InDesign + dlig error

hi—I’m trying to use a logo font from InDesign & getting some weird errors with a discretionary lig.

the logo is for the word “Pretty.” there are two dligs in the font: t_t and t_t_y.

the INDD glyphs palette is seeing both ligs, and replacing characters correctly when called. (I think).

here’s what it looks like without ligs:

57%20PM

but when I turn on dlig in INDD to get t_t_y, it’s showing me this, with the edge of the y hanging outside the selection box, like so:

44%20PM

the right edge of that text selection is, coincidentally, where the t_t dlig ends.

even weirder, when I try to print, I get this nonsense:

so I guess I have multiple questions:

  1. why is the selection box for t_t_y only showing a selected t_t lig, when t_t_y is displayed?
  2. if I’m just confusing INDD with multiple potential dligs, should I just get rid of t_t (which isn’t necessary for the logo)?
  3. what in the world is the printer trying to show here?

What UPM do you use?
We would need to have a look at the font. Can you send the .glyphs file?

Are you using the Adobe Fonts folder?
http://www.glyphsapp.com/tutorials/testing-your-fonts-in-adobe-apps

Make sure you export without hinting and have all hints deleted in the font.

How do you pick the ligature? From the blue ribbon or by activating discretionary ligatures in the palette menu? Does it make a difference, I mean how you trigger the ligature?

@mekkablue I tried both methods to pick the lig, the result was the same either way. the only thing I haven’t tried here is to delete hinting; will do later today. (edit: I am also using the Adobe fonts folder.)

@GeorgSeifert UPM is pretty high; set to 4000 to make all those delicate curves. will send the glyphs file in a moment.

(sorry for such an open-ended question; I wasn’t really sure where to start with this one since there are so many possible points of failure. )

Adobe apps have Problems with coordinates bigger than a certain value. I had distortions above 4000 units. To see if that is causing this, scale the outline in that ligature to be less than 4000 units.

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that did it. thank you! guess I’m converting to outlines before printing.

Or you use a smaller UPM and fractional coordinates.

I was thinking about that as well after I posted.

(I started this piece very large and without fractional coordinates to leave open the possibility for it to become variable ttf for whatever reason, but I don’t think it’s going to need to happen. I’m still a little mentally stuck in that set of conditions.)

thanks again for looking at this.

in my experiments making this work: 3500 units wide seems to be the cutoff for InDesign to print properly.