For example, a font user could stack a combining mark onto an lowercase o and also add more combining marks, like so:
This is an extreme example, but in practice this allows for ò̜, ỗ, ễ, and any other combination of letters (or, base glyphs) and combining marks. You only design the base glyphs and the marks, define the anchor points where they should attach, and the user gets unlimited possibilities to create accented glyphs.
For more information, have a look here:
Ho ok I didn’t know combining was possible after export. Thanks for the clear answer!
Also, there are only 13 legacy marks, but many more combining marks. So, for some of the accents, there is no non-comb variant.