[OS X TeX] ligatures

[Herbert Schulz]

On Jul 17, 2010, at 2:51 PM, Dr. Clea F. Rees wrote:

> If I typeset the following:
> ---ligature test file---
> % !TEX TS-program = pdflatex
> % !TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode
> \listfiles
> \documentclass[12pt]{article}
> \title{Brief Article}
> \author{The Author}
> 
> \begin{document}
> 
> f{}f ff shelf{}ful f{}f ff\\
> 
> \end{document}
> ---end test file---
> then I get (what is to me) unexpected output.
> 
> Expected:
> no-lig-ff lig-ff shel-no-lig-ff-ul no-lig-ff lig-ff
> 
> Actual:
> no-lig-ff lig-ff shel-lig-ff-ul no-lig-ff lig-ff
> 
> Why does TeX ignore the instruction not to use the ff ligature in
> 'shelful' when a line break occurs afterwards? And why does it
> nonetheless accept the instruction if the f-no-lig-f is typeset in
> isolation?
> 
> Thanks,
> cfr

Howdy,

Sigh... I have no idea what's going on there. I added a few lines so you can see the effect of putting in the forced new line by itself on the end.

By the way, that is a bit unrealistic. There is no reason to ever end a line with \\ unless you have additional text after it to put on the next line.

% !TEX TS-program = pdflatex
% !TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode
\listfiles
\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\title{Brief Article}
\author{The Author}

\begin{document}

f{}f ff shelf{}ful f{}f ff

f{}f ff shelf{}ful f{}f ff\\

f{}f ff shelf{}ful f{}f ff\\
f{}f ff shelf{}ful f{}f ff

f{}f ff shelf{}ful f{}f ff

\end{document}

You might try to ask on the texhax or Mac OS X TeX mailing list (worth joining the latter for lots of experienced and relatively friendly help), or the comp.text.tex news group.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)